How Conan O’Brien Is Preparing to Host the Oscars After Parents’ Deaths and the LA Wildfires
Conan O’Brien is hosting the 97th Academy Awards this year. Still, it might have come in the most inopportune time since O’Brien recently lost his parents last year; they died days apart in December. And of course, the Oscars come in the wake of the LA wildfires with some celebrities even losing their homes. O’Brien’s Pacific Palisades home was spared.
In an interview with People, the Conan O’Brien Must Go host said he’s been taking it “one day at a time.” He added, “It has been a lot happening in a very short time, and there’s a lot that happened in my personal life starting in December that was intense, and then going into this month with the fires and prep for what’s coming up.”
Conan O’Brien’s Plans for Hosting the Oscars
The host shared with The Hollywood Reporter that hosting the Oscars will be difficult given what happened to Los Angeles. “The strategy is my writers and I and the team that I’m working with at the Oscars, who are fantastic, the producers, everyone, we’ve got all of our sensors out. I couldn’t tell you right now what the show is going to be. We have a million ideas, but which ones will we use? What’s going to be appropriate? What’s the right tone?”
He added, “I want to make sure that we do the show that meets the moment on March 2, and that we put a light on a lot of the people in L.A. that have been affected; that we are a mixture of sensitive, but also understanding, but also I hope uplifting that there’s some fun.”
Hosting Duties
O’Brien is not a newbie when it comes to hosting, although it will be his first time hosting the Oscars. During his career, he hosted the Primetime Emmy Awards twice, once in 2002 and again in 2006 which was met positively with Variety saying, “There was a certain gravitas around O’Brien’s performance that wasn’t there four years ago when he last had the gig.”
He also had the opportunity to host the MTV Movie Awards in 2014 and as the master of ceremonies for the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in 1995 and 2013. He also hosted the 5th Annual NFL Honors and hosted a Game of Thrones reunion special in 2018 for the final season of the series.
Watch Conan O’Brien host the 97th Annual Academy Awards on March 2 at 7:00 PM EDT / 4:00 PM PDT / 11:00 PM GMT / 7:00 AM CST on ABC, streaming on Hulu.