LOS ANGELES -- Entertainment reporter Sandy Kenyon sat down with Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel.
The red carpet remains under wraps. This area where the stars will arrive on Sunday is not quite ready yet...while inside the home of the Oscars rehearsals continue. And that's where I went to speak with Oscar Host, Jimmy Kimmel.
"I guess the Oscars for a comedian is kind of like the Super Bowl," Kimmel told me, as we are just steps from the stage inside The Dolby Theater. This island of calm is known as "The Green Room" where, on Sunday night, the stars will await their moment in the spotlight. The glare was especially harsh, when Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty were handed the wrong envelope and announced the wrong winner for Best Picture last year. I asked Kimmel about this infamous mistake from last year, and whether or not it would up his confidence level going into this year's show. Kimmel told me, "Yeah, I mean, when something like that happens and you look back, and you go, "Oh it came out fine. You realize it's just a TV show."
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But, it is also a show watched by hundred of millions of people around-the-world, so the stakes are very high which is where his powers of concentration come in. Kimmel told me how his tunnel vision helps him stay focused on the big night. "I have whatever the opposite of A.D.D. is. I can really lock in: people can be screaming around me, two TVs can be on, I'll just be right there on my computer typing away. And, I'm grateful for that, I'm able to apply that tunnel vision to hosting a show, which is you know, the show is 11 hours long."
Kimmel is kidding, of course. He spends the time when he's not onstage writing new material backstage. Kimmel goes into detail on what it's like for him and his team to be writing the material throughout the evening, "We have a little table and there are like 12 of us around a four-person table. It's very cramped and everyone is dressed up which is weird. There is no reason for the writers to be dressed up, but everyone has to be dressed up, so you got these women writing jokes in these full gowns that don't even fit on the seats."
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Jimmy's wife, Molly McNearney, is right there with them, but he told me this year she is determined to wear a sensible dress!
Don't miss the Oscars this Sunday at 8 p.m. ET | 5 p.m. PT on ABC.