Jimmy Kimmel’s Oscars 2023 Opening Monologue Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, your host for this evening, Jimmy Kimmel.

Thank you, thank you, Thank you, thank you. [inaudible 00:00:27] Thank you. Thank you. Give me a second to adjust my danger zone here. My banshees are caught in my Inisherin right now. All right, I’m good. Welcome and congratulations, welcome to the 95th Oscars. We made it, you made it. Congratulations. I know that being here tonight is a dream come true for most of the people in this room, thank you for inviting me to be a part of it, especially this year when the world finally got out of the house to see the films you worked so hard to make the way you intended them to be seen, in a theater. And want to say that I am happy to see that Nicole Kidman has finally been released from that abandoned AMC where has been held captive for almost two full years now, it’s good to have you back, Nicole, and thank you for encouraging people who were already at the movie theater to go to the movie theater. You look great, everybody looks so great.

(01:47)
When I look around this room, I can’t help but wonder is Ozempic right for me? We have so many first-time nominees here in the acting categories alone, there are 16 first-time nominees including Jamie Lee Curtis, including Ana de Armas, Colin Ferrell, Michelle Yeoh, Brenda Fraser, Ke Huy Quan. This is, I think, a great piece of Oscar trivia, 31 years ago in 1992, Brendan Fraser and Ke Huy Quan were in a movie, you remember which movie it was?

Yes

Encino Man. Two actors from Encino Man are nominated for Oscars, okay?

(02:52)
What an incredible night this must be for the two of you and what a very difficult night for Pauly Shore. Maybe it’s time to reboot Bio-Dome. Why not? All the top 10 highest grossing films this year were sequels or franchises? They say Hollywood is running out of new ideas. I mean, poor Steven Spielberg had to make a movie about Steven Spielberg. Congratulations, Steven. Look at this, by the way, I want to say right here, this is my favorite duo of the year, Steven Spielberg and Seth Rogen, what a pair. The Joe and Hunter Biden of Hollywood. Seth, what are you on right now, be honest, nothing? Mushrooms, right? Did you give one to Steven? Give him one, let’s see what happens. Maybe he’ll make something crazy. Steven claims he’s never even smoked weed, which I find hard to believe. You mean to tell me you were sober when you made a movie about an alien who eats Reese’s Pieces all day and can’t remember how to phone home? You were high as a bike when you made that movie.

(04:06)
Steven is the first director to be nominated in six different decades for an Oscar. Remarkable. This time, as you know, he is nominated for The Fablemans, which is by far his most personal film. They say, write what you know and they say, also write what you know your mom did with you dad’s best friend, and Steven did that, and the result was yet another Oscar nomination for the great Michelle Williams who is right there, Michelle. And The Fablemans was, wasn’t an easy shoot from Michelle, after almost every take Spielberg would rush up to her with tears in his eyes and he’d scream, “That’s not how Mommy said it.”

(04:49)
I also want to extend congratulations to Steven’s longtime collaborator, the maestro John Williams, who is now the oldest nominee in Oscar history and he looks great. John turned 91 years old last month and he’s still scoring, if you know what I mean. And by the way, if you’ve never made love to the score from Raiders of the Lost Ark, do yourself a favor. This is great, only Walt Disney has been nominated for more Oscars than John Williams, he’s been nominated 53 times, nominated 53 times, he’s won five, which, honestly, is not that great, but good luck tonight.

(05:42)
It was a very good year for movies. Business is booming, I know people like to debate now which is better, movies or TV, but here’s the thing, no matter how good a show is, there are some things movies could do that TV just can’t. For example, a TV show can’t lose $100 million. Is the gang from Babylon here? They know. I was just asking if they were here, I was welcoming them. At least Babylon got released in August. Batgirl became the first superhero to be defeated by an accounting department.

(06:16)
And then we had the big one, the long, long, long awaited Avatar: The Way of Water, which gave the, director, the producer, Jim Cameron another opportunity to do what he loves to do more than anything else, drowning Kate Winslet. The sequel to Avatar, it’s the most expensive movie ever made, Disney spent 2 billion on this movie. Just to break even, all of Nick Cannon’s kids had to see Avatar four times and they did I guess. James Cameron is not here, by the way, tonight, and you show is too long when even James Cameron can’t sit through it. Some of the cynics are saying Jim Cameron isn’t here because he didn’t get a best director nomination and, well, I find that very hard to believe about a man of such deep humility. He does have a point. I mean, how does the Academy not nominate the guy who directed Avatar? What do they think he is, a woman? Thank you, ladies.

(07:25)
It was some year for diversity and inclusion. We have nominees from every corner of Dublin. Five Irish actors are nominated tonight, which means the odds of another fight on stage just went way up. And while we’re on the subject of diversity, I want to say, especially those of you watching at home, there are a number of excellent films and performances that were not nominated tonight, including Till and The Woman King, which are both based on true stories with great performances from Danielle Deadwyler and Viola Davis that are very worthy of your time if you haven’t seen them, as is a small independent film called Top Gun: Maverick, the movie that saved the movies. Everyone loved Top Gun, everybody. I mean Tom Cruise with his shirt off in that beach football scene, L Ron hubba hubba, You know what I’m saying?

(08:30)
Tom and James Cameron didn’t show up tonight, the two guys who insisted we go to the theater didn’t come to the theater. So if you’re hoping to get a look at Tom Cruise, he’s not here or maybe he is here. Maybe that’s Tom Cruise right there wearing a Judd Hirsch Mission Impossible mask. There’s only one way to find out for sure. Judd, we’re going to need you to drive a motorcycle off the roof of the theater.

(08:59)
You know who else is here? The right excellent Rihanna is with us tonight. Rihanna got her first Oscar for the song Lift Me up from Black Panther Wakanda Forever. Last month she performed at the Super Bowl and tonight, Rihanna will be performing at our halftime in just about four and a half hours from now. Rihanna has a nine-month-old backstage and he’s very cute, he pooped during rehearsal. You know the last person who pooped backstage at the Oscars was? That accountant who mixed up the envelopes. Rihanna is here, Lady Gaga is here, wonderful, my God, even Elvis is in the building tonight. There he is, Austin Butler. Austin, as you know, is a first-time nominee, he was so convincing his Elvis, still is.

(09:54)
This is a good Hollywood story. Before they started shooting Elvis, Tom Hanks gave Austin a vintage typewriter as a gift and in it Tom, he left a note written at from Colonel Tom Parker to Elvis, so then Austin used the typewriter to write Tom back as Elvis Presley, and they got to know each other by sending letters back and forth as Elvis and Tom, which just goes to show you how incredibly silly this all is. You have silly jobs, but Austin, you are so talented, I know Elvis would’ve loved your performance and, in fact, according to my QAnon on Reddit page, he did.

(10:28)
We know this is a special night for you, we want you to have fun, we want you to feel safe, and most importantly, we want me to feel safe, so we have strict policies in place. If anyone in this theater commits an act of violence at any point during the show, you will be awarded the Oscar for best actor and permitted to give a 19-minute-long speech. No, but seriously, the Academy has a crisis team in place. If anything unpredictable or violent happens during the ceremony, just do what you did last year, nothing, sit there and do absolutely nothing. Maybe even give the assailant a hug.

(11:12)
And if any of you get mad at a joke and decide you want to come up here and get jiggy with it, it’s not going to be easy, there are few of my friends you’re going to have to get through first. You’re going to have to get through the heavyweight Champ Adonis Creed before you get to me, you’re going to have to do battle with Michelle Yeoh before you get to me, you are going to have to beat the Mandalorian before you get to me, you are going to have to tangle with Spider-Man, you are going to tangle with Fableman, and then you’re going to have to go through my right hand, man Guillermo, if you want to get up to this stage. Oh, wait a minute, hold on, I should say the other Guillermo, not del Toro, yes, that one. Okay, there you go. I know he is cute, but make no mistake, you even so much as wave at me, that sweet little man will beat the Lydia Tar out of you, okay?

(12:17)
There will be no nonsense tonight, we have no time for shenanigans. This is a celebration of everyone here. You told us you wanted all the categories back in and we listened, they’re all back in. That’s right, we will be showing all 23 categories live tonight, except for one. Earlier tonight, Best Picture went to All Quiet on the Western Front. Congratulations to Germany. We put all the categories back in because the movie community wanted it, almost as much as the television community didn’t want it. So no complaining about how long the show is, I saw all your own movies. Now it’s my turn to make you sit in the theater for three and a half hours.

(13:03)
Now, it doesn’t mean we don’t want to hear you speak, we do, we want your speeches to be moving, we also want to keep it moving. So if a speech goes on too long, this year we’re not going to play you off stage, instead we have a group of performers from the movie RRR who are going to dance you off stage. If you go too long, we’re going to Bollywood Gong Show your ass. So let’s get this going…