Oscar producers dish on what we can expect at Sunday’s show

The Oscars producers are giving a glimpse into what to expect Sunday night.

The biggest question is if the show and its host Jimmy Kimmel will acknowledge last year’s Will Smith/Chris Rock slap, and at a news conference Wednesday, Executive Producer Molly McNearney — Kimmel’s wife — said they planned to “acknowledge it” and then “move on.”

“We don’t want to make this year about last year,” she continued, “but yeah, it’s certainly something that we will address in a comedic fashion.”

As for what’s keeping McNearney up at night just days away from the show? She said “just deciding which jokes are going to make it and which aren’t…we have a lot of great writers and a lot of great material, and it’s a real science and the rhythm of the monologue and figure out where to take the audience.”

Adds McNearney, “I think [me and Jimmy] fought over a joke while brushing our teeth last night. One that I wanted out, he wanted in, and you know, we’ll see how it goes.”

The presentation of the Best Actress category is usually done by the previous year’s winner for Best Actor, which would be Will Smith, but since he’s banned from the Oscars for 10 years, Executive Producer and showrunner Ricky Kirshner revealed some changes have been made.

“We’ve rethought the show, and we’ve put presenters together that makes sense for the categories and you’ll see Sunday night,” he explained.

Unlike last year’s telecast, which cut some behind-the-scenes categories from the telecast, Kirhsner says “we’re going to show what it takes [to make a movie] and honor the people that make those movies.”

“[T]here are hundreds of people that make movies and a lot of people across the country don’t know what it takes,” he adds.

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