Oprah? Uma? Nope, it’s just Ellen
Tonight, Ellen DeGeneres will make good on a six-year-dream.
She’s had her eye on hosting the Oscars since her turn as the Emmy frontwoman in 2001.
“I thought, well this is fun and if I’m going to do this, I should do the biggest one of all,” says the 49-year-old comedian, who’s tinier and more intense than she appears on TV.
“I’ve been hoping they would ask me for probably six years now.”
She finally got the invitation a few months ago and has been working overtime ever since.
For her daytime talk show, she typically arrives at the studio at 11 a.m., writes the monologue, prepares with producers for the day’s guests, hits hair and makeup, then tapes the show. By the time she heads home in her brand-new smoke gray Ferrari 612 Scaglietti, it’s past dinner time.
Recently, DeGeneres doubled up, taping two episodes a day. That way she could focus on Oscar for the past week and still air fresh shows.
A lifelong movie fan, she’s “honored” to host Hollywood’s biggest night – and eager to take on one of the biggest challenges of her career.
“Some people rock-climb, and some people skydive. I host the Oscars,” she says.
“It’s thrilling, knowing that it’s not an easy job and that there are not too many people who can do something like this.”
The monologue came to her in the shower two months ago, DeGeneres says.
“I wrote the entire thing,” she says. “Of course, two weeks later, I threw it away.”
She doesn’t have any childhood memories of the Oscars, though they were an annual event in her Louisiana home. She watched with more interest after becoming a professional performer.
“We would have parties and watch as everybody watches, make fun of things and tear people apart,” DeGeneres says. “So now I’m going to be the one being judged and the one trying to keep it an entertaining three-and-a-half hours.”
She says that she won’t try to emulate any past Oscar host, though she does have her favorites.
“I always go back to Johnny Carson,” she says. “He was just a classy guy, and everything he did, you felt like you were in good hands.”
DeGeneres is “just born to do this,” Oscar producer Laura Ziskin says. “She’s hysterically funny, she’s unpredictable and she makes you feel good. She’s going to own it and blow us away.”
DeGeneres has seen all the nominated films and counts “Babel” and “Notes on a Scandal” among her favorites. She’s writing jokes around those, and hopes for some last-minute surprises – like when Jack Palance did his one-armed push-ups, or a streaker crossed the stage.
“I’m going to create something. I’m going to make something horrible happen,” she says with a glint in her light blue eyes.
“Not like in a bad thing for anybody but I think something should happen.”
The birthday bunch
Country singer Ralph Stanley is 80. CBS newsman Bob Schieffer is 70. Actress Tea Leoni is 41. Comedian Carrot Top is 40. Actor Sean Astin is 36. Actress Rashida Jones (“The Office”) is 31. Actor Justin Berfield (“Malcolm in the Middle”) is 22. Actors James and Oliver Phelps (“Harry Potter”) are 21.