ABC/Jeff Lipsky(HOLLYWOOD) — When it comes to jokes at the Oscars, usually everyone in Hollywood is a viable target. But for Jimmy Kimmel, who returns as host this Sunday, there’s one person he thinks won’t make a good punchline: Frances McDormand.
“First of all, she’s so great but she also doesn’t have any– she doesn’t have a royal air about her,” he tells ABC Radio. “And we don’t know her at all. She doesn’t really do interviews. She’s a tough one to make fun of.”
The notoriously private actress is the favorite to win Best Actress for her performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
Kimmel has more than enough fodder for his monologue, though. He’s not even taking joke suggestions from family or friends.
“Sometimes they’re good, but that’s the problem,” he says of joke suggestions. “…I’m shooting for great. ‘Good’ I might use on my show, but great is what I’m really looking for and those jokes don’t come from your friends.”
Need proof? Kimmel reveals one particularly less-than-great joke suggestion he got from a pal: “So Sally Hawkins is nominated this year for Shape of Water, it’s a wonderful performance and it’s actually the first time since Luca Brasi that an actor has been cast to sleep with the fishes.”
That joke clearly didn’t make the cut. But Kimmel’s ready for anything this year’s show throws at him. After all, he already survived the great Best Picture flub of 2017.
“I think you have to have 70 percent of the show planned and the rest, you have to leave room for unplanned moments because if you don’t, the show will feel scripted,” he says.
The 90th Academy Awards airs Sunday, March 4, on ABC, starting at 8 p.m. ET.
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