Meet the Force Behind ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ and Four Oscar Shows
Molly McNearney and Jimmy Kimmel are on a two-month summer vacation. That doesn’t mean they don’t pay attention to the news. But they don’t have to write jokes about it. Two decades in, Jimmy Kimmel is the longest-running late-night host on television. He married “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” executive producer and showrunner McNearney in 2013; they have two young kids, seven and 10. That’s one reason Kimmel, who keeps threatening to quit the daily grind when his contract with ABC expires in two years, insists on time off. He recently announced he wasn’t returning to the Oscars for a fifth go-round as host. That doesn’t mean he’s never coming back. But with the presidential election coming — the duo will be back on full-time duty on Labor Day — he’s going to be firing on all cylinders.
“It’s important to have a little recharge and actually get to make eye contact with the kids for a few weeks,” said McNearney on Zoom (watch the video of our interview above). “Particularly going into an election year, it’s going to be wild. I’m still reading the news every day but not reacting to it, just suppressing it. It’s a muscle you are constantly exercising, but it never goes away. All late night writers ingest the news the same way. It’s never just for pleasure anymore. It’s just in my head. it’s definitely hard to not be on air during these times, but we’ll have plenty to work with in September. I look forward to coming back and being able to communicate all sorts of feelings about the current climate.”
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The remaining Kimmel writers have been having fun this summer writing for guest hosts like Martin Short and Marvel stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. “That was huge, a good idea to host the show together,” said McNearney. “They were great. It’s much more challenging for our staff, because they’re used to writing and producing for one voice. It’s exciting for them to be able to write and produce for someone new, but you have to teach them basic, late night boot camp. You got 24 hours to brief them on what works and what doesn’t work, but also cater the show to their voice.”
Why does Kimmel keep waffling about retiring from the show? “I will believe it when I see it,” said McNearney. “It definitely feels firmer this time. He’s tired. I respect whatever decision he makes. I will be delighted, honestly, either way. If he wraps it up, it’ll be sad, but it’ll be good for him and good for work- life balance. If he picks it up again, I’d be happy: I don’t want his voice to go away. I don’t think it ever will. Particularly now, Jimmy is a steady voice in pretty chaotic times, and people need his voice. So I’d be happy if he kept going.”
Behind the Scenes
What drives the show is the writing. McNearney has beefed up the writers room to 19 people, including her and Kimmel. “It’s the biggest we’ve had in the history of the show,” she said. “For a long time, we had about 12 or 13, and then tried to make a case for hiring more. And what helped our case is looking at the other late night shows and seeing many of them had 22, 25 writers.”
Why add so many? “It’s great for the show; the more voices, the better,” she said. “Jimmy likes to hire writers with experiences that are different than his. So we like to have a diverse room. We like to have different backgrounds, and it helps a guy who is trying to speak to everyone. It sounds silly, but he gets great jokes about online dating from our young, single female writers who are online dating, and he gets information about different parts of different experiences that he doesn’t have as a guy who’s pretty much on his laptop all day and has two small children.”
The Jimmy Kimmel Live! day begins with a writer’s assistant who wakes up at four o’clock in the morning, pulls the stories of the day, and emails them to head writer Danny Ricker, who overlooks the monologue. “Every writer gets an email around seven o’clock in the morning,” said McNearney. “Here are the topics of the day. The basic direction our monologue takes is the things that people are reacting to and want to talk about. We have an 8:50am deadline to write jokes and bits and sketches based on the stories. So you’ll send a couple pages in. Jimmy gets about 50 pages of material at 8:50 in the morning. He goes through the whole thing and weeds it: 85 percent of it gets rejected. He narrows it down to about three, four pages, and he adds a couple of his own things in there. And then we’re off and running.”
Once a writer gets one of his bits chosen, they work on it all day with a director, producer, editor, wardrobe department, and a graphics team. The script goes to the head writers: McNearney, Ricker, Josh Holloway, Gary Greenberg. “We punch them up, we send them to Jimmy,” said McNearney. “He’s particular about the way things should look and feel and sound. He has a final polish on everything that goes on the show and and we are a lot of times writing and rewriting in the middle of the day. The monologue is pretty much structured and ready to go around like 3, 3:30pm and then we go to air at 4:30pm.”
“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” shoots live to tape in one hour, with very little editing.
Handling Donald Trump
What happens when big news breaks in the afternoon? “When Trump was president, more than ever, we had so many crazy stories that were breaking in the middle of the day,” said McNearney. “Charlottesville, when he said, ‘very fine people on both sides,’ happened around one o’clock in the afternoon. We just couldn’t bury that story. We scrapped our monologue, 80 percent done at that time, and we said, ‘Start over.’ Same with January 6. I remember that like it was yesterday. We had a monologue going, and then around 12 o’clock we said, ‘Everyone stop.’ He would say wild and crazy things and as exhausting as it was, our goal was never to normalize the behavior. It certainly would have been easier to ignore. A lot of things would have been a lot funnier. But our job on late night is to take the information that everyone’s taking in and refeed it to the public with our spin on it. We do not ever mess with facts, but we deliver the facts hopefully in a way that will make people laugh or feel more connected.”
The show has evolved over the years into political satire. For the first 10 years, “our show was never that political,” said McNearney. “Donald Trump changed everything for all late night writers. We had this clown every day saying and doing things that we’ve never seen out of a presidential candidate or a president before. We had a lot of Trump fatigue, and oftentimes we got the note from Jimmy: ‘Enough Trump. I’m tired of Trump.’ But when it’s dominating the news cycle and there are unprecedented things going on, it’s our responsibility to not just report on them, but to let people know that they’re not alone in feeling the way they feel. The stakes are much higher when basic human rights and democracy are on the line.”
When Kimmel and McNearney had a son seven years ago who was born with a congenital heart defect, they made a decision to make that public, “and to hope to take our experience and help other people with kids with pre-existing conditions,” said McNearney. “Our son was born at the exact same time that the Affordable Care Act was on the chopping block and Jimmy made a decision: ‘I’m going to talk about our son.’ He’s always been open about what’s going on at home. Billy’s birth and the rights of kids like him being potentially taken away changed the tone of Jimmy’s monologues for a while. I don’t think Jimmy ever was out to be some political voice. He almost fell into it. It was a personal experience.”
Doing the Oscars
Kimmel also brought politics to the 2024 Oscars late in the show, when he opted to address Trump’s nasty tweet review of his performance as host, over the protests of his wife. “The reason that I didn’t want him to read it,” said McNearney, “is I thought we had a fantastic show. We had two minutes to spare. I had to go back and tell him, ‘Hey, can you stretch for two minutes?’ And he said, ‘Absolutely.’ And at that exact moment is when that tweet came in. It was perfect timing, and I got nervous. We had tons of great material and jokes that were less risky, and live TV is risky. I didn’t want the last two minutes of the show to be about Trump, really. I didn’t want to give it oxygen. I immediately regretted that I tried to prevent him from one of the best moments in live television history. But I was nervous. ‘Hey, we’re landing the plane. It’s been a really nice flight. Let’s just let everyone go to the after parties now. ‘And I was totally wrong, As soon as I voiced my concern to Jimmy, he pushed back. He gets this sparkle in his eye and I immediately knew we were going to be fine. I knew he had this confidence that he knew how to do it. That’s where he shines. That’s exactly what you want in a live television host, the guy who’s willing to take risks, but he’s confident. He knew he was in command of that room. He knew he had the perfect comeback to that tweet.”
After reading the tweet, Kimmel thanked the president for still watching, adding, “Isn’t it past your jail time?”
Kimmel was riding high after nailing his fourth Oscar show. But it’s a long haul. “Writing for the Oscars is different than writing for late night,” said McNearney. “You have a lot more time. So we started working on the Oscars in December, writing for it and thinking about it. The other executive producers I got to work with, Raj [Kapoor] and Katie [Mullan], are incredible. And we were already talking about how we’re going to put on the Fab Five, five former actors and actresses [Oscar winners], presenting those awards, months in advance. It’s a luxury and a curse to have that much time. Because on a late night show, you wake up at seven o’clock in the morning in your pajamas, you’re writing, and at 4:30 it’s done, and you don’t really have time to think about it anymore. Where the Oscars, you can over analyze. We had 5,000 jokes written for the Oscars this year that are pared down to like 40. Jimmy would be great if he ever wanted to return and do that again, but it’s important to let someone else have a shot this year.”
It’s going to be tough for the returning Oscar producers to replace Kimmel. Over the four times he has hosted the Academy Awards, Kimmel and McNearney have figured it out and gotten better. That’s why they’re so valuable. They’ve found the right comic tone, the right angle on the audience and the viewers at home. Not many people can do that, which is why so many would-be hosts are scared of doing the show.
“It is tough,” said McNearney. “You have two audiences that you have to appeal to at the Oscars: the people in that room, you got to make them laugh and feel comfortable right away, because then the audience at home is comfortable and laughing. And you have the bigger audience at home who might not understand some inside jokes you might want to do, or industry jokes that will be great in the room. But your mom in Ohio has no idea what the heck you’re talking about.”
The other problem is that hosts who aren’t Kimmel are subjected to intense scrutiny, if they’re willing to step up at all. “They’re afraid to host that show because everyone seems ready to criticize it,” said McNearney. “It’s like everyone’s at home ready to jump in with their opinion on things. It’s a relatively thankless job. When people do it really well, you get a little pat on the back. ‘Hey, great work.’ If it doesn’t go well, the host gets blamed for failures in the show or ratings. It takes a strong person to be willing to go out there and take a beating. And we’ve seen people do it really well. We’ve seen people do it not so well. It’s a risky thing to do. If it doesn’t go well, you can hurt yourself and hurt your name.”
One reason that Kimmel does well is that he loves Hollywood while making fun of it. “Jimmy likes the people in that room,” said McNearney. “And he also wants those people to be on his show the next month. So he can’t go too negative or too mean, because that’s his livelihood. It’s a big deal for everyone in that room that they’re Oscar nominated editors, directors, actors, and they don’t want to have someone come into their birthday party and sit on their cake. You need to read the room. It is a celebratory thing, and it’s a big moment, and you don’t want to ruin it for someone.”
More comedy nominees at the Oscars
Kimmel has also hosted the Emmys three times. McNearney acknowledges that many people think the Oscars are more prestigious. “There’s a bigger weight on it,” she said. “I tend to not agree with that. Being a TV writer, I think television is equally important. I like that the Emmys focuses a lot on comedy, where there’s not a lot of room for comedy in the Oscars. The things we’re honoring tend to be drama. I wish there’d be a little more comedy representation. It is just as hard, if not harder, to make someone laugh than it is to make them cry. I stand by that, and I’d love to see more comedies acknowledged at the Oscars.”
The guests who Kimmel relies on to deliver comedy include his favorite basketball stars Charles Barkley and Shaq. One surprising guest was Sabrina Impacciatore, the Italian hotel manager in “White Lotus.” “Those interviews excite me,” said McNearney, “where I’m a fan of this person, their work. I know nothing about them. And then they come out and talk, and they’re unfiltered, and you feel like you’re seeing someone just talking with a friend. It doesn’t feel produced, it doesn’t feel staged. It feels authentic and surprising. I love the guests who are willing to be self-deprecating, and the guests who are willing to engage in comedy and trust our team, because we’ve proven now, over 20 years, that we can write a good sketch or comedy bit for our guests.”
Who’s on that list? “Ryan Gosling is great at that,” she said. “Emily Blunt, Kathryn Hahn.”
The other comedy gift that keeps on giving is Matt Damon. “That might get me in trouble at home, but he is the absolute greatest,” said McNearney. “He says ‘yes’ to every comedy idea. He comes with his own spin on things, he is willing to engage in a now 20-year joke that somehow does not feel tired. We’re very selective when we use it. And he is fantastic. I hope that the whole show ends with him as our guest on the show. We feel really indebted to him for trusting us for this long.”
It all started with a 2005 ad lib at the end of a show. “Jimmy was feeling a little depressed, the guests weren’t that great,” said McNearney. “At the end of the show, he ad libbed, ‘apologies to Matt Damon, we ran out of time,’ and then he kept saying it night after night. And then [Damon’s] publicist reached out and said she thought that Matt thought it was funny. And then we pitched that first bit, the ‘I’m fucking Matt Damon’ video with Sarah Silverman, which was massive online. And then we just kept going with bit after bit. They’ve now been to couples therapy together. We had Matt Damon take over the show. Jimmy messed with him at the Oscars and did that whole We Bought a Zoo bit. We have just been engaging in this non-stop feud with Matt Damon for 20 years.”
The other favorite guests for Kimmel are politicians. He’s had both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on the show. “The great thing about having politicians on,” said McNearney, “is they don’t give you notes. They do not have publicists telling you, ‘Hey, can you stay away from this topic or that topic?’ They do work for the people. So every question is safe and they need to answer it. They leave it entirely in the hands of the host, which is refreshing. Jimmy loves talking to politicians because he can ask anything he wants. And Harris was great and straightforward. Little did we know that two months later, she would be the presidential nominee. I would tell anyone running for President that they should do the talk shows. They should engage in comedy, it makes them more relatable. I love, for example, listening to Joe Biden on Howard Stern. It’s important that they’re not just doing CNN and Fox News and MSNBC. They need to do the morning shows and the late night shows and podcasts so we can see a more human side of these people.”
Kimmel not only had Biden on the show but hosted the fundraiser in LA in June, which was the highest grossing democratic fundraiser with Biden and Barack Obama. “It was a great night,” said McNearney. “Again, little did we know, shortly after, everything would change.”
George Clooney was at that fundraiser and engaged with Biden enough that he felt strongly about writing a New York Times op-ed against him running. “We can only imagine what was going on behind the scenes,” said McNearney. “I was thankful we were just relaxing during all that, and then we can come back after the dust is settled and take off running.”
(Watch the video of Anne Thompson’s interview with McNearney above.)
IndieWire’s Consider This Conversations bring together the cast and creative team members of television’s most prestigious shows to discuss some of the best art and craft of TV production of 2024.
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