From Tokyo: The Oscars often run on a theatrical formula predictable enough to bore millions, yet occasionally a host disrupts it. On Sunday night at Los Angeles' Dolby Theatre, Conan O'Brien proved again that he grasps something many awards show producers do not: audiences would rather be challenged than comforted, even when the industry gathering is meant to celebrate itself.
Hosting for his second consecutive year, O'Brien opened the 98th Academy Awards ceremony with the kind of risk-taking that has largely vanished from mainstream television. He began in a pre-taped sketch dressed as Aunt Gladys, the viral character from the nominated horror film Weapons, before launching into a monologue that swerved between targets with the confidence of someone who had workshopped every line to death.
The easiest target arrived early. O'Brien called out Timothée Chalamet, who had come under fire for insensitive comments claiming that no one cared about opera or ballet, joking that security was extremely tight because of concerns about attacks from both the opera and ballet communities. He then turned to Chalamet and declared, "They're just mad you left out jazz!" The camera cut to a smiling, white-suited Chalamet in the audience, and the tension briefly lifted. But the setup revealed something worth noting: O'Brien was not actually defending Chalamet so much as deflating the manufactured scandal with surgical precision.
The monologue ranged further than O'Brien had promised in interviews. Before the ceremony, he had told journalists hosting the show walked a thin line between celebrating movies and being funny without tipping into anger or politics, and he had noted he wasn't planning to mention President Trump when comedians get angry instead of clever. Yet that self-imposed restraint dissolved quickly. He noted it was the first time since 2012 that there were no British actors nominated for Best Actor or Best Actress, and quipped that a British spokesperson said, "Yeah, well, at least we arrest our pedophiles," a nod to the ongoing saga around the Jeffrey Epstein files.
O'Brien also poked fun at artificial intelligence, calling himself the last human host of the Academy Awards and adding that next year's host will be a Waymo in a tux. The remark landed partly because it contained a kernel of genuine anxiety; the Academy has recently signed a groundbreaking deal with YouTube and is grappling, like the rest of the world, with the impact of AI, with the Academy President noting the Oscars face challenges in an ever-changing media landscape.
What distinguished O'Brien's performance was not the political edge but the tonal shift that came at the close. He observed that the Oscars are watched by more than a billion people worldwide and noted that 31 countries across six continents were represented; in a serious moment, he reflected that everyone watching is aware these are very chaotic, frightening times, and that every film saluted is the product of thousands of people speaking different languages working hard to make something of beauty. It was sentiment that could have sounded hollow from a lesser performer. Coming from O'Brien, it felt earned.
The challenge facing any Oscars host is calibrating tone across an evening. Politicians and celebrities sit in the same room; global streaming audiences watch with vastly different cultural contexts; the institution itself faces questions about relevance. O'Brien chose not to flatten these tensions into generic celebration. Instead, he acknowledged them: yes, the night would be political; yes, there were uncomfortable topics; yes, cinema still mattered anyway. Whether the audience fully embraced that gamble remains less important than the fact he took it seriously enough to earn the risk.