There was no danger of a sophomore slump for Conan O’Brien at the Oscars 2026. “I am honored to be the last human host of the Academy Awards. Next year, it’s going to be a WayMo in a tux,” he declared in his lively opening monologue.
“Last year, when I hosted, Los Angeles was on fire,” O’Brien said. “But this year, everything’s going great.” You could almost hear the rim shot. Following a pretaped segment in which O’Brien played a fellow fair-skinned ginger, the Weapons character Gladys, the host received a standing ovation. “Big thanks to Amy Madigan”—who plays Gladys, and who quickly won the Oscar for best supporting actress—“for the wig.”
O’Brien also predictably poked fun at Timothée Chalamet, the Marty Supreme best-actor nominee who courted controversy during a recent interview with Matthew McConaughey at a town hall hosted by CNN and Variety. There, the actor said that “no one cares” about opera or ballet. “Security is extremely tight tonight…I’m told there’s concerns about attacks from both the opera and ballet communities,” said O’Brien. “They’re just mad you left out jazz.” Chalamet laughed as Chalamet’s girlfriend (and Vanity Fair cover star), Kylie Jenner, looked on.
Although not particularly known for his political comedy, O’Brien did take a few jabs at Washington, from affordable health care to the ongoing scandal around the powerful’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein. “It’s the first time since 2012 that there are no British actors nominated for best actor or best actress,” said O’Brien. “A British spokesperson said, ‘Yeah, well, at least we arrest our pedophiles.”
O’Brien made cracks about Sean Penn in One Battle After Another and Brad Pitt in F1, but softened the blow by sharing his admiration for the year’s nominated films, particularly Hamnet and Bugonia. “It’s been a big year for movies that sound like off-brand lunch meat,” he said. As for Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, “this is exciting,” said O’Brien. “It’s his first time in a theater!”
Toward the end of his monologue, O’Brien got soft about the night’s bigger intentions. “These are very chaotic, frightening times. It’s at moments like these that I believe that the Oscars are particularly resonant,” said O’Brien. “Thirty-one countries across six continents are represented this evening, and every film we salute is the product of thousands of people speaking different languages working hard to make something of beauty,” he continued. “We pay tribute tonight not just to film but to the ideals of global artistry, collaboration, patience, resilience, and that rarest of qualities today: optimism.”
Prior to his second stint as Oscar host, ceremony producer Katy Mullan dropped by Vanity Fair’s Little Gold Men podcast to praise this very attribute of O’Brien’s. “He’s got such a talent to navigate the moment we’re in: make sure that it feels reverential, and that we’re making everybody in that room feel celebrated. But also, his humor is pitch-perfect when it comes to just being silly and having fun,” said Mullan. “And his jokes land in the way that it makes everybody feel like they’re in on the joke.”