Kelly RipaandRyan Seacrestare takingLive’s annual After Oscar Show to new heights this year!
“They move out and we move in,” Ripa, 52, jokes to PEOPLE about the show, teasing how it goes from Hollywood’s biggest night to its biggest morning party. “We’re like the changing of the guards.”
It’s a show that is very much put together on the fly, with the night before’s footage from red-carpet special correspondentCarson Kressleybeing cut in with live interviews in front of a studio audience, broadcast for the syndicated series at 6 a.m. local time.
There’s alsoLive’s beloved pre-filmed packages that place Ripa and Seacrest, 48, in some of the year’s Oscar-nominated films. Monday’s show, for example, opens with the two training alongside aTom Cruiselookalike for Best Picture nomineeTop Gun: Maverick— a hilarious sequencePEOPLE can exclusively premiere.
“I’ve said it a thousand times: If Ryan wanted to take a 900 percent pay cut, he could have been one of the best actors,” she adds. “He could have been receiving an Academy Award! But he chose the money and not the fame. And that’s … commendable!”
Ryan Seacrest and Kelly Ripa.Live with Kelly and Ryan
Meanwhile, guest bookings for the show are secured only hours earlier. “We often have no idea who will be the live guests until maybe the next morning,” Seacrest says. “Most of them are coming straight from the afterparty!”
“Oh, they’ve clearly been up all night,” Ripa says. “Nobody’s slept. We’re the only two that have been rested — and barely, at that, because we’ll be there in our production office afterthe Oscars, editing pieces with the team. Wesit there with pizza, talking about what parts should be in.”
“Usually, I’m soaking my feet in ice from the heels, watching that countdown clock in the corner going, ‘Five hours ‘til air … four hours … three hours … ' before going to bed saying to myself, ‘If I sleep sitting up, I won’t have to have my hair and makeup redone, so I could get an extra hour!’ " she adds.
“There’s nothing like it,” Seacrest jumps in. “It’s a tight turnaround, and even more so for our guests. Even just in the years that I’ve been doing it with Kelly, I’ve passedChateau Marmonton my route from my house, and you can see all the limos and black cars still lined up from the night before, waiting for the partying stars inside. And we’re on our way to work! So we really ask these guys for a lot.”
Ripa and Seacrest will both be backstage on Oscar night, conducting interviews in the first spot winners and presenters hit when they walk off stage, trophy in hand.
It’s another key element toLive’s After Oscar Show and something Ripa has long done before, though Sunday night will be Seacrest’s first time there after tightCOVID-19pandemic protocols forcedLiveto film the show remotely the past few years.
“Ryan’s done thered carpetfor years, but I’ve been telling him, ‘You think you’re crowded there? Just wait until you’re backstage,’ " says Ripa. “Because it’s literally the two of us crammed into the smallest space you’ve ever seen in your life, with a table and a camera in front of you. And then somehow, just when you think it can’t get any tighter, they put a celebrity there.”
“You become super concerned about breath, fragrances — you notice everything,” she adds. “It’s very intimate.”
Kelly Ripa and Laura Dern filmingLive’s After Oscar Show in 2020.Matt Petit - Handout/A.M.P.A.S. via Getty Images
Still, if past shows have proven anything, it’s that the location serves as the perfect spot for some of the best celebrity interactions of the night.
“You get the first interview,” Seacrest says. “They walk right off the stage, and they talk to you. And it’s that guttural reaction.”
“These are people at the pinnacle of their career. They’re actors, directors, producers, writers, creative craft people — and they’ve they’ve justwon the highest form of honorthat you can in their industry. And 8 seconds later, they are talking to us. And they’re not quite in their bodies yet,” says Ripa, remembering some of the things celebs have said to her in the past.
She adds, “I’ve been offered jobs, vacations. People are like, ‘I’m leaving for Marbella tomorrow on vacation, you should come.’ And I just joke, ‘Sure, I’ll meet you at the airport,’ knowing fully well they have no idea what they’re saying to me.”
Part of the appeal is the tequila, which theLiveteam happily offers to guests in addition to their champagne bar.
“We’re the only place you can get tequila in that theater!” says Ripa. “And it’s funny, but 100 percent of the people who come backstage — if they drink, they come specifically for the tequila. They don’t even care if they have to sit through an interview to do it! They will do it. They take extras and take back to the seat!”
Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest.ABC Entertainment
Another standout celeb encounter?Jack Nicholson.
“I still don’t know how we got him,” wonders Ripa. “He wasn’t nominated, I don’t even think he was presenting, and we certainly didn’t know he was supposed to be there. But all of a sudden, there was Jack, coming to speak to me.”
“But it was one of my favorite memories,” Ripa raves. “He was charming and funny and every bit the Jack Nicholson we know about.”
The show itself will a full-circle moment for Ripa and Seacrest. “It’s literally how we started working together,” she says, recalling how Seacrest guest-hosted the 2017 telecast before he was officially hired as a co-host months later. “After it was over they were like, ‘You guys work really well together!’ "
“We had known each other socially for years,” Seacrest explains. “And we would always see each other atthe Oscars. I was outside every year on the carpet working for another network, and Kelly was always on the inside. So it was just this natural fit.”
There’s also a sentimental element to it all this time around, as it’ll likely be the last time the two host the special together, withSeacrest revealing in February that he’d be leavingLiveafter six years on the show.
Ryan Seacrest filmingLive’s After Oscar Show in 2020.Eric McCandless via Getty Images
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Despite Seacrest calling his exit “bittersweet,” he tells PEOPLE hosting the show day-to-day doesn’t feel any different.
“We were in each other’s lives before the show and we’ll be in each other’s lives after the show,” he explains of himself and Ripa.
“It doesn’t feel like anything’s really changed,” she adds. “We won’t see each other every morning, butwe are so ensconced in each other’s lives. I’m such a busybody in his life, so I don’t really see our relationship changing.”
“I’ll just be getting more sleep on Oscar night next year,” Seacrest jokes.
Live with Kelly and Ryan’s After Oscar Show airs Monday on ABC (check local listings).
source: people.com
