It’s become an Oscars tradition for Kelly Ripa: The “Live With Kelly & Mark” host is positioned back stage to grab the very first interview with a newly minted winner. Every year, those winners are so wrapped up in the moment that they excitedly invite Ripa to appear in their next project or join in on their next vacation.
And then they don’t follow through. “Never. I have not gotten a single role and I’ve not been taken on a single vacation,” she told PvNew. “When you interview people after they just received the greatest achievement of their career, they say things that they would not ordinarily say. And then if you bump into the celebrity a couple of months later, they have no recollection of ever having seen us backstage!”
“Live with Kelly & Mark” will do it once again with their annual live “After the Oscars” episode on Monday, March 11 from Hollywood’s Dolby Theater — just hours after the Oscars wrapped in the same location. This year, guests include musician Andy Grammer (who is preparing a medley of songs for “After the Oscars”), while comedian Sebastian Maniscalco will give his take on the night and Elaine Welteroth will focus on the Oscars fashion.
Meanwhile, “The Bachelor” host Jesse Palmer will serve as the red carpet correspondent for “Live” during the Oscars, and also appear the next morning on “After the Oscars.”
Ripa is used to pulling off almost an all-nighter to make “After the Oscars” happen. But this is the first experience for her husband Consuelos, who took over for Ryan Seacrest in April. “I’m ready to go,” he said. “I’m not used to doing this. I’m used to going to all the parties and not working it. So I need to readjust.”
Ripa joked that Consuelo has no idea what he’s in for: “I think he thinks that it’s just like doing a regular show. I don’t think he realizes that it’s pretty much 24 hours of non stop work.”
Indeed, after working backstage during the Oscars, the “Live” team then immediately jumps into preparing the next morning’s show — which takes place at 6 a.m. Los Angeles time, in order to hit the show’s 9 a.m. ET slot.
“I will go to the post production office and then we start editing the show, piecing the show together, talking about what we want in the show packages versus what we don’t think was a high point,” Ripa said.
On good years, Ripa added, she gets about two hours of sleep — which is probably the most of anyone on her team. “I try to sleep sitting up with as little impact on my hair as possible, in the hopes that I’ll be able to wear my Academy Award hair the next day — with mixed results,” she said. “And then we walk on the stage at around 4:45 in the morning for our soundcheck and walkthrough rehearsals.”
The “Live” post-Oscars episode traditionally opens with a taped piece; this year, Ripa and Consuelos will parody the Nicole Kidman branding spot that appears at every AMC theater before a film.
“I’m thinking, how can she look like Nicole Kidman? I mean, they’re both very different looking people. They’re both beautiful,” Consuelos said. “But I walked into onto set and I was stunned by how much she looks like Nicole Kidman.”
For the parody, the duo also re-create movie clips including “Basic Instinct” and “A Few Good Men.”
“It’s a big production,” Ripa said of the annual opener. “It takes us a while to shoot it. And the reaction of the audience in the Dolby Theatre is quite extraordinary. There’s always moment where at first they think it was the actual movie they were watching.”
Ripa and Consuelos noted that it was a good year for popular movies. Consuelos said the couple was especially impressed by Mark Ruffalo’s performance in “Poor Things,” as well as the film “Past Lives.”
And of course, the success of Oscar-nominated films like “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” means that audiences will likely be more invested in this year’s show. “There are blockbusters involved in the Academy Awards, which is a very unusual thing,” Ripa said.
