Conan O’Brien hosts the 2026 Oscars, taking opening shots at AI and Chalamet

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Conan O’Brien opened his second Oscars with jokes about artificial intelligence and Timothée Chalamet’s takes on the fine arts.

“I am Conan O’Brien and I am honored to be the last human host of the Academy Awards,” O’Brien said after taking the stage for the ABC telecast at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on Sunday night for the 98th edition of the ceremony. “Next year it’s going to be a Waymo in a tux.”

O’Brien then told the audience that security was high at this year’s Oscars.

“I hear there are concerns about attacks form both the opera and ballet communities,” the host said, getting a big laugh as the camera cut to a laughing Chalamet, the best actor nominee whose comments on the art forms during the run-up to the show became fodder for the cultural discourse.

“It’s his first time in a theater!” O’Brien said.

A pre-recorded opening bit had O’Brien wearing Amy Madigan’s caked-on Aunt Gladys make-up from “Weapons,” and showed him being chased by angry kids as she was in the film in the role that won her best supporting actress just a few minutes later.

Gladys-Conan was then folded into clips from other major nominees. He was animated into “KPop Demon Hunters,” played table tennis against Timothée Chalamet in “Marty Supreme” and ran across the Shakesperean stage in “Hamnet.”

After winning reviews in his hosting debut last year, O’Brien, the 62-year-old onetime writer for “Saturday Night Live” and “The Simpsons,” former longtime talk show host, and professional podcaster, was rehired almost immediately.

He had nearly a year to prepare this time, and got to do it in considerably more comfort. Last year, O’Brien was among the people displaced by the Los Angeles-area wildfires.

“This year I got to wake up in my room,” he said earlier in the week.

O’Brien may have given the Academy Awards telecast some stability in the hosting spot after much uncertainty about the role that can often be thankless, including a three-year stretch from 2019-2021 with no host at all. ABC convinced Jimmy Kimmel, the face of the entertainment side of the network, to host four times, something that’s unlikely to happen again with the Oscars moving to YouTube.

Andrew Dalton, The Associated Press