The 95th Academy Awards was the center of numerous incidents that were questionable. The fans were disappointed when Jamie Lee Curtis won the Oscars for Best Supporting Actress ahead of Stephanie Hsu and Angela Bassett. The nominations were questionable as well because Top Gun: Maverick, which earned $1.48 billion globally right when the theatres were recovering from the pandemic was not even nominated for the Best Pictures category at the Oscars.
But what offended the fans was that a lot of jokes by Jimmy Kimmel were at the expense of James Cameron and Tom Cruise. But several insiders have stated that Cruise bailed out at the last moment because he presumed that Judd Apatow was aiding Jimmy Kimmel to construct brutal jokes.
Did Judd Apatow Write the Jokes for Jimmy Kimmel at The Oscars?
Molly McNearney told Variety during an exclusive interview, that prior to the show, Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue at the Oscars 2023 had different versions because a lot of jokes involved the guest being in their seats.
“We had two versions of the monologue One if Rihanna was in her seat, one if she was not in her seat. One if Rihanna had her baby on her lap, which she wanted to do. And one if her baby was not on her lap. A lot of our jokes were kind of at the mercy of people being in their seats.”
Molly McNearney continued that during the final few days of the event, and since the event would be broadcasted live, there were a series of last-minute changes. She gave an example, of how the host was practicing his monologue where he would be thanking Tom Cruise for Top Gun: Maverick and saving the industry.
“Jimmy loves Tom. Tom had just been on the show the week before. And they talked about seeing each other and Jimmy was excited to tell him that we got real Navy pilots to do the flyover at the top of the Oscars. Jimmy was really disappointed he didn’t come.”
She addressed that Judd Apatow was not involved in writing the jokes, but Kimmel did send his monologue to other comedians so they could give their opinion if a joke is landing or not. But she assured that Judd Apatow was not involved in any way with Kimmel’s monologue.
“Jimmy tends to send his monologue to a group of people he trusts, comedy writers and comedians. They don’t help with the monologue. They just tell him like that joke’s working, that joke’s not working. No, Judd was not writing or doing anything for the monologue.”
Even though Jimmy Kimmel’s jokes were not offensive, several insiders of the industry report that Judd Apatow’s contribution to Kimmel’s monologue made the action hero skip the event!
Judd Apatow Decimated Tom Cruise at the 75th DGA in his Monologue.
Judd Apatow hosted the 75th Directors Guild of America Awards for the fourth time in a row. This year, during his monologue, he chose Tom Cruise as his target and began by making fun of his height.
“The special effects in ‘Maverick’ were so top-notch, I couldn’t even see the stack of phone books Tom Cruise sat on to reach the flight controls.”
He then referred to an incident from 2005, when Tom Cruise was jumping on the couch at The Oprah Winfrey Show, and people thought that he was a “lunatic.” But people don’t say a word when he jumps off a cliff with a bike.
“Remember when Tom Cruise jumped up and down on the couch and we all thought, ‘What a lunatic!’ And now he rides a motorcycle off a cliff and BASE jumps and we’re all like, ‘Tom’s fine!’”
The host shocked everyone present at the event because he roasted the Risky Business actor on his relationship with the Church of Scientology and his personal life.
“Tom is not fine. Someone needs to explain to him something called CGI. You’re 60. Calm down. But every time he does one of these new stunts, it does feel like an ad for Scientology. I mean, is that in Dianetics? Because there’s nothing about jumping off a cliff in the Torah.”
“The only thing he seems to be afraid of is co-parenting and antidepressants. I doubled my Prozac today just for this. I doubled it! Do you think if Tom Cruise took antidepressants, he’d be like, ‘I’m not jumping out of a f**king cliff. I’m rich!’”
This was shocking to hear because there’s a thin line between being funny and being offensive, and Apatow was toeing the line when he called out Tom Cruise for being passionate and dedicated to shooting his own stunts.
Source: Variety
