'Live with Kelly and Ryan' returns to Hollywood for annual post-Oscar show
HOLLYWOOD -- 'Live with Kelly and Ryan' returns for their annual post-Oscar show that takes place on the same stage where Jimmy Kimmel hosts the show. They welcome winners, special celebrity guests, and two thousand of their biggest fans who get up early to be in the audience.
The Oscar tradition got interrupted by the pandemic, but Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest will take over the stage of the Dolby theater just hours after the Academy Awards are handed out there, where one of them gets to stand in a special spot.
"To be backstage, you've done it for many years, but there's something special about that moment after someone wins," said Seacrest.
"I was telling Ryan, this is his first year backstage. People who have just won the Oscar will tell you anything. Anything you ask them at all," added Ripa.
Before and after the show is over, the hard work happens at the hotel next to the theater, where Executive Producer Michael Gelman and his staff put together the post-Oscar episode.
"I get a charge, but it's also our most nerve-racking show of the year, because so much can go wrong" said Gelman.
Oscar arrivals never seem routine, even if you have been covering this for many years.
"What's always remarkable and strikes me is the excitement going in. They know they're nominated, but they don't know if they've won or not and you really see people who are so confident in many situations as nervous," Seacrest said.
The uncertainty amps up the excitement for the winners and what never gets old is the thrill of talking to folks whose lives have just changed forever.
"All of them you see like the profound sort of impact of winning an Academy Award. For all of their success in show business you realize this is the pinnacle," said Ripa.
Seacrest has worked the Oscars Red Carpet for two decades, but this year he will be backstage and Carson Kressley will be talking to the stars as they arrive.
Ripa has been backstage for many years - an opportunity she compares to hooking winners up to 'a lie detector test' because they are so honest in that moment.
