Jimmy Fallon is ‘sure there will be Trump jokes’ at Golden Globes
Jimmy Fallon has hosted a lot of things — the Emmys, SNL‘s Weekend Update, and some little program called The Tonight Show — but this Sunday, the comedian will take the reigns of the Golden Globe Awards ceremony for the first time.
Needless to say, he’s pretty excited. “This will be the first big party of 2017,” he tells EW. “I think everyone just needs a good time.” We spoke to Fallon about his hosting strategy (including a possible La La Land-influenced dance number), the Golden Globes’ infamous alcohol-to-food ratio, and the prospect of making Donald Trump jokes at the ceremony.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You’ve hosted awards shows before, but this will be your first time at the Globes. Do you have sort of a strategy in mind already?JIMMY FALLON: I think with these shows, it’s more about the people who are nominated and just letting them look good, all the glitz and glamor. Everyone likes sharp-dressed, good-looking people. I’m just the conduit. I open the show, and then I kind of keep it moving. That’s the way I look at these things.
It’s going to be fun. I’m actually looking forward to it, and I think the nominees are fantastic. Out of all the award shows, I mean, I love award shows in general, but this one’s a good, like, mixtape award show, with TV and movies in one. So if you haven’t seen movies you go, “Well, I’m pretty sure someone from a TV show that I’ve seen will appear soon.” It keeps everyone very interested.
Will you be putting together any music-oriented segments or games, a la The Tonight Show?There’s going to be no games and no sketches, no lip-synching. But I love music and luckily we have La La Land as one of the nominees. I always think a musical kind of opening is interesting and fun to watch when I’m watching award shows, so I’ll try to incorporate that.
The weird thing is you can’t really plan that far yet. I forgot this when I signed on to do this, but the world changes in six months. So you go, “Okay, now we’re doing this. Okay, now we’re doing this.” No matter what idea you have, it all changes. So right now, we got a lot of good cameos and fun people in the opening.
The list of nominees includes a number of people you’re friendly with and you see often, either via Tonight Show or otherwise. Is it hard not to root for people when you’re at these events? Is it tough to be there when they lose?No, I mean, it’s weird because I kind of root for everybody. That’s one of the things that people knock me for, but I really do. I actually do hope that everybody wins. Because if they don’t work, then I don’t work. So the more success in movies and TV, the better guests we get, so the better our show gets. So I kind of root for everything to be a success.
As far as this thing, this is the awesome period for people where you’re just nominated. I know that from losing Emmys for the past eight years or whatever. You get nominated and you go, “Wow, how fun. That’s cool, I could win!” Then when it actually happens and you lose you go, “Oh, so what?” It’s not as much fun. Being nominated is like, “This is awesome.” So I was in the best moods, and it’s fun. But there’s so many award shows now that everyone can probably win something, I’m assuming.
The Globes are famous for being the awards show where everyone gets drunk. Is it more fun to host a show knowing that everyone’s going to be at least a little tipsy?I think of it as almost like a wedding reception with cameras. You’re in a ballroom. It’s really tiny. There’s not room for people to go up on stage, it’s very small. And there is no food. The food happens like 3 in the afternoon. No one tells you that, so you get to the Golden Globes at 5, or 8 Eastern time, and they’re like, “Sorry, there’s nothing to eat — food was done at 3.” What? So then some people just don’t eat, so that’s the problem. Then they just drink champagne and they just get tipsy.
I was there one year when, gosh, I want to say Diddy ordered hamburgers for him and LL Cool J at the table, and so they split a hamburger with me. I still don’t know how they got it. I think it comes as a surprise to a lot of people that there’s no food, just free-flowing booze.
Does that make your hosting duties easier?Yeah, I don’t know if it will. Probably it will. It probably loosens everyone up a little bit. I mean, I won’t be drinking until after the show, but yeah. I thought it was actually two hours, but it’s three hours. So I go, wow, three hours is a long time. Maybe everyone will pace themselves, and it won’t be too sloppy this year.
Did you get any advice from past Golden Globe hosts? Ricky Gervais, or maybe Tina Fey and Amy Poehler?I talked to Tina and Ricky. Amy changed her e-mail on purpose so that I wouldn’t ask her for advice or bother her too much. But it’s basic stuff, no game changers. I mean, the fact that I do a show every night is really helpful.
So I get to see what the pulse is, see what everyone’s talking about. I’m sure there will be Trump jokes, and I’m sure there will be jokes about acting and the business.
But overall, everyone needs a party. Keep it moving, keep it fast, keep it flowing, and keep the energy up. This will be the first big party of 2017, so I’m really looking forward to just having a blast. I think everyone just needs a good time.
