Kathy Bates says she was sure she never thanked her mother in her Misery Oscar speech, then the interviewer showed her the tape
"She gave up her retirement because I was born so late in life to them."
"When I won the Oscar for Misery, she said, I don't know what all the excitement about, you didn't discover the cure for cancer."
"Why did I think I didn't thank her?"
"Because she should have had my life."
"I wanted her spirit to come into me and enjoy everything I was enjoying because of what she'd given up."
Her mom's whole review of the Oscar was that she didn't cure cancer, and Kathy still believed she had shorted her that night. Then she watches herself thank her mom at home, right there in the speech. Some people never stop trying to pay their parents back. You can hear it in how quiet she gets at the end.
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Taylor Swift knew nothing about football when she met Travis Kelce. Now she's the one schooling Tom Cruise on it.
Fallon puts up the photo of the two of them at the Chiefs game and asks what the biggest movie star in the world and the biggest artist in the world actually talk about. Cruise doesn't even hesitate. She was schooling me on football. For real.
He calls her a genius and says he's been following her since she was a kid. He also says it was his first football game since before COVID, so he was not the expert in that booth.
Then he tells the part people are going to quote. When she met Travis, Cruise says, she knew nothing about the game. Her questions were things like what was it like playing against your brother, tackling each other. She told Cruise that Travis was very patient with her. Cruise's reply: I'm sure he was.
people still love to argue she's only at those games for the cameras. the guy who hangs off airplanes for a living just went on TV and said she knows the plays better than he does.
and "I'm sure he was" might be the most diplomatic thing Tom Cruise has ever said on a talk show.
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Harrison Ford says he barely knew Michael J. Fox before Shrinking. Now he says Fox joining the show means everything to him.
Kimmel points out that Ford's character on Shrinking has Parkinson's, and that bringing Fox onto the show makes it feel almost made for him. Ford is honest that they weren't close. They'd met in the past, he knew Michael to say hello, but he hadn't spent much time with him.
Then Ford slows down. He says Fox has raised more money for Parkinson's research than anybody else. He says the effects of the disease are quite clear on him. But his vitality, his intelligence, his quality as a man are so impressive. He says Fox inspires all of them.
two of the most famous faces of the 80s, finally working together decades later, and the one famous for being gruff is the one gushing about the other.
this from the same man who answered Kimmel's first question about Fox with one word: no.
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Tom Holland spent weeks rehearsing a fight scene for The Odyssey. Then he watched Matt Damon run it and elbowed the stunt coordinator: oh my God, that's Jason Bourne.
Fallon asks what Damon was like to work with. Damon plays Holland's father in Christopher Nolan's film, and Holland says they couldn't have asked for a better number one on the call sheet. Nobody could ever complain, because nobody was working harder than Matt, and he always had a smile on his face.
The fight was shot in a quarry, and the whole quarry was on fire. Holland's version of how that happened is Nolan basically going, you know what, set it all on fire.
He also shares something Damon said during their press run: every movie he's made has led to this point. Holland says Nolan said the same. For a young actor, he says, watching those titans do their best work on the biggest movie they've ever been part of was surreal.
there's something great about Spider-Man getting starstruck mid-rehearsal. Holland is one of the biggest stars of his generation and he's still that kid in the back going, wait, that's actually Bourne.
ft: The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on youtube
Austin Butler finally met Meryl Streep with a mouthful of Paul McCartney's vegan pizza.
The party they're talking about had Beatles, Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen in the same room. So Kimmel asks Butler who actually blew him away. Butler's answer is Meryl Streep.
He says it felt like having a crush on someone across the room in high school and not knowing how to say hello. He got so nervous that at one point he had nobody to talk to, wandered into Paul McCartney's kitchen, and sat by himself at the buffet eating vegan pizza while trying to work up the courage.
A friend saw him sitting alone and offered to introduce him. So the moment finally happens, and Butler is shaking Meryl Streep's hand with Paul McCartney's pizza still in his mouth. He says she was so sweet.
this is the guy who played Elvis, in a room full of rock legends, and the person who turned him back into a nervous teenager was Meryl Streep.
that's the most correct ranking of celebrities anyone has ever made at a party.
ft: Jimmy Kimmel Live on youtube
Arnold Schwarzenegger's blessing for Glen Powell's Running Man came with a note for director Edgar Wright: the bigger the gap in your teeth, the bigger the box office.
Powell tells Fallon he didn't want to step into the role that made Arnold iconic without asking him first. So he asked his buddy Patrick Schwarzenegger to connect him with his dad for a FaceTime.
He's at Edgar Wright's house watching The Getaway when he looks down and sees seven missed FaceTimes from Patrick. He calls back, and it's Arnold Schwarzenegger on the screen.
Powell introduces Edgar. Edgar smiles. And the first thing Arnold says is: wow, Edgar, you have a big gap in your teeth.
Before anyone can recover, Arnold clarifies it's a good thing. When he got the gap in his own teeth fixed, he says, his box office went down.
this is the most Arnold way possible to hand over your most famous role. no speech about legacy, no warning about the remake. just a dental theory of movie stardom delivered to a guy he'd just met.
and somehow it's a blessing anyway.
ft: The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on youtube
Tupac got scolded on the set of Juice, and the person who did it was Samuel L. Jackson's wife.
Jackson tells Kimmel he knew Pac a little. Tupac was supposed to be in Menace II Society but dropped out after a beef with the Hughes brothers. Whenever Jackson talked to him, he says, he was a nice enough kid.
The incident happened on Juice, on a night Jackson wasn't there. His wife was in the movie as the chubby kid's mom. All the mothers were sitting in one room when Tupac came through cussing somebody out and screaming. She grabbed him and asked if he didn't see all the grown women in the room. Everybody in there backed her up, and Tupac apologized on the spot.
From then on, every time he saw her, it was "hey, mom, how you doing?"
people love to talk about Tupac's temper. this is the other side of it. a 20-year-old who was about to blow up got checked by a room full of moms and said sorry right away.
ft: Jimmy Kimmel Live on youtube
Christopher Nolan's most brutal note to Anne Hathaway was four words long: you have no gauge.
Matt Damon asks her what Chris said to her about her performance that he never said to him. Her mind goes straight to one that still cracks her up.
They were talking through a scene. Hathaway felt she hadn't fully understood it in the earlier takes, but in this one something really moved her, and she told him so. Nolan started to smirk and said, you have no gauge. He'd seen the dailies, and it was the complete opposite of everything she'd just said.
She told her husband Adam, and he mocked up a picture of Homer on a postcard with "You have no gauge" written underneath.
Then she turns it back on Damon. She doesn't think Nolan ever said that to him. Her guess is that Nolan saw him as a sharpshooter. A sniper.
this is the part of acting nobody talks about. the take that felt like magic to her looked like the opposite on film, and the director knew it before she did.
and her husband turned it into a souvenir.
ft: Harper's Bazaar UK on youtube
Christopher Nolan's most brutal note to Anne Hathaway was four words long: you have no gauge.
Matt Damon asks her what Chris said to her about her performance that he never said to him. Her mind goes straight to one that still cracks her up.
They were talking through a scene. Hathaway felt she hadn't fully understood it in the earlier takes, but in this one something really moved her, and she told him so. Nolan started to smirk and said, you have no gauge. He'd seen the dailies, and it was the complete opposite of everything she'd just said.
She told her husband Adam, and he mocked up a picture of Homer on a postcard with "You have no gauge" written underneath.
Then she turns it back on Damon. She doesn't think Nolan ever said that to him. Her guess is that Nolan saw him as a sharpshooter. A sniper.
this is the part of acting nobody talks about. the take that felt like magic to her looked like the opposite on film, and the director knew it before she did.
and her husband turned it into a souvenir.
ft: Harper's Bazaar UK on youtube
Tupac got scolded on the set of Juice, and the person who did it was Samuel L. Jackson's wife.
Jackson tells Kimmel he knew Pac a little. Tupac was supposed to be in Menace II Society but dropped out after a beef with the Hughes brothers. Whenever Jackson talked to him, he says, he was a nice enough kid.
The incident happened on Juice, on a night Jackson wasn't there. His wife was in the movie as the chubby kid's mom. All the mothers were sitting in one room when Tupac came through cussing somebody out and screaming. She grabbed him and asked if he didn't see all the grown women in the room. Everybody in there backed her up, and Tupac apologized on the spot.
From then on, every time he saw her, it was "hey, mom, how you doing?"
people love to talk about Tupac's temper. this is the other side of it. a 20-year-old who was about to blow up got checked by a room full of moms and said sorry right away.
ft: Jimmy Kimmel Live on youtube
Tom Holland got the Christopher Nolan call first. Zendaya found out she was in The Odyssey from him, at home.
She tells Fallon that when Nolan called Tom, she was just excited for him. She's his biggest fan and a Nolan fan too, and she says she didn't put herself in the equation at all. As far as she was concerned, they had already won.
Tom had the script at the house before another meeting, and she admits she took a little peek. There was a Christopher Nolan script in her house, what was she supposed to do. When he came home she wanted every detail. He told her to read it again, this time with Athena in mind.
Her reaction was "yo, stop it right now." She says she freaked out and was so grateful.
she read the whole thing as Tom's movie and never once pictured herself in it. that's the part that gets me. one of the biggest stars on the planet didn't see the Athena role coming until her partner spelled it out.
ft: The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on youtube
Christopher Nolan admits one actor turned him down: David Bowie.
Fallon points out that every actor says a call from Nolan is an instant yes. Nolan says the only no he will cop to is Bowie for The Prestige. Bowie was his great idol, and he thought Bowie would be perfect as Nikola Tesla. They sent the script. Bowie passed.
For the first time, Nolan went back and asked if he could meet Bowie and make his case in the room. Before the meeting he quickly wrote a better speech for Tesla's first appearance, showed up with new pages, and in his words basically begged. Bowie said yes.
i love that the fix was a rewrite. he didn't come back with more money or a bigger pitch. he came back with a better scene.
and the director who now gets a yes from everyone once had to beg his hero to take the part.
ft: The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on youtube
Jennifer Lawrence says she nailed her big De Niro scene in Silver Linings Playbook on the first take, then blew every take after it.
She tells Leonardo DiCaprio her bad habit is not thinking about the next day's work until she's in the hair and makeup trailer. On Silver Linings it caught up with her. She found out the day of that she had a scene yelling nothing but sports stats at Robert De Niro. No train of thought to follow, just numbers and sports she doesn't care about, and she refused to waste De Niro's time.
Take one was perfect. Every take after that fell apart until they finally moved on.
DiCaprio jumps in with his own version. On The Aviator he had to say a line about the Spruce Goose and literally couldn't get the words out.
two Oscar winners admitting they blank on lines is the most relatable thing in this whole interview. i also believe her about the first take. the version she didn't overthink was the one that worked.
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