It was a good morning for “Emilia Pérez,” “The Brutalist” and “Wicked,” which led the nominations for the 97th Academy Awards announced early Thursday.
And as the countdown begins to Oscar night on March 2, Jay Leno is rooting for first-time host Conan O’Brien.
“I think he’ll be great,” Leno, 74, exclusively told The Post. “He’s a very funny guy. He’s very creative. I’ll watch, sure. He’ll do good.”
Clearly, there is no bad blood following all the drama that went down between the two comedians after O’Brien replaced Leno as host of “The Tonight Show” in 2009. Seven months later, O’Brien exited “The Tonight Show” after “The Jay Leno Show” show was given the “Tonight” time slot. And after serving as the “Tonight” host from 1992 to 2009, Leno returned to the late-night talk show in 2010 for four more years.
“You know something, that whole thing was really NBC trying to have their cake and eat it too, trying to please everybody at the same time,” said Leno, who plays Ed Sullivan in the new movie “Midas Man,” a biopic of Beatles manager Brian Epstein.
Although Leno has never hosted the Oscars himself, he has been offered the coveted gig.
“I did get asked twice,” he said. “And I sat down with my staff and said, ‘What do we do? We have to do a show the day before the Oscars. We have to do a show the day after the Oscars. Do we save our best jokes for our show? Or do we give all of our best jokes to the Oscar show?’
“And we realized that when you see somebody on TV every night, it’s not special to see them hosting the Oscars. That’s my feeling. You’re on TV too much. I think Conan will be good, because he’s not on every night like he used to be … I think he’ll do fine.”
Leno also got some valuable advice about becoming the Oscars host from his “Tonight Show” predecessor Johnny Carson, who presided over the Academy Awards five times between 1979 and 1984.
“I asked Johnny, and he said ‘You’re either too funny or you’re not funny enough.’ That was a criticism,” he said. “This is the industry and now you’re here making fun of it. Johnny really felt it was a no-win situation.”
After ending his “Tonight Show” run — for the second time — in 2014, Leno has seen the late-night landscape change.
“When [David] Letterman and I were competing, it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed all of it,” he said. “And it’s a really hard job. I commend all the guys, the men and women doing it now. It’s just different now. In those days of appointment television, people turned on Letterman and I to see what we had to say about whatever the story was. Now you can just get it anytime without having to watch the show.”
He added, “I think we got out just in time.”
And after years of chatting up guests on “The Tonight Show,” Leno doesn’t tune in to today’s late-night TV talkers.
“The reason I don’t is more to do with the commercials,” he said. “It’s five minutes of show, five minutes of commercials, six minutes of show, eight minutes of commercials. When you can watch the entire ‘Godfather’ trilogy uninterrupted streaming at the same time.
“If I see Jake from State Farm again, I’m gonna pull my hair out. They just run the same commercials over and over. I can’t stand it.”
