Oscars Team Tells All: Getting John Cena Naked, Jimmy Kimmel’s Trump Joke and Why Al Pacino Skipped the Best Picture Nominees (EXCLUSIVE)

Just minutes before the Oscars were set to begin, the show’s producers realized they had a problem: Some of the year’s key A-listers and nominees weren’t inside the Dolby Theatre just yet. The perfect storm of traffic delays, pro-Palestine protests, the first day of daylight saving time and an earlier start time had contributed to the last-minute crunch.

“We were definitely stressed out, because we had to have certain celebrities in their seats,” Oscars producer Molly McNearney — also an EP on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” — tells Variety on Monday morning. “We talk to people in the monologue. And in order to for that to pay off, you want to see their reactions. We were still waiting on five or six people to get into their seats. It was definitely chaotic to get them all in quickly. So we pushed by five minutes, which didn’t feel like too much.”

Among the names mentioned in host Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue were Lily Gladstone, Ryan Gosling, Cillian Murphy, Margot Robbie, Robert Downey Jr. and Martin Scorsese — so it was key that they be in their seats when the show began.

“Once we realized that maybe half those people were not there, we started saying OK, we’re definitely going to delay this a little bit,” says Rob Mills, the exec VP of unscripted and alternative entertainment at Walt Disney Television, who was busy with the team producing the live red carpet show at the time. “This is at 6:54 east coast time.”

In a rapid-fire text message chain, the producers kept each other informed on who had just arrived and were racing to the doors. “Jimmy couldn’t go on until Margot [Robbie] and Ryan [Gosling] were in their seats. And I think they literally were at 7:04 and 30 seconds,” Mills says. “It was literally landing an airplane and not knowing if the landing gear is going to open. It was crazy.”

In the meantime, the red carpet telecast was able to vamp a bit longer — and then the network put in a long commercial break to fill the time (leading to plenty of puzzled viewers on social media). “It was great for our ad inventory, and our promos — hopefully everyone knew that ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ is coming back!” Mills quips.

Opening the show, Kimmel noted that the Oscars were already five minutes behind — and the producers braced to go overtime. But then a funny thing happened: Instead, as the telecast progressed, it was actually starting to run ahead of schedule. In the end, Kimmel even had to vamp for a few minutes — more on that in a moment.

“I honestly have tried to do that math in my head nine times and it’s still not making sense to me,” McNearney says of the extra time. “Leading up to the show, my biggest concern was time. I thought for sure we were going to be over, with 23 awards, five songs, an In Memoriam, and the five ‘fab fives’ [which is what she calls the acting presentations, where five past winners paid tribute to this year’s five nominees]. So, I really was preparing the whole time that we were going to be way over.”

But with two winners absent — live action short winner Wes Anderson and animation feature winner Hayao Miyazaki — and other winners keeping their speeches brief, the show began to run ahead of schedule. Still, “I don’t know how the hell [it happened], you never get extra time,” McNearney says. “Jimmy loved having a little extra time, and I think it worked in his favor.”

And then, about 10 minutes before the show ended, one of Kimmel’s writers ran over and showed him something Donald Trump had just posted on Truth Social, ranting about the “boring” show. Kimmel decided to read the former President’s review verbatim — and McNearney (who, by the way, is also Kimmel’s wife) admits she tried to talk him out of it.

“I will tell you, I’m really not proud of this, but I tried to talk Jimmy out of reading that,” she says. “I feel like my instincts are usually right, but I was totally off on that. I said, ‘Please don’t read this.’ And he asked why. I said, ‘I don’t want to give Trump airtime in the Oscars. This is the one time we don’t have to talk about him. We talk about him every night… This night is not about him and it’s not about politics. My second thought was just the risk, like the show was going well! I just wanted to make sure it ended well, and I didn’t want it to end on a sour note.”

McNearney adds, “But he had a glimmer in his eye, and he said, ‘I got this.’ He really did. This is where he shines.”

Kimmel huddled with his writers, and he came up with the retort: “Isn’t it past your jail time?” It killed in the room, and McNearney notes that Kimmel’s instinct was right. “I will tell you, I’m never going to win an argument in my household again!” she says.

Here are more behind-the-scenes tidbits about this year’s Oscars:

John Cena’s “nude” appearance went through an intense standards and practices process.

As a tribute to the 1974 Oscars streaker, John Cena walked onstage nude — sort of. His private parts were strategically covered so as not to run afoul of FCC standards. But the producers got away with a lot more than the network’s legal team wanted.

“There was a lot of reticence of not just a fine from the FCC, but potential complaints,” Mills says. At first, the S&P team said it had to be blatantly clear that Cena was not naked. But then, the producers worked with the network to determine what they could get away with.