Conan O’Brien has promised there will be a “very powerful” tribute to his late friend Rob Reiner at the upcoming Academy Awards.
Conan O’Brien has promised a “very powerful” tribute to his late friend Rob Reiner at the upcoming Academy Awards.
The When Harry Met Sally filmmaker and his photographer-producer wife Michele Singer Reiner attended Conan’s holiday party with their son Nick in Los Angeles on December 13, just hours before they were found dead at their home, and the 62-year-old presenter has promised a fitting memorial at this Sunday’s (15.03.26) Academy Awards.
Asked about the tribute to Rob – whose son Nick has been charged with the murders of his parents – as the red carpet was rolled out at Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre ahead of the Academy Awards, Conan told Extra: “It’s hard to sum up in this environemnt and would sound kind of pithy and weird to sum up here.
“I don’t think it eould be appropriate, but it’s going to be a very powerful part of the show.”
Conan is looking forward to hosting the Academy Awards for the second year in a row because it is such a “fun gig”.
Asked why he returned as host, he said: “I had a lot of fun and I just wanted to do it again, and then the movies this year have been insane. It was such a great year for movies that I’m excited to be even a small part of it.
“We’ve been working hard with my writers. I got great writers. We have a bunch of ideas. Some things are little more ambitious than last year, and we’ll see how it goes.”
And Conan isn’t too worried if things go wrong.
He joked: “I can always skip town if I have to and lay low for a while.”
Conan recently admitted he is still “in shock” over Rob’s death.
He told The New Yorker: “I knew Rob and Michele, and then increasingly got closer and closer to them. We [he and his wife, Liza Powel O’Brien] were seeing them a lot.
“They were just such lovely people. And to have that experience of saying good night to somebody and having them leave and then find out the next day that they’re gone… I think I was in shock for quite a while afterward. I mean, there’s no other word for it.
“It’s just so awful. And I think about how Rob felt about things that are happening in the country, how involved he was, how much he put himself out there – and to have that voice go quiet in an instant is still hard for me to comprehend.”
Conan went on to praise 78-year-old Rob’s work as a director – which included classics such as When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men, Spinal Tap and The Princess Bride.
He said: “It’s an almost impossible feat [to make seven movies in roughly a decade] that are classics… With Spinal Tap alone, if that’d been the only thing he ever did, he influenced my generation enormously. Spinal Tap – when it came out, I was in college, and it was like a splitting-the-atom moment.”
Conan O’Brien promises ‘very powerful’ Rob Reiner Oscars tribute
