Jimmy Kimmel revealed that behind Messi’s well-behaved moments at the actual Academy Awards, he wouldn’t stop barking during rehearsal.
The host took viewers behind the scenes of his fourth Oscars hosting gig during Monday’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
“Our plan was to have [Messi] sitting in the audience throughout the show, including my monologue,” Kimmel said. “But then it turns out, we did a rehearsal, the dog was barking like crazy the whole time because he’s a dog, which was making it hard to tell jokes.”
One rehearsal moment that had to be taped from the rehearsal involved someone holding fake dog arms with paws to “clap” for Messi. This segment was shown after Robert Downey Jr. won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in “Oppenheimer.”
Kimmel found the barking “really funny” during the test run of the ceremony, and he was game to weather that storm, but the dog’s unpredictable nature during more serious parts of the show would have come off rude.
“It was as if we’d released a dozen squirrels into the theater, that’s how much barking [was happening],” Kimmel recalled. “And at one point, I thought, ‘Oh, to hell with it, let’s just let the dog bark throughout the show,’ but that wouldn’t have been great during the In Memoriam montage.”
Kimmel also applauded Messi’s choice of Hollywood Walk of Fame star as the site to do his business. A clip of the famous dog peeing on Matt Damon’s star played as the ceremony’s credits rolled after the award for Best Picture was presented.
“Such a good boy. A really good boy,” Kimmel, who has prolonged a fake feud with the “Good Will Hunting” actor for years, applauded. “Messi flew all the way in from France to do that.”
Messi plays Snoop, Milo’s (Milo Machado-Graner) service dog in “Anatomy of a Fall,” which took home the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
