OSCARS

Jon Stewart: Own it

With no time to prep, the Oscar host is going for broke.

By Gina Piccalo, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

February 21, 2008

Jon Stewart and his team of "Daily Show" writers have just three days before Oscar night, but they're working like real newsmen on a daily deadline -- writing all day, then revising, then starting over and writing some more.

"You can't view it like a challenge on 'Survivor,'" he joked. It takes the discipline of just hammering out drafts and then nailing the concepts, the delivery and the point of view.

And what is his point of view?

"It's deconstruction," he said.

Stewart arrived in Los Angeles on Saturday and he and his writers started crafting his Oscar bits first thing Monday morning.

When asked late Wednesday how close he was to finishing his monologue, Stewart offered one of his deadpan one-liners.

"We've got everything but the adverbs," he said.

As he plowed through lemon cookies in his cramped backstage office at the Kodak Theatre, Stewart gamely showed off photos of his two children, aged 3 and-a-half and 2.

He'd just gotten off the phone with his youngest, Maggie, who was missing him so much that she insisted they speak on the phone. So while a clutch of TV crews awaited him, Stewart discussed the finer points of clementines with his toddler.

"It just kills you," he said of being away from his kids.

But Stewart's got a job to do and America -- or Hollywood, anyway -- is counting on his dry delivery and impish smirk to carry them through three and a half hours of exhaustive movie kudos.

Seriously, Stewart's not too stressed -- or at least he's enough of a pro that he doesn't look it -- about this year's abbreviated writing schedule. He and his team are used to tweaking his "Daily Show" copy right up to the minute he walks in front of the camera. And he'll have a couple of writers waiting in the wings to do just that on Oscar night.

Still, the writers strike has limited the variety of his act a bit. There's no time to do any pre-recorded segments. One segment he planned fell through last Friday. Now all his stuff will have to be live. (And, no, there will be no caustic banter with Stephen Colbert or jocular political attacks voiced by him.)

Stewart's last turn hosting the Oscars got mixed reviews, but he says he learned something about pacing himself.

"I'm not sure there's anything that happens in the world anymore that doesn't get mixed reviews," he said.

But he added:

"If I was looking at it as objectively as I could, being constructive, I'd say I came out a little tentative, started owning the show a little later on when I was comfortable and maybe this time just come out as early as you can and own it."

Ultimately though, Stewart was satisfied with his performance last year.

"If I did as well as I did last time from my own personal standards -- I think I'd be happy."