Best talk show appearance and interviews from Oscar noms

Not only is Saoirse Ronan a Best Actress nominee, she’s also an accomplished accent coach. When she went on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert," Ronan not only evaluated Colbert’s (mediocre) Irish accent, she also went through the pronunciation of various bizarrely-spelled Irish names. Including “Caoimhe,” which prompted Colbert to tell her, “You go to hell.”

How does an actress get started in Hollywood? For double nominee Greta Gerwig, it involved joining a lesbian performance art group that staged fights at bars, as recounted on Letterman. Apparently bars wanted to provide an “authentic downtown experience” and would pay the group to start fights, make trouble, and even steal Laurence Fishburne’s drinks. Gerwig left the group when she started getting paid acting work, meaning throwing fake punches and telling patrons, “I’m going to steal your dog!” is a clear springboard to becoming a working actress.

Denzel Washington has two Oscars, eight nominations, one Tony award, and, as shown on Graham Norton, one horrifically disfigured finger. The dislocated digit wasn’t from playing a boxer, or a soldier, or even flying a plane upside down – it’s from getting his pinky jammed playing football all his life. Once you see this clip, you won’t be able to stop staring at his pinky in every role, seeing if you can catch "Malcolm X" or "Roman J. Israel, Esq." flicking their hands to keep a rogue pinky from flopping around.

"Jimmy Kimmel Live" got a bombshell revelation when Best Supporting Actor nominee Woody Harrelson admitted on the show that he quit smoking pot. This is akin to hearing that Richard Burton quit drinking, George Burns gave up cigars, or that Andy Serkis was hanging up his motion-capture suit for good. Even clean and sober, Woody can’t remember the story he planned in his pre-show interview, but Kimmel does get to the most important question: How did Woody break the news to Willie Nelson?

Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood has three Grammys, but this is his first Best Original Score nomination, in his fourth collaboration with Paul Thomas Anderson. It’s tough for a rock star to get recognition as a composer at the Oscars, and as  this interview with the Canadian show "MusiquePlus" proves, it’s hard to get respect in Los Angeles in general. But come, hecklers! Greenwood looks nothing like Austin Powers! Although the random heckling goes a long way to explaining why Radiohead’s music can be so depressing.

Being an actress is a dangerous profession, but you would think that the set of "Paddington" wouldn’t be one of those hazardous places. Nevertheless, as Best Actress nominee Sally Hawkins tells Conan, she managed to do it, running into a crane and splitting her head open. She’s a professional, and Hollywood has no NFL-style concussion protocol, so she returned to finish the scene. But we’re sure that once the crew noticed what happened, she was given unlimited marmalade sandwiches and a comfortable floppy hat.

Common can do it all: He can act, he can play basketball, he can compose Academy Award-winning songs, and as he shows on "The Tonight Show," he can freestyle. If freestyling weren’t enough of challenge already, he has to spin the “Wheel of Freestyle,” incorporating words like “Keanu,” “kangaroo,” and “limousine.” Common, if you’re reading this, please try to incorporate all three of those words into your Oscar acceptance speech as well.

These days, it’s rare to see Steven Spielberg hitting the talk show circuit to promote a project, but less so in 1977. Back then, he went on the Canadian series "Show Biz" to talk about "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." It’s strange to see him in this casual format, stranger still to learn that Jimmy Carter was a UFO believer, and strangest of all to see Spielberg without his beard.

Sometimes actors go on talk shows and get praise for their performances. When Willem Dafoe went on "The Late Late Show With James Corden," he got a lecture about how his characters always die. Dafoe got a Best Supporting Actor nod this year, but if the Emmys have a category for Best Spontaneous Recreation of Movie Deaths, Dafoe has got to be considered the front-runner this year

Double-nominee Mary J. Blige went on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" when he was on a hiatus for his son’s surgery. That meant the Queen of Hip Hop Soul was interviewed by her constant accidental travel partner, Tracee Ellis Ross. Blige was her typical regal self, and delivered a fantastic answer when asked if she’d ever seen a ghost – ”Look, I’ve seen a lot of things.”

America’s favorite character actor, Richard Jenkins, is a lifelong Cubs fan. So while "The Shape of Water" got him his second Oscar nomination, it also meant he had to be on set during Game 7 of the World Series. Jenkins told Rich Eisen about the struggle of shooting a scene while living and dying with every play, trying to track the game by phone or by running back and forth to the TV in the sound truck. The final out might have been spoiled by a broadcast delay, but after 108 years, we’re sure he was just fine with it.

Daniel Day-Lewis, nominated for his reported final performance in "Phantom Thread," is a notably reclusive actor, who doesn’t do a lot of publicity or open up to promote his films. Which is what makes his interview with Oprah from 2008 so striking. He learns about Heath Ledger’s death in the middle of interview, an event that truly shakes him. Perhaps this was another reason he embraced acting but shunned fame. After all, he would only appear via satellite, and this is for Oprah.

Best Director nominee Paul Thomas Anderson has worked with Daniel Day-Lewis twice, and so he sees a side of the actor that the public doesn’t. Namely, that he has unexpected television obsessions. Anderson told Jimmy Kimmel that Day-Lewis was a devoted fan of the show "Naked and Afraid," and does an impression of Tim Gunn from "Project Runway." “Honestly, for the world’s greatest actor, the worst taste in television,” said Anderson. Also unexpected? Day-Lewis named his own Phantom Thread character, “Reynolds Woodcock.”

Back in 2006, Meryl Streep Post-ed up at "The Late Show With David Letterman" on her 57th birthday. We think 57 is also the number of Oscar nominations she’s received in her career. It’s very sweet: Dave gets her roses, Meryl talks about her upcoming party, and in the most 2006 portion of the interview, she even promotes her son’s band and its MySpace page.

Though he’s an acclaimed screenwriter and director now, Jordan Peele’s initial fame came through his uncanny impressions. So on " Late Night With Seth Meyers ," Peele revealed that he occasionally directed "Get Out" in character . He did some instructions as Barack Obama, and sometimes the scenes would call for Tracy Morgan. Although the impressions are top-notch, perhaps the most impressive part of the segment is Peele’s childhood Beetlejuice costume, Clearly his love of horror movies started young.

Daniel Kaluuya made his late night debut on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert," showing off his charming London accent and explaining how “white people say weird stuff.” Immediately Colbert starts to look almost as uncomfortable as a white person watching "Get Out," as Kaluuya talks about white people’s awkward attempts to seem down. Of course the most important revelation in the interview is that Kaluuya has hugged Oprah – “she smells amazing.”

Timothée Chalamet was in two different Best Picture nominees this year, but when he went on "Ellen," he talked about what everyone wanted to know: What’s it like to make out with Armie Hammer. That happened on their very first rehearsal, at which point they were critiqued for not making out hard enough – and the director walked out on them. Luckily, Hammer didn’t have to deal with stubble – because Chalamet can’t really grow facial hair yet.

He’s nominated as a writer and director for "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri," but when Martin McDonagh went on "Late Night With Seth Meyers," he ended up talking extensively about "In Bruges" instead. That’s because Seth is obsessed with the movie. He talks it up to everyone, he collects merchandise from the film, and even wants to do a whole "In Bruges"-themed week on his show, much to the dismay of NBC. As McDonagh puts it, “Bruges is one of the most beautiful and boring towns in all of Europe,” which the Late Night staff will discover for themselves when Seth gets enough power to move his talk show there.

Allison Janney has a brilliant career, with six Golden Globes and an Oscar nomination. Even with her movie success and her own sitcom, however, her most beloved single performance may be doing “The Jackal” on "The West Wing." She recreated the iconic moment on Arsenio’s show in 2013, and if there’s any justice in this world, she’ll bust it out during her acceptance speech.

The Black Mamba is nominated for his animated film, “Dear Basketball,” though if he wins, Kobe will force a trade of the animators to Miami. (Sorry Shaq, we're looking forward to the "Shaq Fu" reboot, we promise!) 

This autobiographical film doesn’t include the story of Kobe’s beer run with Jimmy Fallon in 1996, which was recounted on "The Tonight Show." They don’t acknowledge that Kobe was only 18 at the time, but clearly being a Laker trumps any age limit when it comes to buying beer. Still, the biggest shock is that Kobe was willing to pass out beers, or pass anything,

Best Actress nominee Frances McDormand went on Charlie Rose with director Martin McDonagh and co-star Sam Rockwell to talk about their movie, and how people told her that she had no natural talent when she went to acting school. Countless awards have subsequently thrown that in the critics’ faces, all of them, including this year when she’s the overwhelming betting favorite to take her second Best Actress trophy. 

She’s heading to her third Academy Awards as a nominee, so Octavia Spencer knows how tough it is to survive the endless ceremonies. So on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," she gives advice for first-timers attending these events – “Pack some nuts.” After all, the Golden Globes only puts champagne and chocolate on the tables, so starving actresses really need to bring snacks. Low blood sugar also explains why the speeches at the Golden Globes can be as unhinged as they are.