I hope everyone is staying well-hydrated and heated, because like our winter this year, Awards Season still has one more month to go. First up we have the Film Independent Spirit Awards on Sunday, then the BAFTAs the following week, with the SAG Actor Awards hot on their heels on March 1. Then everyone gets a two-week grace period to finalize/fit into their Oscar looks for the ceremony on March 15. (The IDES!) Of this lineup, the Spirit Awards probably do the least in forecasting the winners at any of the following awards. For example, this year there’s only one overlap with the Oscars in acting nominations: Rose Byrne. It’s actually a bit of fresh air to see new nominees, and especially to see the ever-dwindling field of Indie films getting due attention. And this year the show is hosted by Ego Nwodim! Ego appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! this week to promote Sunday’s show, and shared why former SNL guest host Josh Brolin is probably laughing at the idea that Ego is hosting a show dedicated to film.
During the Tuesday, Feb. 10 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the SNL alum caught up with Kimmel about her run-in with Brolin, 57, when he hosted the sketch-comedy show in March 2024.
“I have to tell you this story. Josh Brolin sized me up in an instant and was like, ‘You look like you’ve never seen any movies before,’” Nwodim, 37, recalled while laughing. “I don’t know. To this day, I’ve lost sleep over it. Because I’m like, what about me says I haven’t seen movies? Which is why I’m watching all the movies now, by the way.”
Nwodim then confirmed that “Josh was right” about her movie-watching habits, as Kimmel, 58, asked if she “said a little something that tipped him in that direction.”
“I was in a room with some other writers, another cast member. He said, ‘You seem like you’ve never seen anything.’ I was like, ‘How do you know that?’ And he was like, ‘Because you remind me of my wife and she’s never seen anything.’ And I’m like, ‘Thank you, I guess,” Nwodim said.
After their backstage exchange, Brolin sent Nwodim “a list of 53 movies everyone needs to have watched.”
“I just reviewed the list again recently this weekend. I was like, ‘Hold on, have I seen any of the movies on this list now?’ I saw one on the list of 53. I’ve seen one. I’ve seen one. The first one on the list, Jaws.”
While Nwodim initially thought the list appeared to be written by AI, it was actually from Brolin himself, she said. It included films such as Gaslight, 12 Angry Men and Dog Day Afternoon.
“I think, and I’m mad about this myself. I haven’t seen The Godfather,” she said when asked which film would most shock the audience. “I thought this was a safe space!”
So I’m the same age as Ego and I saw all of the five films she names here… before I left home for college! That was my family’s jam. We weren’t sporty, we were filmy. I’ll never forget the home library my father amassed, with I guess what you’d call his own version of the Dewey Decimal System. It involved multiple movies being recorded onto VHS tapes, each VHS being labeled with a three-digit number, two notebooks that listed the library by film title and VHS number, respectively, and a log of how long each movie was (so you knew how much you’d have to fast-forward to get to the second or third film on the tape). Frankly my dear, you don’t go through all that trouble unless you really give a damn about movies! That was the in-house education my parents gifted me, and I’ve thanked them for it profusely. It’s also what made me the super nerd/secret weapon my office friends turn to when playing Movie Grid during lunch. Seriously, I was out sick last week and they still called me midday to croak out movie titles. Can’t lie, I loved it.
Anyway, mark your calendars for Sunday! The Spirit Awards will stream live on YouTube at 5pm ET. Utter lack of film history aside, Ego will be a great host. I was sorry to see her leave SNL, though I never begrudge a cast member for bowing out when the time is right for them. And I’ll be over the moon if Ego and/or Josh Brolin ever release the full list; I simply MUST know if I’ve seen all 53!
PS — I just don’t have the strength to get into the uncanny yet bordering on creepy way Brolin approached Ego when he profiled her as a person who reminded him of his wife and hasn’t watched enough movies, but the pinging definitely went off in my head, fear not.
Photos credit Getty Images and via YouTube