Jimmy Kimmel is, hands down, the best acting teacher out there. Ask Eddie Redmayne, who recently snagged the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as British physicist Stephen Hawking in "The Theory of Everything."
Behind Eddie's praiseworthy performance is his exacting, hyper-critically challenging mentor, Jimmy, whose teaching methods we get a glimpse of as part of the tenth annual "Jimmy Kimmel Live! After the Oscars." Up to now, Jimmy is unsatisfied with Eddie's British accent, despite his Oscar for playing a British character and despite the fact that Eddie was born and raised in England.
"I'm not simply a teacher, I'm a sculptor," says Jimmy. "With these hands I molded some of the finest actors of this generation."
According to producer Harvey Weinstein, one of his criteria for choosing actors is whether or not they enrolled in the Kimmel School of Perfect Acting. If they didn't, Weinstein tells them to f*ck off. That is how compelling Jimmy's prowess is for bringing out the best in Hollywood's finest actors.
"Genius doesn't even begin to describe him," says Weinstein.
And Jimmy knows it. When Lupita Nyong'o captured the Best Actress Award at the Oscars last year, she unashamedly forgot to thank Jimmy, her mentor, in her speech. Later, when Lupita was coming home from the Vanity Fair party, Jimmy followed her home and smashed all the windows of her car.
"I guess I deserved it," says a regretful Lupita.
For some people, Jimmy's methods may seem unorthodox. Academy Award winner Jeff Bridges, for instance, earned his acting chops with Jimmy lighting his script on fire and duct taping it to his hands. On two-time Oscar winner Sean Penn, Jimmy uses a method called "smacting," where he smacks Sean in the head with a pool noodle until he is able to deliver his lines perfectly. In fact, even if he meets Jimmy's exacting standards, the pool noodle will always be at hand.
"The pool noodle is the only way I can learn," says Sean.
Jimmy takes his craft seriously, and he expects that all his students who pay thousands of dollars to get into his class do the same, so much so that he wants them to sacrifice their closest personal relationships for the sake of acting. "Dead Man Walking" actress Susan Sarandon, who sees Jimmy like a father, eventually called up her biological father to tell him to f*ck off. Husband and wife John Krasinski and Emily Blunt have renounced their marriage for the sake of their craft.
"When he's right, he's right," says a teary-eyed but determined Emily. "And sacrifice is art."
Asked who his favorite student is, Jimmy had the most trying time coming up with an answer. He hates all of them for their inability to meet up to his sky-scraping acting standards. And if he has a least favorite student, it is probably Matt Damon, who has yet to "graduate" to acting people in Jimmy's class. For now, Matt has to learn how to act chairs and lamps with the realistic zest and passion of chairs and lamps.
"I believe that man was put on this stage we audaciously call Earth to fill gaps between breaths with insolence. To enter, to exit, to speak the truth, to play our parts - the baby's role being to suck its mother, the boys role to run, to play, the lover, his hot pipe pulsing, the warrior will battle do," says the greatest acting teacher ever. "This is what I believe. This is what I will leave behind."
