Jimmy Kimmel is thinking about life after ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’

<i>Kevin Winter/Getty Images</i><br/>Jimmy Kimmel at the Oscars in 2023.

By CNN Newsource

Published February 20, 2024 7:01 AM

By Marianne Garvey, CNN

(CNN) — Jimmy Kimmel is working harder than ever. He’s hosting the Oscars on March 10 and his talk show just marked its 21st anniversary.

But he’s also thinking about what his future may look like when his current contract to host “Jimmy Kimmel Live” comes to an end.

“It’s hard to yearn for it when you’re doing it,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “Wednesday night, I was very tired and I had all these scripts to go through — I had to revise and rewrite all these pitch ideas for the Oscars — and I was literally nodding off onto my computer. In those moments, I think, ‘I cannot wait until my contract is over.’ But then, I take the summer off or I go on strike, and you start going, ‘Yeah, I miss the fun stuff.’ ”

Kimmel has felt ready to retire before.

“I think this is my final contract,” he said. “I hate to even say it, because everyone’s laughing at me now — each time I think that, and then it turns out to be not the case. I still have a little more than two years left on my contract, and that seems pretty good. That seems like enough.”

He said he dreams about what he’ll do with his time when he eventually leaves late night. A retired Kimmel “speaks Italian, he plays the harmonica beautifully. He is an expert fly-fisherman. He does all these different things that I know I’m not actually going to do,” he joked.

“It’s funny, whenever I think of what I’m going to do when I stop working, it all involves more work,” Kimmel added.

“I don’t know exactly what I will do. It might not be anything that anyone other than me is aware of. I have a lot of hobbies — I love to cook, I love to draw, I imagine myself learning to do sculptures,” Kimmel said. “I know that when I die, if I’m fortunate enough to die on my own terms in my own bed, I’m going to think, ‘Oh, I was never able to get to this, and I was never able to get to that.’ I just know it about myself.”