LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Golden Globes are fast approaching, and Nikki Glaser is struggling to find a Julia Roberts joke.
“She’s been the toughest nut to crack,” Glaser, who's hosting Sunday's Globes, said Tuesday with a determined laugh. “But I’m going to crack it.”
The comedian got the hosting gig last year after showing her skill at ruthlessly roasting celebrities. She got raves for her monologue. She brought out the knives, but they weren’t overly sharp. She was promptly asked back.
Sunday's monologue will be a shape-shifting monster until the moment the CBS telecast starts and she takes the stage at the Beverly Hilton, ideally with a bit ready for Roberts, who's nominated for best actress in a drama for “After the Hunt.” She'll be sitting in front of Glaser with her star-powered charm.
“I just want to do the perfect joke but it’s like people do not have a sense of humor about Julia Roberts,” Glaser said in an interview with The Associated Press. “She’ll be fine — other people are not fine on her behalf. Like the most innocent joke about her that I made a couple times trying it out, they booed, they were like jeering.”
For others, Glaser is confident in her material, and their ability to take it, including the men in the absurdly star-studded best actor categories:
— She’ll get another shot at Timothée Chalamet, nominated last year for playing Bob Dylan and this year for “Marty Supreme”: “Timothée, he’s great. He knows how to handle it,” she said. Last year, she told a mustachioed Chalamet: “You have the most gorgeous eyelashes — on your upper lip.”
— She’ll get her first chance to poke at George Clooney, nominated for “Jay Kelly”: “George Clooney’s going to be exciting to just have any kind of interaction with. I think he’s such a good sport,” she said. “He's down for it.’”
— She's says she's excited about her stuff on “Sinners” nominee Michael B. Jordan.
— And what about Leonardo DiCaprio, representing awards season powerhouse “One Battle After Another?” “Leo? Leo, yeah, Leo. We’re going to hit Leo,” she said. “The icebergs are coming. Watch out.”
Glaser spoke to the AP while wearing a gown and fur coat on a mock New York street at a CBS studio lot where she's prepping.
But the real preparation has been happening at Southern California's comedy clubs.
“I’ve been running the jokes constantly,” she said. “I live and die by those crowds. They really tell me what to keep and what not to. Things that I think will kill will just be nothing and things that I think are just a throwaway are like the best joke.”
She shares one that she dumped.
“I was going to make a joke about ‘Pluribus’ where I said like, ‘Have you seen it? Pluribly not,’” she said. “But we could not find a place for ‘pluribly not’ and so that one is in the graveyard. Probably rightfully so.”
Because the monologue is directed, roast-style, at the people in the Globes crowd, the comedy club audience has to play celebrity roles.
She’ll ask them, “'Will you play Julia Roberts for me?' You know, like it is, it’s strange, but I kind of just set it up. Like I’m hosting the Golden Globes. They’re usually very excited about that.”
Like every awards show host, she's wary that some major current event will upend everything. During the past weekend, she thought she certainly would have to talk about Venezuela onstage. Now she thinks maybe not.
“You can’t even anticipate things a week away as being relevant enough,” she said. “You’d be surprised that half the room had no clue why I was saying ‘Venezuela.’ People aren’t getting the news like we all are.”
Last year's version of the Julia Roberts problem was “Wicked,” and finding a joke that rode the line between meanness and affection. It took a long time, but she and the two friends she writes with found it.
“It ended up being perfect. I loved it,” she said, repeating the line. “'My boyfriend loved it, my boyfriend’s boyfriend loved it.' Perfect ‘Wicked’ joke. Wasn’t too mean, just celebrated the gayness.”
For more coverage of the 2026 Golden Globe Awards, visit https://apnews.com/hub/golden-globe-awards.
FILE - Nikki Glaser presents the award for tour of the century during the iHeartRadio Music Awards, on Monday, March 17, 2025, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)
FILE - Nikki Glaser arrives at the 82nd Golden Globes on Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025, at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minneapolis was on edge Thursday following the fatal shooting of a woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer taking part in the Trump administration’s latest immigration crackdown, with protesters venting their outrage, the governor urging restraint and schools canceling classes as a precaution.
State and local officials demanded ICE leave Minnesota after the unidentified ICE officer shot 37-year-old Renee Nicole Macklin Good in the head Wednesday morning. But Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said agents won't be going anywhere.
The Department of Homeland Security has deployed more than 2,000 officers to the area in what it says is its largest immigration enforcement operation ever. Noem said more than 1,500 people have already been arrested.
Dozens of protesters gathered early Thursday outside of a federal building on the edge of Minneapolis that is serving as a major base for the immigration crackdown. They shouted “No More ICE,” “Go Home Nazis,” “Quit Your Job,” and “Justice Now!” as Border Patrol officers pushed them back from the gate and fired smoke grenades.
“We should be horrified," protester Shanta Hejmadi said. “We should be saddened that our government is waging war on our citizens. We should get out and say no. What else can we do?”
Bystanders captured video of Macklin Good's killing in a residential neighborhood south of downtown, and hundreds of people turned up for a Wednesday night vigil to mourn her and urge the public to resist the immigration crackdown. Some then chanted as they marched through the city, but there was no violence.
“I would love for ICE to leave our city and for more community members to come to see it happens,” said Sander Kolodziej, a painter who came to the vigil to support the community.
The videos of the shooting show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle. The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward, and a different ICE officer standing in front of it pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.
It is not clear from the videos if the vehicle makes contact with the officer, and there is no indication of whether the woman had interactions with ICE agents earlier. After the shooting the SUV speeds into two cars parked on a curb before crashing to a stop.
In another recording made afterward, a woman who identifies Macklin Good as her spouse is seen crying near the vehicle. The woman, who is not identified, says the couple recently arrived in Minnesota and that they had a child.
Noem called the incident an “act of domestic terrorism” against ICE officers, saying the driver “attempted to run them over and rammed them with her vehicle. An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively, shot, to protect himself and the people around him.”
President Donald Trump made similar accusations on social media and defended ICE’s work.
Noem alleged that the woman was part of a “mob of agitators” and said the officer followed his training. She said the FBI would investigate.
But Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called Noem’s version of events “garbage.”
“They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense,” Frey said. “Having seen the video myself, I wanna tell everybody directly, that is bullshit.”
He also criticized the federal deployment and said the agents should leave.
The shooting marked a dramatic escalation of the latest in a series of immigration enforcement operations in major cities under the Trump administration. Wednesday's is at least the fifth death linked to the crackdowns.
The Twin Cities have been on edge since DHS announced the operation’s launch Tuesday, at least partly tied to allegations of fraud involving Somali residents.
A crowd of protesters gathered at the scene after the shooting to vent their anger at local and federal officers.
In a scene that hearkened back to crackdowns in Los Angeles and Chicago, people chanted “ICE out of Minnesota” and blew whistles that have become ubiquitous during the operations.
Gov. Tim Walz said he was prepared to deploy the National Guard if necessary. He expressed outrage over the shooting but called on people to keep protests peaceful.
“They want a show,” Walz said. “We can’t give it to them.”
There were calls on social media to prosecute the officer who shot Macklin Good.
Commissioner Bob Jacobson of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety said state authorities would investigate the shooting with federal authorities.
Associated Press reporters Steve Karnowski, Ed White in Detroit, Valerie Gonzalez in Brownsville, Texas, Mark Vancleave in Las Vegas, Michael Biesecker In Washington, Jim Mustian in New York and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.
A protester receives aid after confronting law enforcement outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)
A protester revives aid after confronting law enforcement outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)
A protester covers their eyes after confronting law enforcement outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)
Federal agents confront protesters outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)
Protesters gather outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)
Demonstrators gather during a vigil near where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Giovanna Dell'Orto)
A protester stands next to a makeshift memorial honoring the victim of a fatal shooting involving federal law enforcement agents, near the scene in Minneapolis, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)
A bullet hole and blood stains are seen in a crashed vehicle on at the scene of a shooting in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (Ben Hovland/Minnesota Public Radio via AP)
People protest as law enforcement officers attend to the scene of the shooting involving federal law enforcement agents, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)
