Jimmy Kimmel isn’t expecting to win an Emmy when he hosts the awards ceremony this Sunday.
His talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live! was nominated for Outstanding Variety Talk series, but the soon-to-be two-time Emmys host said he expects Last Week Tonight With John Oliver to get the Emmy nod instead.
“I think John Oliver will win our category,” Kimmel said on The Jess Cagle Interview, a streaming series launching on the new People/Entertainment Weekly Network with the magazines’ editorial director, Jess Cagle. (The network is operated by TIME’s parent company, Time Inc.)
“I think he’s very funny,” Kimmel said of Oliver, “and I think he’s hitting on serious subjects and I think that’s the kind of thing that seems award-worthy.”
But when asked whether he had voted for Oliver’s show, Kimmel didn’t hesitate: “No, I voted for myself,” he replied.
Kimmel added that he wasn’t too nervous about hosting the show. Getting up on the Emmys stage is somewhat “better” than performing the opening monologue on his talk show, he said. “In a way, it’s better because I know almost everybody in the crowd,” said Kimmel, who also hosted the awards show in 2012. “I mean, these are people that have all been on my show, and they also know the camera is on them, so they have to be pretend to be enjoying what I’m doing. Because they know I will find those clips and punish them somehow in the future.”
The Emmys air live Sept. 18 from Los Angeles’ Microsoft Theater at 7 p.m. ET on ABC. Check out a list of the nominations here.
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Write to Mahita Gajanan at mahita.gajanan@time.com