Jeremy Piven On Emmys Opener: ‘I Thought We Were Being Punk’d!’

First Published: September 22, 2008 1:48 PM EDT Credit: NBC

LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- Caption Jeremy Piven and Nancy O’Dell backstage at the 2008 Emmys “Entourage” star Jeremy Piven, who made a jab at the Emmys opener during his award acceptance speech last night, revealed to Access Hollywood, he originally thought the start of the show was the result of Ashton Kutcher.

“To be honest with you, I was having this moment watching it where I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know what was happening… I thought we were being Punk’d as an audience,” Jeremy told Access Hollywood’s Nancy O’Dell.

Jeremy, who was the first star to pick up a golden statue during last night’s Primetime Emmy Awards broadcast – Best Supporting Actor — made a barb at the opening of the show, which featured the five hosts — Ryan Seacrest, Tom Bergeron, Heidi Klum, Jeff Probst and Howie Mandel — as he picked up his statue.

“What if I just kept talking for 12 minutes, what would happen? That was the opening,” he said during his speech, as the audience gave a loud applause.

Backstage, Jeremy told Nancy that as he watched the bits, he thought Ashton was going to pop out “and say, ‘You’ve all been Punk’d! Let’s start the show.”

“The reality was…it’s like CGI. It’s like what they did with ‘300.’ It just kept going,” he said of the routine. “And [as an award recipient], you’re like, ‘My god! I wanna be honest, but I also kinda need to be funny somehow. Then you’re like, I’m going to start crying like a little b***h and then you think, no, don’t do that.’”

Jeremy added that he made the remark about the beginning of the show because of his background.

“You gotta understand, I grew up in the theater where it’s like — this will sound so pretentious, but I don’t care — that like, you respect the space that you occupy when you get up on stage, so bring something. And they’re like, ‘We’ve brought nothing,’” he said. “They just kept going with nothing, so I was confused.”

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