How Jimmy Kimmel scored Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford...but not Cyndi Lauper

Jimmy Kimmel assembled a pretty sweet collection of celebrities for his "I'm F---ing Ben Affleck" video — Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford were just two of the A-list stars featured in the viral sensation — but there was one '80s icon he just couldn't land. "You know who we really wanted to be in it but couldn't because of her schedule was Cyndi Lauper," Kimmel says of the We Are the World veteran. "We thought it would be great to have her really belting it out right in the middle of the song. But God took Cyndi Lauper away from us and gave us Josh Groban. I think this is some of his best work."

How did Pitt — who received what Kimmel exec producer Jill Leiderman calls an "impassioned plea" to sign on — wind up as a delivery dude? "It was the middle of the night and we had to give Brad ideas in the morning, and I just scratched out a bunch," says Kimmel. "I really liked the FedEx idea, and he definitely picked the right one.... Turns out, he's a very good actor. I think he just needed a part like this to really shine."

Kimmel was also impressed with Harrison Ford and his commitment to the project. "We said, 'You can be in one or two scenes. If you're in one scene, you can be here from 11 to 1. And if you're in two scenes you'll have to be here from 11 to 5.' Of course we fully expected he'd say, 'One scene.' [But] he said, 'All right, I'll be there from 11 to 5.'" The sight of Ford blowing a kiss at Kimmel and Affleck proved to be an out of body experience for the late-night host. "I think the word surreal is overused but this is the very definition of it," he says. "And what I didn't realize until afterward — somebody pointed this out — it seems like it's a parody of a scene from American Graffiti... but that was completely coincidental."

While Kimmel notes that he and Affleck had never met before this video — which can be seen again tonight on a repeat of Jimmy Kimmel Live! — it couldn't have worked out better. "It was a gay blind date that went exceptionally well," he says. "I didn't know much about him personally but we really hit it off in between caressing each other."