Jimmy Kimmel takes show to SXSW in Austin

AUSTIN, TX (KTRK) -- ABC talk show host Jimmy Kimmel got up close and personal with hundreds of fans during an hour long interview in Austin revealing personal stories about his family and dishing about his interview with President Barack Obama.

Kimmel is taping his show all this week from the Long Center for the Performing Arts as a part of the South by Southwest festival. This is Kimmel's second time the talk show host has taken his show on the road to Austin.

"The idea that people open bars in their houses. It's the kind of lawlessness that I'm attracted to," said Kimmel.

Kimmel told the crowd he didn't plan on being a talk show host. He said the President of ABC more than a decade ago offered him to do a sketch comedy show. But after one meeting, Kimmel said he was offered the job to host his own nightly talk show.

"Sometimes I would focus on, if there's someone in the audience that was folding their arms and not laughing, I would zero in on that, and I would be like, 'why did this (explicit) come here?' These were the thoughts that would go through my head."

Kimmel said it took some time for him to get settled and comfortable in his role as host. JKL is now in its 12th year. And just last week, Kimmel hit a milestone scoring his first interview with President Barack Obama. Kimmel dished about the mean tweets he had the President read.

"We ran them by some of this staff and gave them about 20 mean tweets, and they picked the tweets that they wanted to read. And as soon as the President sat down, we shot this moments before the show started, the president stops and looks down, and it was the first time he had seen them and he said, 'These are the meanest tweets you found.' I can find a lot more meaner tweets than this," said Kimmel.

Kimmel shifted gears and talked about his family A number of his family members work on the show, and he said his mother visits unexpectedly. He told the crowd what his mother used to do for laughs that would make him cry.

"My mother used to lay on the floor and pretend to be dead until we cried," said Kimmel.

"That was amazing. I'm totally going to go home and do that to my kids tonight," said Dan Bennett from Seattle.

Members of the audience were allowed to ask questions. Some of them asked for tickets to the show. Kimmel then graciously allowed everyone in line after the interview to take photos with him.

"I really liked, and I was shocked that he has a lot of his family that works with him. That to me means a lot because I'm a family person myself," said Yemeni Salas.

Jimmy Kimmel Live airs weekday nights at 10:35 on ABC-13.