Ellen DeGeneres will take the stage Sunday night to host the 86th Academy Awards in front of Hollywood's biggest stars and a worldwide television audience of millions.

And when she does, the talk show host, who first hosted the Oscars in 2007, will be guided by what her wife, actress Portia de Rossi, said to her in their vows when they married in 2008, that it's "profound to be understood."

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"I can't expect everybody to, you know, love me and like everything I do," DeGeneres, 56, told ABC News' Robin Roberts in a sit-down interview Wednesday in California, where DeGeneres lives and where she is preparing for the Oscars.

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"I just want people to understand me and to get me and know what my intentions are," she said. "And my intentions are to make people happy and my intentions are to never hurt anybody and my intentions are to have compassion, and to hope I can spread that a little bit every single day."

The comedian's eponymous talk show has become known for just that, spreading happiness each day through her famous dancing and close interaction with the audience.

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"That room is, like, church," she said of her talk show studio on the Warner Bros. Studios lot in Burbank, California. "I mean that, really, every single day that I do my show, it is an energy that is like no other energy."

DeGeneres says that although she performs daily for a TV audience, performing as host of Sunday's Academy Awards will be a "big difference."

"That audience comes to see me and they travel from all over the world to come to a taping," DeGeneres said of her talk show audience. "And they wait for a year for tickets.

"They're my core group of people that get me, know me and love me," DeGeneres said. "And I feel that."

DeGeneres rose to fame as a stand-up comedian and after starring in two sitcoms, she launched "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," now in its 11th season.

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The soon-to-be two-time Oscar host went through a tough time both personally and professionally after coming out on her sitcom, "Ellen," in 1997. Now, however, she says she is in a good place.

"I'm really happy and I'm really grateful," DeGeneres said. "I have accomplished more than I could have ever dreamt to accomplish in my life.

"I think there's something to be said, you know, as you get older, you get comfortable in your skin," said DeGeneres, a face of CoverGirl cosmetics.

"Not to say that I don't have days where I'm not comfortable in my skin and days that I feel, you know, down or whatever."