This has gotten a bit buried in the outpouring of awesome that was last night’s Colbert Report, but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining to me. I’m a confessed John Oliver fan, so I’m loving all of the attention he’s been getting ahead of the premiere of John Oliver: Terrifying Times. If you’re like me, then this interview from UnderGroundOnline is hilarious and required reading.
From UGO:
John Oliver Interview
By Brooke Tarnoff. . .
UGO: [regarding John's ignorance as to how he got his Daily Show gig] I like how mysterious it is, like a Hogwarts acceptance letter in the fireplace.
JOHN: To be honest, it absolutely felt that way. It felt like there was something out of nowhere that fundamentally changed – obviously physically where I was about to live. Yeah, and I don’t know what triggered it. I don’t really want to know. I guess it was that, I guess it was a bird. Or something. From one of London’s many chimneys.
. . .
UGO: Can you tell us anything about The Love Guru? I saw the cast list and noticed Gandhi and Mini-Me.
JOHN: Gandhi, Mini-Me, and Colbert! Stephen Colbert’s in it as well!
UGO: Strange cast.
JOHN: Yeah, it’s a pretty disparate group of people. I mean, who knows – it’s a classic Mike Myers film. It’s very, very silly. There are a lot of jokes and it’s very silly. My character’s called Dick Pants … This woman asked, “How did you create the character of Dick Pants?” What do you mean? The character! I looked at his name. What do you think? I’m not Daniel Day Lewis! Yeah, I lived as Pants for months beforehand.
But yeah, it was fun. I have no point of reference with doing anything like that, but it was a real adventure. I don’t know if I actually want to see my face that big on the screen. Our show is going HD in the fall and let me tell you – there’s not many people here looking forward to that.
. . .
UGO: If you were forced to fight anyone on the Daily Show staff, who would it be?
JOHN: I’d go for Riggle. I think you want to take down the biggest person. I share an office with Riggle. I think Rob Riggle, US Marine. When he and I stand next to each other, we’re truly the bookends of masculinity. And I think I’d like to see how long I could last in a cage with Riggle. I reckon between two and four seconds.
UGO: He’s a wall of a man.
JOHN: He makes me feels safe when I’m around him. Sometimes I just want to curl up at his feet.
. . .
Ha ha! Excellent, John. I’m looking forward to your special (and I’m very glad that I did NOT have to contract pneumonia in order to watch you film it). And if you ever do decide to administer that “open-handed slap” to Bill O’Reilly, please let word of it leak beforehand, because I rather think a *lot* of us would like to be there to see it. Cheers!
EDITED TO ADD: And no sooner have I hit “post” than I see additional John Oliver goodies over at the Comedy Central Insider. Go here for more on John.
“the bookends of masculinity”. Oh, John. I laughed. So hard.
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I think “bookends of masculinity” was what he said on The Bugle about meeting George Clooney. Or maybe “bookends of attractiveness” or something like that.
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“UGO: If you could possibly have a mustache at the time?
John: Yes.”
I love John Oliver! It’s official.
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Olivia,
I think it was “bookends of attractiveness”. He’s so hilarious on that podcast; his whole riff on how George Clooney shook his hand, and how this is as handsome as his hand has ever been, etc. — that freaking cracked me up.
I know not everyone out there thinks John’s all that, but he *kills* me. That interview with The Crimson White linked at Comedy Central had me grinning like a fool, too. When John was talking about Cambridge and said, “I did English there, which was easy because I’m already English,” I actually chortled. Seriously. Chortled. Go figure. (And now I kind of want to go back to Cambridge for a while. The food was awful, but I enjoyed the time I spent there …)
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I realize I’m a gigantic loser for Googling my own name, but who among has not?? I’m really glad you liked the interview. Thanks for posting the link.
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Brooke,
Thank you for getting such an entertaining interview for us all! I think John Oliver is one of the funniest people alive (not named Stephen Colbert, anyhow), and I always enjoy reading his interviews. Yours was a particularly fun read; so many of them feel stilted and … like someone’s just going through a checklist of questions. Yours felt more conversational, which made it much more enjoyable.
I’m sorry you had to wait in the cold for the taping of his special (I lucked out and snagged early tickets to the first show and was very grateful not to have to flirt with frostbite to see John), but it really was worth it, wasn’t it? He’s a very funny man.
Thanks again for the interview!
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