"John Oliver"

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Speaker 1 Sean, I know that you like telling your

Speaker 1 sort of your bad jokes. I don't use the term bad joke.

Speaker 1 Why don't you go ahead and write one yourself right now? Let's hear.

Speaker 2 Right, just off the top of my head.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's a joke off the top of your head. Okay.

Speaker 1 Not reading. Put the fucking book down.

Speaker 1 Okay. No.
Oh, good. So now it's down.
Now he's just closing his eyes and he's thinking. Just memorizing.

Speaker 2 Can February, March? No, but April, May.

Speaker 1 Oh, God. And you just came up with that.
I just came up with that. Unbelievable.

Speaker 1 All right, welcome to Smartless. Smart.

Speaker 1 Smart

Speaker 1 Less

Speaker 1 I'm often down here

Speaker 1 in your whisper booth in my whisper booth listening to music when I get down here a few minutes early and I'll listen to music as I'm kind of setting up sitting sideways in your chair today

Speaker 1 looking all sexy oh because you're

Speaker 1 your leg still hurts it still hurts yeah man it's a real Sean don't you have uh from your your list of 25 doctors you see on a regular basis? I went to Sean. I'm seeing Sean's guy.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So, Jason, do you,

Speaker 1 how did Maple's basketball game go? She has found a real stride.

Speaker 1 She had a tough first game, and then the second game, she hit the kids' version of fuck it and just started taking what was hers and driving the lane and reigning threes. Raining down threes.

Speaker 1 I was going to say, was she reigning threes? She was.

Speaker 1 And all the kids, she had a fantastic game. She's got all this confidence and then went out the next game, did it again, next game, did it again.
Now she's like one of the superstars.

Speaker 1 Did you make it in time yesterday? Because I know that we were on a call. Were you a little bit late? I did lately.
Oh, no, no. I was fine.

Speaker 1 And listener, if you haven't heard or been bored by it yet,

Speaker 1 she plays on the boys' team. And she's the first girl in the history of the school.
That's 30 years

Speaker 1 to ever play on the boys' basketball team. That's awesome.
It's really,

Speaker 2 is there a girls' basketball team or no? There is.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Wow.

Speaker 1 She's a pretty remarkable kid that made me love her.

Speaker 1 Yeah, she really is. And she's got an old soul.
Yeah. She's super smart.
She's super funny. Here comes her butt.
I mean, she's

Speaker 1 more mature than Sean. Yeah.
There you go. I will say, by the way, also, I want to say, Jay, I know you an apology because I said at the end of our call, right when we got off,

Speaker 1 I said, hey, I like you in the crew, but I prefer you in a v-neck. And that's not true.

Speaker 1 You look great in a crew neck.

Speaker 1 I literally, when I was putting on this crew neck this morning, literally, I was looking through my sweaters, and I swear to God, on my kid's life, I was looking at the v-necks because I remember what you said,

Speaker 1 knowing it was a joke, but I was like, yeah, but you know what? He might be right.

Speaker 2 I can't wear a v-neck only because since I was a kid, my brothers used to call me E.T. because my neck is so thin and long.

Speaker 1 He's an asshole. Yeah, and so I always wear crew necks.
You know what? I can't wear. I can't wear turtlenecks because of my fat chin.
You know, the turtleneck

Speaker 1 will squeeze it up, and I will cascade my neck skin over the top of the table.

Speaker 1 can't I can't pull off a turtleneck either what about a mock could you ever get find yourself Richard Ehrlich let me tell you something Richard Ehrlich can wear a turtleneck Dick Ehrlich can get himself old tricky dick it's just unfair for other men uh what but I did I don't want to gloss over the mock turtleneck made popular by goaltenders in the NHL in the 80s do you would you ever find yourself Sean I bet you wore a mock turtleneck I bet you all the time I used to work at limited for men limited express for men and I'm colorblind so women would come in and say, Could you put an outfit together for my husband?

Speaker 2 I'm like, Sure. And I'd put like mustard yellow with green.
Like, I wouldn't know what I was putting together, but I would always put a mock turtleneck with it.

Speaker 1 I mean, I feel like I've heard this about you before that you're colorblind, but I've forgotten it. But now that I'm reminded, it does explain a great deal.
Really bad. Think about it.
Just on its

Speaker 1 surface, it's not a viable thing.

Speaker 1 It's mocking the turtleneck. Do you know what I mean? It's making fun of.

Speaker 1 It's a half a turtleneck. But now in hockey, speaking of hockey, with the new neck guard there to prevent cuts,

Speaker 1 it does look like the mock is back. Yeah, it does.
And by the way, I'm not opposed to those

Speaker 1 neck things, but they should do them.

Speaker 1 I think if you look at the numbers of actual people who get cut, I don't have the numbers in front of me. It's rare, but

Speaker 1 it's worth the fix.

Speaker 1 Somebody wake up the guest because we're coming together. Here we go.
Guys, today's going to be tough for you because our guest this morning is a truth teller.

Speaker 1 I know it's difficult for you two to deal with the truth, given that you both act for a living in show business, a couple of professional liars, a couple of coastal elites, but a hard-hitting investigative journalist like myself looks for treasures like this man.

Speaker 1 He was born in Birmingham, England. His father, a school headmaster, and his mother, a music teacher.
He's got two Peabody Awards. He was named to Times Magazine's 100 most influential.

Speaker 1 He created his own church. He started the first hospital to treat chlamydia and and koala bears.
And he has his own sewage plant in Connecticut. He also has 19 Emmy Awards.
Guys, it's John Oliver.

Speaker 1 Wait a second. Wait a second.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Wait a second. There's the reveal.

Speaker 1 I've moved my paper over the camera like someone jumping out of the birthday cake. Very good.
Here's the crazy part. You said he's from Birmingham, which is maybe potentially true.

Speaker 1 I don't know if that's true. It is.
No, it is true, Will. Why immediately

Speaker 1 Liverpool fan. Oh, he's a fucking no, he's a fucking, we got a villa fan on our hands.
No, I thought he was a fan. And I never would have guessed it because I know that you're a Liverpool fan because

Speaker 1 you did start to spew out the starting 11 of Liverpool. And you know that I'm a fellow massive Liverpool supporter.

Speaker 1 And it was the best speech of all the speeches because he's like Big Verge, fucking Trent Alexander Arnold. I forget who else.

Speaker 1 Let's hold on to our listeners just for a few more minutes before we lose them to a soccer talk. Okay.
Okay. Or football.
Football. Soccer is an English term, by the way.

Speaker 1 I don't want to get into the origin of the word. Yeah.
Originally it's an English. He knows that.
I'm not sure. Anyway, John Oliver.
John Oliver.

Speaker 1 What a pleasure to be here. What a lot of turtleneck talk I had to endure there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 It's our Regis and Kathy Lee morning patter, you know?

Speaker 1 John,

Speaker 1 why don't you have a podcast yet? I mean, you know,

Speaker 1 you got time. You're only working once a week.
I think it's enough. I think a TV show is enough for me and definitely for everybody else.
I'm primarily thinking of of other people.

Speaker 2 Speaking of, congrats on the Emmy. You just won the Emmy and well deserved.

Speaker 1 Very exciting. Thanks very much.
Again, really cool. Again.

Speaker 1 I love the bass in your voice there, Chase. Again.
No, again. I mean, but I'm saying, but it is an incredible accomplishment.
And you know what? I mean, it is all writing, right?

Speaker 1 I mean, you don't stop talking for 30 minutes. It's insane and incredible.
And I don't think I've ever seen you make a mistake.

Speaker 1 This man has got to be the best teleprompter reader in the world or the best memory in the world.

Speaker 1 All people can do it better. No one can do it faster.
That's the promise. I will speed read a prompter.
All right. Now, where do we find you today, John? Where's home?

Speaker 1 I'm in, home is the office today. So I'm in the office.
That's New York or Los Angeles? New York. New York.

Speaker 1 John, you know,

Speaker 2 I watch your show all the time last week tonight, and I'm a big fan.

Speaker 2 And when you first came, when I first heard of you and the show, I was like, who, like, hopefully you don't take offense at this, but I was like, wait, who is this guy?

Speaker 2 And the second you started talking and the show, I was like, oh, my God, I'm in. I love him.
And it's funny and it's clever. And where did you come from?

Speaker 1 Ricky Gervais.

Speaker 1 Does Ricky Gervais deserve the...

Speaker 1 Did he not recommend you to John Stewart? Yeah, he did. Yeah, he did.
The Daily Show was looking for a new correspondent. I didn't know Ricky.
I'd never met him.

Speaker 1 And he said, oh, you should look at this guy in England. He's floundering on on the stand-up circuit.
And that's

Speaker 1 true a lot. Yeah.
I didn't know that. That's cool.
I did not know that at all.

Speaker 1 And you still love doing stand-up, yes? Yeah. Oh, yeah.
I love it. It's the only way to relax.
Really? It's relaxing.

Speaker 1 I know that sounds insane. That sounds like a medical problem, but

Speaker 1 the only way I can truly calm down is doing stand-up. I mean, that says so much about your confidence and your self-image.
And God, I want some of that.

Speaker 1 So you're totally comfortable getting up in front of a bunch. Now, you're not, you've got stuff that's worked out, or do you kind of like to kind of riff it a bit when you're up in the front?

Speaker 1 No, I mean,

Speaker 1 I like to have stuff that's very worked out, and then I like to be distracted. So right.
Now,

Speaker 1 how do you decide which part of it you will dedicate to stand-up and which part you will put on your show? How do you do sometimes you like? Oh, they're so different.

Speaker 1 This show is so narrow in terms of the stories that we're attacking, the way we're doing it.

Speaker 1 There isn't a way really for one to cross over into the other so it's much easier to keep the two apart right so you the stand-up is more sort of stuff in life in any area your family life yada yada and and then the show stays much much looser than like you say taking a deep breath and then exhaling after 30 minutes

Speaker 1 so how did so how did uh how did a young a young man from birmingham uh all of a sudden find himself a stand-up comic what was that

Speaker 1 walk us through that a little bit bit. Well, I went to university and started writing comedy there and then started writing my

Speaker 1 shows with another guy there.

Speaker 1 We really loved doing it. You didn't happen to go to Cambridge, did you? I did.
Yes, I did. I wrote with a guy called Richard Iowadi there.
And so we were in

Speaker 1 a sketch group and then we did shows, two-man shows together. Really loved it.
And then after the leader... I didn't start as a compere.
I like when people talk about starting as a compere.

Speaker 1 But anyway,

Speaker 1 I didn't didn't start as a compere. No, but you're right.
There would have been a better story.

Speaker 1 I started as a compere, just welcoming people to the evening that was about to be laid out in front of them.

Speaker 1 Like

Speaker 1 an MC, sort of. Like an MC.
Just a very fancy way to say MC.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Who will be your compere tonight? I got it, got it. So you started writing with him? Yeah.
Then left university and tried stand-up and really loved it. So that first experience was successful? Yeah?

Speaker 1 First experience was successful.

Speaker 1 that's often the case it seems that many people have a similar story they do a first gig it goes well they really like it then you're chasing that high for the rest of your career yeah normally the second gig is terrible it definitely wasn't my

Speaker 1 people say that yeah yeah yeah so it's the same thing you get too confident you think i can do this people like it when i do this and then a second audience says this is a second opinion you can't do this and we don't that is generally what happens now if somebody gets if somebody gets lippy in the audience is that something that throws you off or do you kind of lean into that I love it.

Speaker 1 You do? Of course you love it. He's smart.

Speaker 2 What's the worst one? What's the worst?

Speaker 1 Because if you're smart, then you can fucking cry. Yeah, go ahead.
They're all good. The thing is, once you do enough, it hurts at first, I will say.

Speaker 1 Once you've bombed a hundred times, no audience retains the capacity to harm you anymore. There's nothing left for them to take.
Right, right.

Speaker 1 Dignity has been removed surgically by a hundred failures, and you're left thinking, I'm now,

Speaker 1 I can do anything.

Speaker 2 Was your stand-up always politically focused or no?

Speaker 1 No, I think for a couple of years it was just basically trying to make people laugh and not to leave the stage to the sound of your own footsteps. That was basically it.

Speaker 1 So it's just an exercise in survival.

Speaker 1 Then once I kind of learned the fundamental tools of how to do stand-up then I wanted to talk about the things that I cared about which were kind of political issues.

Speaker 1 So then it became trying to learn a second time. It was throwing away the stuff that worked and running towards the things that didn't.

Speaker 1 But it's hard figuring, I mean, that process of going through this, finding the stuff that works, I mean, that's an arduous process because obviously there's a lot of stuff to bomb.

Speaker 1 You might write a joke. You might go like, hey, a lot of people say ballet is hard.
And I say, just don't do it. Oh, geez.

Speaker 1 Like, somebody might write a joke like that. That doesn't sound like a joke, I know.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 that, John, that was one of my first jokes I ever wrote when I was like 23 years old.

Speaker 1 It always works.

Speaker 1 Did you do that on stage?

Speaker 2 Or is this mirror work?

Speaker 1 I know. I really say.
Did you go in front of people expecting entertainment passing promised entertainment?

Speaker 1 Oh, here's another one. We haven't even heard the first one.

Speaker 1 There's not even a first joke.

Speaker 1 We're getting another one. Oh, that was your opening joke? I will say,

Speaker 1 I've come 180 degrees around to loving the fact that you went on and brought up ballet to get an audience on site. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Now I like that a lot. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 And another bad one, and this is going to be real cringy. This is going to make you come out of your skin because there's no joke here.
And that's how bad I was.

Speaker 1 I didn't know you actually had to write a joke.

Speaker 2 And so I would,

Speaker 2 so I would say, you know what's really weird?

Speaker 1 Oh, boy. Great opener.
You ever wonder why?

Speaker 1 Let's have it.

Speaker 1 You know what's really weird?

Speaker 2 It's when you're at a dog park and you hear people call the name of their dog for the first time out loud. So, you know, you'll just be there and someone will go, mustard, come here, mustard.

Speaker 2 That was the joke.

Speaker 1 I said there's no joke.

Speaker 1 It was so bad. The beauty there is you've identified something that I really think isn't weird.

Speaker 1 Hearing them say the name of their dog for the first time in a dog park isn't weird. That's to be expected.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Should have been prepped for that one, Sean.

Speaker 2 I told you it was cringy. There's no joke.

Speaker 1 Oh, this sounds like an absolute banger of a stand-up stand-up set. Yeah, thank God we found positive.
You know what people say about ballet?

Speaker 1 You're kind of like the Seinfeld of like observational comedy, but the things you observe are totally normal, expected things, and they're not unusual.

Speaker 1 You ever notice when people turn the corner, when they're in their car, they turn the wheel of their steering wheel. The direction they want to go.
I just

Speaker 1 pretty bad. So, all right, so you're doing, so you're doing stand-up in England, and you're having a good time, and you're finding some success.

Speaker 1 and then Ricky Gervais either hears about you, sees you,

Speaker 1 mentions you to John, John says come on out and within a day or two you're on television.

Speaker 1 Have I overly truncated the first half of your life? Within a single day. I flew to New York and then

Speaker 1 they put, I think looking back, it was a standard tactic that they would get you on TV straight away to try so you didn't overthink it too much. Really? I was jet jet lagged.

Speaker 1 So I had just landed the previous night. Then I'm on television.

Speaker 1 And then the crazy thing was the, in the audience that night was JK Rowling just watching, just sitting in the audience, not a guest, just sitting there.

Speaker 1 So I did my bit, turned, looked straight at her, and it really felt like I must be having some kind of medical episode. Yeah.
So

Speaker 1 tired, so confused about what.

Speaker 1 was going on and there's JK Rowling saying oh congratulations that was very good how bizarre wow now were you comfortable in front of the camera was that the first time you were in front of the camera I think I was so tired I was actually fine wow

Speaker 1 and we will be right back

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Speaker 2 and now back to the show

Speaker 1 so then the appearance on the daily show goes well enough to have another one and another one and even

Speaker 1 even eventually hosting while john was directing his movie and you did that for eight weeks it went so well they said this guy deserves his own show perhaps you start talking to them but then hbo comes around the back door and says, how about with us?

Speaker 1 And you can do whatever the hell you want. I love that you've been able to put his whole answer and explanation into a question so he can just agree with a yes or a no.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to brag about my ability to do research on my guest.

Speaker 1 John, thanks for joining us. This was great, guys.
Guess that it's correct.

Speaker 1 Do I have that right? Yeah, Comedy Central were very much not offering my own show. I think I've got that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they what what John and I wanted them to do was let me have the summers so that he could leave each summer

Speaker 1 But they were not keen on that idea and my my contract was up at the end of that year So then HBO said would you like to do a show on Sunday nights?

Speaker 1 And I was talking to John about it He said you would be crazy not to Yeah, it's so good.

Speaker 2 You're so good. Really?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Now are you one of those people that do you seek out other like comedies or stand-ups or do you go to live shows? Are you like, you know what? I do it for a living. I don't want to go experience it.

Speaker 1 It used to be my favorite place to be. I've got kids now.
So

Speaker 1 my wife,

Speaker 1 understandably, it got to the point of having a conversation. Do you need to go and do this or is this something that you want to do?

Speaker 2 But I mean, like, do you seek it? Like, do you watch comedy specials? Are you a comedy...

Speaker 1 Okay, got it. Yes, absolutely.
Yeah, I love it. It's one of my favorite things to watch and to do.
Do you have a fabe?

Speaker 2 Do you have a fabe that's out there now?

Speaker 1 I just saw Jacqueline Novak's Get on Your Knees. That was fantastic.

Speaker 1 That new Netflix special. Maria Bamford is probably my favorite stand-up.
She's really?

Speaker 1 Yeah, she's really funny. She's so brilliant.
If I could only watch one more stand-up in my life, I think it would probably be her. Oh, wow.
That's so cool. Yeah, she's so unique.

Speaker 1 Have you ever seen the show that Mitch Hurwitz wrote for her? Really good. Oh, fuck.
Yeah, really, really good. What's it called? Jay, do you remember that when he wrote that show for Maria? I don't.

Speaker 1 Really good. It wasn't called It's Maria, is it? Like something like that? No,

Speaker 1 no, no, no.

Speaker 1 All right, now, but now before you got to do the HBO show, Lady Dynamite.

Speaker 1 That's yes, Lady Dynamite. Very good.
Oh, you have a Wi-Fi connection. Good for you.

Speaker 1 Oh, sorry, I should have mentioned I gifted, I gave Sean for Christmas. I gave him Google for Christmas.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And by the way, I haven't said thank you.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Yeah, of course, Jim.

Speaker 1 Now, you were,

Speaker 1 were you out like a roving reporter for the daily show?

Speaker 1 You interviewed people. Did it ever get contentious? Were you brave with them?

Speaker 1 Anything weird ever happened with your interview? Oh yeah,

Speaker 1 it was constantly tense.

Speaker 1 Ever get punched in the face, shoved around,

Speaker 1 insulted?

Speaker 1 I don't think I ever got physically attacked. We definitely got threatened a bunch, but it never actually came to physical violence.

Speaker 1 And the problem is that the tension generally showed that things were going well. So I would luxuriate in that tension.
I could take a bath in those long awful silences.

Speaker 1 Right, that meant that you were successful at what your objective was. Yes, exactly.
Rob Riggle was a correspondent when I was there.

Speaker 1 Rob can handle himself. Yep, which is the crazy thing is he couldn't stand those silences.
So he can physically handle himself, and he couldn't bring himself to inject that kind of tension.

Speaker 1 I can't physically handle myself, and I loved it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But that's also because you had a six-foot microphone and a long lens on the camera, right? You were standing very far away from your subject.

Speaker 1 Not always. Sometimes it's just the length of an arm.

Speaker 1 If I've got a microphone at the end of my arm and they've got a fist at the end of theirs, there's definitely room to connect. Right.
But what you were doing and what

Speaker 1 they do on the daily show and what you've continued on your show is this great blend between

Speaker 1 satire, but also, you know,

Speaker 1 very important political issues that you bring to the public's public's attention. Is that something that was always,

Speaker 1 well, I guess you said,

Speaker 1 when you were doing your stand-up in England, it was part of what you wanted to start to infuse into your comedy, yeah?

Speaker 1 Yeah, the thing with those interviews, though, is that they're always tense for the daily show because you always want to embody the counter-argument.

Speaker 1 So you are going to be really rough with the people that you agree with, and you are going to pacify and encourage the argument that you don't. Yeah, whoever's saying the dumb stuff, keep them.

Speaker 1 Exactly. Then you just say, please tell me more.
Say more about that. Yeah, of course.
Of course.

Speaker 1 How did you hone?

Speaker 2 Like, I don't have that skill, Newsflash.

Speaker 2 How did you hone that? Like, is that something that developed in college or after college, or is there a person that influenced you?

Speaker 2 It was like, you know what, I want to be more like that because I like how they approach this thing.

Speaker 1 Well, for those interviews, you could only hone that by watching the edit, going through the edit, watching your own failures.

Speaker 1 That was the way to sharpen that particular tool that you would watch yourself on screen think,

Speaker 1 it would have been really helpful if I'd said something at this point that was funny.

Speaker 1 I literally had an editor turn around to me at one point and say, hey, Paulston said, you know, it would have been great. Just any kind of funny remark from you at this point, I could have used.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you're right. Really? I'll try and remember that.
But that ability to be, to be

Speaker 1 uncomfortable in those moments and ask uncomfortable things and know and be, and obviously being provocative, right?

Speaker 1 You're provoking people to try to get to elicit a response that's going to to be hilarious because it's so misplaced, their views are misplaced, or whatever. It takes a lot of.

Speaker 1 I mean, actually, I was talking to another Cambridge grad who's at the dinner last night, our friend Sasha Cohen, and I was asking him about the second Borat movie and all that kind of stuff. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I was saying, like, fuck the balls to do that shit. And

Speaker 1 he does it in the movie in his movies, and he does it really well, but you did it

Speaker 1 as a day-to-day because it was your job to go and do that kind of shit.

Speaker 1 I guess you tell me, you get better at it or you get.

Speaker 1 Well, you definitely get better at it.

Speaker 1 What's his answer? Does he disassociate as well? Because my head is always half in the edit. I'm barely there.

Speaker 2 While you're present, while you're doing it, you mean?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm just thinking the edit non-stop. So it means that I'm not really emotionally engaging with what's happening in front of me.
Well, he's just right.

Speaker 1 And he's got his, I guess it was a version of that, which is he's got his eye on the prize and he just wants to get the thing that he wants to get. He wants to get them to that point.

Speaker 1 And so everything else is kind of noise until you get them to reveal themselves, right?

Speaker 1 I felt that, yeah, I felt that way about this is the craziest example of that was, I felt that way with the Dalai Lama. I flew to India

Speaker 1 to interview him. And I was starting to feel tense, right? Because you go, you're like driving up a mountain.
There's monks there. And I've taken two flights to fuck with this guy.

Speaker 1 I'm thinking, oh boy. Oh my God.
Oh boy, I think I'm on a slightly different page than everyone else on this mountain.

Speaker 1 And he talks for like 10 minutes at the start. And I'm literally kind of nothing.
I'm not listening to any of this. I can't do anything with this.

Speaker 1 It's only when I start kind of needling him that he opens up. You think, okay, now we're doing it.
Literally, you don't need to transcribe the first 10 minutes of that.

Speaker 1 Wow, wow. Right, because you're just trying to get that thing.
Yeah, I'm not sure that fit that.

Speaker 1 I'm not sure he as an individual has ever been listened to less than I listened to him in the first 10 minutes of that.

Speaker 1 Nobody.

Speaker 1 But so, but, but through, but through those efforts, and

Speaker 1 then and also on your show,

Speaker 1 you're exposing and enlightening people to certain issues but even all the way up to and including affecting legislation yes I mean there are

Speaker 1 well but you'll be very humble about this but but please don't and and and tell us

Speaker 1 what it tell us what you something that you might be really proud of that you got done through very clever satire and basically making the medicine go down easy well i don't know about yeah i don't know about the legislation making the medicine go down easy that is something that we can do right so even in that

Speaker 1 interview what i wanted to do was get him off balance so that we could communicate what was actually

Speaker 1 going on uh with him and with the uh succession uh uh problem that he and uh tibetan buddhism has say the same was true with um when i went to talk to edward snowden incredibly smart guy right not a great communicator to people that don't have the technical understanding that he does so it felt like what we could do was facilitate the

Speaker 1 important information that he had into a form that people could understand. Right.

Speaker 1 Were you ever worried that

Speaker 1 like

Speaker 1 interviewing Eric Snowden

Speaker 1 that you're subjecting yourself to potential hacking and the destruction of your life?

Speaker 1 It was terrifying. That was legitimately.

Speaker 1 That was legitimately terrifying. We were being followed the entire time.
by the Russian Secret Service. They were angry that we were there.

Speaker 1 We knew that the American government were going to be angry that we'd gone. We hadn't told HBO that we were going.
It felt like...

Speaker 1 But I will say, it's the same kind of feeling as when you're bombing or drawn to a tense situation. I was so happy, so giggly, just think, well, everyone seems really mad at us.

Speaker 1 Yeah, giggly until everyone is the Russian government, the US government, and my employer.

Speaker 1 By the way, like, it's, it's all fun and games, and you're just getting a good bit and a good comedy bit until you're in fucking Moscow and you get a case of window cancer. And

Speaker 1 I will say, it's funny you say that because it's completely false sense of security that you get there thinking, oh, we're doing bits. It's fine.

Speaker 1 No one minds the jester. And

Speaker 1 they're following us the whole time. There's a guy drilling in my room,

Speaker 1 the ceiling, 2 a.m. Yeah, I'd hear this like

Speaker 1 two in the morning. I'm talking to the ceiling saying, I'm sure you're trying to intimidate me.
It's job well done. Let's both get some sleep.
Wow. I'm leaving here tomorrow.

Speaker 1 Your wife, I'm sure, can provide some

Speaker 1 security for you and some proper guidance. She's a war veteran.
Yes.

Speaker 1 i mean like that's a that's a pretty interesting combination there that you yeah she yeah she can provide perspective that's not what it was a hard perspective on oh it was so dangerous over there was it was it was it dangerous when you said she's a war veteran what'd you mean she was a combat medic in iraq

Speaker 1 she was right yeah yeah yeah she was a awesome i don't for the u.s

Speaker 1 stories she near she nearby in in the u.s army yeah in the u.s army that's right yeah she wasn't yeah yeah so at any point was she like hey dummy let's just do your little stand-up sets down at the comedy cellar, whatever it's called, and stop messing around.

Speaker 1 Leave that stuff to the adults like me. Yeah, I think a little bit.

Speaker 1 I think she sees a different side of me come out because I'm probably a natural coward and then I'll become utterly fearless whenever it's inside a comedy bit. Because you know you've got the U.S.

Speaker 1 Army behind you if things get hot. Yeah.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 1 It's kind of like in hockey, like a skills guy who feels tough because he's got an enforcer on his line. Right.
You know what I mean? That's exactly it.

Speaker 1 Talk a big game, but that's only because Vladimir behind me is going to take over as soon as your gloves come off. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But is there like a thirst? There's obviously a thirst for this

Speaker 2 danger side of the correspondence and not just Russia or the Dalai Lama or whatever. Where does that come from? Where does the...

Speaker 2 You know what? I like to live just on the edge. I want to almost get in trouble, but I get out of it.

Speaker 1 I don't know. I live an unexamined life, Sean.
I don't know where that comes from. I'm sure.
I've never looked inwards. That's the most honest thing anybody's ever said on this show, by the way.

Speaker 2 Unexamined life.

Speaker 1 Can I guess

Speaker 1 you're a smart person that is able to see all the inequities and injustices around the world, and you have a platform and you are able to say something about it, but you can skin it in a way that is also kind of entertaining.

Speaker 1 Or you saw that we're idiots and you want to come get some of that sweet American cash. It's got to be one of the two.

Speaker 1 Two things can be true at the same time.

Speaker 1 Little column A, little column B. A couple of my, two of my favorite battles that

Speaker 1 my Wikipedia page has told me about that you've had. Will you explain to the audience, let's start with the Russell Crowe

Speaker 1 back and forth.

Speaker 1 What is that? How did it come about? And how did it end? So that was just a stupid bit that we were doing.

Speaker 1 The true joy is where bits get out of hand and they get added to once they've left our building. So with that example,

Speaker 1 he was staging a divorce auction. So So he was selling.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he was selling up all the memorabilia and stuff.

Speaker 1 Exactly. Wait, wait, he was divorcing somebody and selling all of her stuff?

Speaker 1 No, that would be less charming. He was selling lots of his memorabilia.
He was selling t-shirts from like

Speaker 2 the gladiator. 30-odd footage.

Speaker 1 Concert t-shirts and stuff. Got it.
Yes, exactly. And so we bought

Speaker 1 his jockstrap from the movie Cinderella Man. Sure.
And we sent it to the last remaining blockbuster in Alaska as as a kind of way to try and keep it open. He found out about it and I wasn't sure.

Speaker 1 It didn't feel to me at the time that Russell Crowe was well known for his enjoyment in Bon Army. He seemed like a rough-edged soul.
Then

Speaker 1 we get messages that he is using the money that we've spent on his leather Cinderella Man jockstrap to start a koala chlamydia ward in my name at the Sydney Zoo.

Speaker 1 And I can't tell you how much joy that put in my soul.

Speaker 1 Of course.

Speaker 1 First of all, is chlamydia a thing with koala bears? Huge. It's a huge thing.
But true.

Speaker 1 Yes, it is a massive problem. Come on.
Did you not know that? It's the perfect joke.

Speaker 1 They all have chlamydia. I didn't know that either.
How? What are you talking about? Are they really? Because they're fucking each other non-stop.

Speaker 1 They do? Yeah.

Speaker 1 They're like bunnies? They're diseased tiny bears. So then the bears have this STD.
Yes. Yeah.
And Russell Crowe sets up a specific ward at the at the animal hospital and puts your name on it. Yes.

Speaker 1 God bless. It's a perfect joke.
I've got all the time in the world for shit like that, for him doing that. Yes, it's a perfect, perfect.
He elevated our joke. He handled it perfectly.

Speaker 1 He also managed to highlight a very real, albeit very funny issue among the koala community.

Speaker 1 I was staggered by how good that joke was. And was that the end of it? Or

Speaker 1 did you go down there?

Speaker 1 No, the beauty was this is how it was.

Speaker 1 Go host a benefit. That's the only way.

Speaker 1 We shut down the show the next week.

Speaker 1 This show's finished. Nothing better than this can ever happen.

Speaker 1 Then we were going to start the next show with a bit that he'd done. I kind of wrote to him, hey, here's the idea.
He said, yeah, I'll do it. I'll be honest.
I don't think...

Speaker 1 I'm not sure you're elevated to the joke anymore. And the brutal thing was he was completely right.

Speaker 1 Also, Crow the comedy.

Speaker 1 You're right. Yeah, fuck.
You're right. Eventually, at the end of the year, he came back and he did something for us, like with a big movie parody and we returned it to him.

Speaker 1 But at that moment, it was a really solid comedic note from Russell Crowe. God bless him, man.
That's fucking funny. What a funny dude.
All right. Now take us to the Connecticut sewer plant.

Speaker 1 Again,

Speaker 1 another perfect example, right? We're trying to do a story about, I think it was jury selection.

Speaker 1 And very dry, very dry story. And so

Speaker 1 one of our writers, Owen, wrote a drive-by joke just shitting on Danbury, Connecticut. Literally put no thought into it whatsoever

Speaker 1 just bang danbury connecticut's getting it because they they they were tilting the jury selection away from perhaps a diverse community they weren't that's right that was the tension yeah that was the large story just a sideways joke throwing an elbow on danbury they didn't deserve it that the the town of danbury does not respond to this well at all they are up in arms and the mayor then goes on camera and says, as our response, we have a brand new sewer plant here and we are going to call it the John Oliver Memorial sewer plant

Speaker 1 and again the fact it's the memorial sewer plant yeah at memorial there John Oliver sewer plant that's already you're shit talking me with a shit processing plant exit to call it memorial

Speaker 1 why you've done it you've done it well but by the way they didn't do it on purpose that's the worst part they don't understand

Speaker 1 I don't think they get the memorial part. I don't.
I really don't. Really? I really don't.
I think that didn't get it until after and you go, what a brilliant joke. And they go, yeah, thanks.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 We'll be right back.

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Speaker 2 And back to the show.

Speaker 1 Okay, so you start of your own church, Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption. Yeah, is this true?

Speaker 1 That's true as well. That was in our first season.

Speaker 1 It's genius. We were doing something about televangelists,

Speaker 1 and we got one televangelist on it. So we were writing back and forth to him for seven months.
I think kind of sending him money.

Speaker 1 He would send us more things back saying, please put your hand on this piece of paper and pray and send me another $3.

Speaker 1 Okay, $3. What are you going to send us now? Please put this little bit of plastic in your hand and it'll curl up and that'll tell you which direction direction you should

Speaker 1 it it went on and on and on until we eventually called him and said hey we've been talking to you for some months we're uh gonna um uh do a a show about it you got any comments and he uh

Speaker 1 i'd forgotten this uh he said no no comments that sounds fine and then left our researcher like a two and a half it was about 2 30 a.m left her a voicemail that was very much a comment very much a hard comment about what hell was and when we were going there.

Speaker 1 So then to show

Speaker 1 that there were, to show how tax-exempt churches are, we then started a church and got people to send us money and offerings. And unfortunately, they did both of those things.

Speaker 2 And keep going. And so, so, what happens?

Speaker 1 Well, they sent tens of thousands of dollars.

Speaker 1 Tens of thousands, yeah. And

Speaker 1 then various offerings, and we're pretty sure two cups of semen. And that's when we shut the church down.

Speaker 1 It's the second cup of semen. But

Speaker 2 that's amazing to me that you can just do that

Speaker 2 and it be legit.

Speaker 1 By the way,

Speaker 1 I knew, I could see Sean's face and I could see the fucking wheels turning in there. I saw both hamsters get on the wheel

Speaker 1 and he was like, wait, if I do,

Speaker 1 can I be tax exempt and then I can buy my own

Speaker 1 buy a mansion and it's all the,

Speaker 1 did you not a little bit?

Speaker 2 No, no, the reason, because I'm fascinated by religion.

Speaker 1 And I'm fascinated by... And you hate money.

Speaker 2 No, I am. And just like, without naming other religions, I mean, there's thousands of religions in the world.
All religions, every single thing in the world is invented, right?

Speaker 2 Even religion is invented.

Speaker 1 How dare you?

Speaker 1 What's that? How dare you?

Speaker 2 And even you just, so with that little stunt or whatever, it's just proved that you can, I'm just, that's fascinating to me that you did that and it worked.

Speaker 1 Yeah, with some stories, it feels like it helps sometimes to show if a problem is that there is a very low bar of entry for something,

Speaker 1 sometimes it feels the best way to prove that is to clear that bar. So that's why we have sometimes done things in practice as well as telling people what's possible in theory.

Speaker 1 Right, right, right, right. And that's where things can get a little legally dicey and very, very fun.
Yeah, yeah. Now,

Speaker 1 so

Speaker 1 the you will oftentimes cover multiple issues in the 30 minutes, and sometimes you will dedicate the whole 30 minutes to one.

Speaker 1 How do you well first of all how did you come up what what was the genesis of the of the format for for the show when did yeah that changed a lot actually uh because we didn't have an idea of what really we were going to do other than there were a couple of stories uh that we'd done with that summer that john was away that it felt like the daily show wouldn't normally have done one was about aluminum pricing uh and one was about the city of detroit i think and it felt like oh we could do more things like that so we did two test shows but we had a guest area built in because I thought that you just had to have guests late night shows.

Speaker 1 So the one note that HBO would have for us was you don't need to have guests if you don't want them. You can just add to the time of the story.
That's correct.

Speaker 1 And yeah, we couldn't have bit their hand off fast enough. And I didn't have to get up and say,

Speaker 1 this person is here now. Yeah, but I mean, a huge credit to you and your staff.

Speaker 1 You don't need anything else other than the results of your research, the shaping of that opinion, and your delivery of it. It feels like it's better to live or die that way.

Speaker 1 And I think we're very, very lucky because we don't have to take ad breaks.

Speaker 1 And I do think what we need is a trapped audience because it's not like you can hold people's attention, say, okay, we're going to let Twix tell you how delicious it is for three and a half minutes.

Speaker 1 Then you need to remember we're coming back into this story about facial recognition technology exactly where we left off.

Speaker 1 Also, the fact that there is no ad support on HBO, you don't need to worry about offending any brand. So you'd say

Speaker 1 that's a huge deal. That's a massive, massive deal.
You get to build your own momentum. One of the things I like when you get on a subject,

Speaker 1 you get to drive the momentum and you don't have to take those breaks where you, like as you said, where you lose it.

Speaker 1 You can keep doubling down and compounding the energy and the focus as you get sharper and sharper about the end of the thing and you actually get more animated and more into it.

Speaker 1 And that's part of the allure of what you're doing. is that

Speaker 1 you know of making that point of shedding all the shit and getting to it if you you were to have ad breaks, it would take away that energy. Yeah, we'd be, it'd be tough.

Speaker 1 I think that's one of the reasons I talk so fast. It isn't just that we're racing the clock.
Sometimes it is that energy of you don't leave, don't leave yet, don't leave. I know this sounds bad.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we're talking about the lethal injections, but please don't leave. So you just go, go, go, go, go.

Speaker 1 And we've been lucky that HBO sometimes gives us more time. If we realize this can't fit into the show anymore, we're not actually a 30-minute show anymore, a 35-minute show.

Speaker 1 And sometimes we're 40 or 45 minutes. If we say to them, can we please have 10 more minutes? Because there's stuff I can't cut out of this.
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 Because you'll time your monologue, right?

Speaker 1 You'll read a second. Got it.
Yeah. Well, I remember they did the same thing.

Speaker 1 Sometimes in entourage, they hadn't finished telling the story that they needed to tell, and they would go over, you know, they'd have something really important.

Speaker 1 They were like, they were going to go for... for lunch

Speaker 1 to Fairfax. And

Speaker 1 they didn't have time to get to that.

Speaker 1 I'm so glad you brought that up. We are standing on the shoulders of Dargail in an entourage.
We couldn't have done what we'd done unless they,

Speaker 1 I thank you for giving the comment. We're all standing on those shoulders, believe me.
Now, what is your process of finding these stories?

Speaker 1 Does it take many shapes and sizes as little as you just finding something interesting in a magazine?

Speaker 1 All the way up to including what? And not just me. It's just the whole staff can pitch stories.
And then if something is interesting to us, we'll give it to a researcher.

Speaker 1 They'll take it away for a week to work out if the story stands up, you know, if it's been reported accurately, if things are changing that might mean that now is not the right time to talk about it.

Speaker 1 if if it gets through that first stress test we'll give it to a a footage producer as well to see if there's any footage through which we can tell the story only at that point would we add writers to have them just write an outline of a story without any jokes literally just how would you tell this story yeah then we combine those outlines and only then do they start drafting and that's about a six-week process wow for each story so we're doing six we're doing six stories at once constantly oh that's amazing and then it's always uh uh susceptible to total derailment based on the topical stories.

Speaker 1 The current event.

Speaker 1 Yeah. We try to contain that at the top of the show

Speaker 1 most of the time. It rarely will be that actually we have to hit pause on everything and just crash a show in a week.
That does happen, but we try not to have that happen. Because you are alive, yes?

Speaker 1 No. I mean, or a tape delay.
You're on the same day. In particular, yeah.
Yeah. But but will you, so when you're working on,

Speaker 1 you know, sort of six stories, six weeks in advance. So is it like Monday we're working on the thing that, or is it all kind of combined? It is.

Speaker 1 So Monday is that thing, then Tuesday is that, and it's all like color-coded days. Yes, exactly.
It's a complex web of

Speaker 1 things that we need to do to the point that, so just after we've tape the show, literally just after, we come back over the road from the studio and read the drafts that have just been logged for the next week's show.

Speaker 1 And then, yeah, the first day back, we'll be going through the outlines that have come in. So we'll only then revisit the show that we're doing next week, three days later.

Speaker 1 So, it's a lot of plates to keep spinning, but it's the only way that we can do it. Wow.

Speaker 1 Now,

Speaker 1 in your hobnobbing around the political elite, as I'm sure you've an opportunity to at times,

Speaker 1 have you gotten your pocket stuffed with a bunch of cards and numbers for deep sourcing if you need it?

Speaker 1 It's a serious question.

Speaker 1 I know, I just like your phrasing.

Speaker 1 Do you have like some deep throats out there that are really highly connected that can give you say hey, listen, this is a real big issue and we love the way you make a medicine go down easy.

Speaker 1 You might want to talk about this and I'll give you some some choice. No, I'm not.
I'm not a hobnobber, especially in the circles you're referring to there. So I don't have any,

Speaker 1 I think we've annoyed enough people that we're generally not welcome for some reason everywhere. God, if I worked for the government, you have my

Speaker 1 knob is welcomed by some deep throats.

Speaker 1 There's our clip. I'm trying to figure out the excitement in the pause.
Hold on. Oh, I've got all the pieces for the sentence.
Everybody.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I know, I know, I know. I love it.
I believe it. I love it.
And by the way, it was messy at best. It was just, it was an opportunity.
I took the shot. You tee it up, he'll hit it.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I didn't have a great look at the net, but I had enough that I thought that, fuck, I might. It might go in.

Speaker 1 I'm turning around before it even hits the bench.

Speaker 2 John, I know you've done a lot of acting too in your life. Do you miss that? Do you want to do more of that? Or you're like, no, I'm good.
Sean has a script.

Speaker 1 Not really.

Speaker 1 I haven't done a lot of acting. And I think when I have done it, I'm not sure I would call it acting.

Speaker 1 I remember

Speaker 1 I did the NBC sitcom community. I remember Jonathan Banks, legitimate actor.

Speaker 1 came up to me before a scene and said, I just wanted to talk about what our characters are doing before this. And I had to say, oh, Jonathan, I'm just going to say these words words

Speaker 1 in the funniest possible way these words here with the yellow marker over the top of them it really was you know you know when actors act up opposite a tennis ball I will be that bull for you I've never yeah that's funny I in scripts I've never highlighted lines because I just figured When the care, when it says my character and there's a line under it, that's when I talk.

Speaker 2 Right. Like, I don't need to highlight when I talk.
It's a great look for my name.

Speaker 1 They do it for you. Yeah.
There's no reason to be confused as to what lines are yours. Right.
Yeah. And you don't need to make a big deal.

Speaker 1 I mean, I used to do, I've done, you know, thousands of scenes with Jason, and at a certain point, they were like, do you want Jason?

Speaker 1 I go, no, just tape his headshot to a C-stand, and I'd rather do it to that. You know what I mean? A lot of early days for me.
We did this one piece with

Speaker 1 Warren G. Harding's wax statues, and we got Laura Linney, Jason, to act opposite.
act opposite that Warren G. Harding.

Speaker 1 And no offense, watching those takes, it realized, oh, she's been carrying actors for her entire career.

Speaker 1 She needs nothing. Yeah.
She doesn't need anything.

Speaker 1 Literally a wax statue wobbling in front of her, and she's in tears. Oh, yeah,

Speaker 1 you're a one-man band. It's incredible.
You are absolutely right. Now, how are you shutting off from all of your hard, hard work and

Speaker 1 intelligence? And

Speaker 1 do you do anything stupid, John?

Speaker 1 Not really. No, I've got kids, so I guess everything that kids do is fundamentally stupid, so I'm stooping to their level right now.
Right.

Speaker 1 You're getting on your knees and making funny faces and making dumb noises. That's right.
I'm pretending that I understand the rules of Pokemon, and I'm also pretending that they understand them.

Speaker 1 Wait,

Speaker 1 how old are they, John? 17 and 5.

Speaker 1 Wait, 3 and 5, did you say? 8, 8 and 5. 8 and 5.
So you're out of Paw Patrol. You're not into money.

Speaker 1 I'm out of here. Now,

Speaker 1 is a lot of your days spent, especially these days, wondering who's going to come back first, Thiago or Samikas? I mean, where are we at with that? Oh, yeah. I mean, it's not going to be a good idea.

Speaker 1 Here we go. We're back on Liverpool.

Speaker 1 It feels like the guy is an absolute Rolls-Royce of a footballer, but I'm just not sure his body can stand up to the Premier League. Rolls-Royce of a footballer.

Speaker 2 I love it.

Speaker 1 Now, where does soccer come from? Is that true? That's a British term?

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 Sorry, you can explain it, John. You know, go for it.
Go for it. So, so, like, in the way that, like,

Speaker 1 a lot of people call rugby rugger, right?

Speaker 1 It was called rugby football, I think. Rugby football.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And the same thing, right? Soccer came from the association football football. The association football, yeah.

Speaker 1 Soccer was not, what we know as soccer was called association football to distinguish it from rugby.

Speaker 1 And so instead of they, they, they shortened the association to sock, and they call it soccer. The English call.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. That would be how I, that would be genuinely how I relax is watching Liverpool.
Yeah. How are they doing this year? They're doing really well.
They're doing well.

Speaker 1 I mean, this is going to be a little delayed, but

Speaker 1 they had a nice draw yesterday to put them in the final of the Caribou Cup against Chelsea, who are, who fuck knows how they got there. But they're doing great, aren't they? Yeah, they're very good.

Speaker 2 Are you all sports, John? Or are you like just soccer?

Speaker 1 Just sorry, soccer. I like all sports.
John, we're going to go together. We're going to go over there together, and we're going to go.
Look at this. I showed the guy.
The guys know this.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. That's me and Jürgen.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 Jurgen, you're going to get it from.

Speaker 1 That's pretty good, dude. You're going to get it.
I got to be honest.

Speaker 1 That's pretty good. It's high level.
Yeah. I may make a donation to the Chlamydia Foundation and now in your name for that joke.

Speaker 1 Mr. Oliver, this has been fantastic.

Speaker 1 That's a pleasure.

Speaker 1 Thank you, guys.

Speaker 1 You're very, very nice to do this with us. I know you're busy, and you're much smarter than us, and you dumbed it down for us, and we appreciate that.
Thank you. We love it.
We love you, dude.

Speaker 1 Keep doing doing what you do. Honestly, it's funny, and it's fun and it's amazing.
I love it. And it's all of those

Speaker 1 additional. Yeah.
Thanks. Thank you.
As you're talking, I'm going to put the paper back over. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Back into hell.

Speaker 1 So you can keep talking. And I'm going to leave.
I do not like compliments. Farewell.
I know. Thank you.
Thank you, John Oliver. Thank you.
Thank you. Great, John Oliver.
We'll see you soon, I hope.

Speaker 1 Bye. Bye-bye.
Go, Reds.

Speaker 1 That's a great guest. This is a great guest.
Really good.

Speaker 2 Had you known him, Jason?

Speaker 1 Really good. No,

Speaker 1 I've circled him a couple of times at things we've both been at, but never

Speaker 1 had the opportunity to touch him.

Speaker 1 You've just kind of roamed near him and like. Tighter and tighter circles each time I see him and never gotten close enough to put my hand out and say, hi.

Speaker 1 I did a couple, I've done over the years, I've done a few VOs for some of his bits for his show. Oh, really? He's been kind enough to reach out.
Yeah, that were like sort of semi-serious things.

Speaker 1 And I've always been very kind of honored that he asked me, honored with a you. I really do.
Very nice.

Speaker 1 I do appreciate him or anyone else that is able to,

Speaker 1 whatever side of the political spectrum you sit.

Speaker 1 And I just, I like that people are able to get info to us, facts to us, in a way that is not overly preachy or

Speaker 1 it's just

Speaker 1 through comedy, which I'll be doing. Oh, yeah, we just need that because we don't know where all the honest stuff is nowadays because all the, you know,

Speaker 1 honestly, it's it's it's as long as you're right, Jay, no matter what side you're on, as long as you can or where you fall, forget side, where you fall, as long as you don't take yourself too seriously at the end of the day, you can, then fucking great.

Speaker 1 And it's the moment that you start to, that your position is unassailable and that, and that it's, uh, and there's no way that you can then then i'm you've lost

Speaker 1 except when you're talking about facts you know as long as everyone just agrees to what what what are provable facts then you can have your own opinion and stuff but anyway uh he's uh is another one that's i feel uh maybe overstated but uh he's doing a service you know but you know you know what it is also i think part of i think that what's effective is is because he is english and he's not from here he can kind of

Speaker 1 no it's true and he can come here and have it like an outsider's perspective in that sense like somebody who's watched, it's the same thing with Canadians.

Speaker 1 We're like really, I always say that Canadians, we grew up, were very similar culturally, et cetera, and geographically, of course.

Speaker 1 But it's almost like we grew up against the glass and to make a hockey metaphor. We're right there

Speaker 1 and we get to see it all. So you get to understand and see what works and what doesn't work.
And

Speaker 1 you can have a point of view that is informed, but not necessarily have a dog in the fight personally.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I guess that it's just a bi product of being so

Speaker 1 worried.

Speaker 1 It's a biology. It's a bi product.

Speaker 1 You can deliver some facts just by doing a drive-by.

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