“Part of the reason I did it that way is because I didn’t want anybody to be the person who then tells somebody else, who then tells somebody else, who then tells somebody else,” Noah says when we meet at a restaurant near the Daily Show offices the following month. “And this is where we create the thing. [The show] is where we’re together, our space, and so for me, it felt like the most natural way to tell everybody at the same time.”
“Maybe this comes with not being raised in America, but I believe that everything should end,” says Noah. “A lot of American business and American media is just like, ‘Keep it going as long as possible,’ but I think it’s healthy for things to end when they’re still in a good place. I want to leave before I’m burnt out, because there are many other things I’d like to do.”
Noah’s incarnation of The Daily Show premiered Sept. 28, 2015, with Kevin Hart as his first guest.
“Nobody wanted to touch me with a 10-foot pole, but Kevin was like, ‘I love comedians, let’s do this,’ and I’m eternally grateful to him for that,” says Noah. Booking got considerably easier over time, and then, as the country became more polarized, hard again. Noah says he’ll run into celebrities at awards shows, and they’ll tell him how much they love the show. “You should come on,” he responds. “And they’re like, ‘No, no,’ and it’s a variety of reasons,” he says. “Some will say, ‘I don’t do politics,’ and I’m like, ‘Well, it doesn’t have to be politics.’ Or they’ll say, ‘I’m afraid I’ll come off as dumb. I don’t know anything about what’s happening in Iran,’ and I’m like, ‘It doesn’t have to be about that.’ I get it, though; in a weird way, the show sort of became a victim of its own success, and people are terrified of everything right now.”
Making the show wasn’t as much fun anymore, either. Pre-pandemic, Noah spent very little time alone in his office during the day.
“My previous assistant was always running down hallways trying to find me because I was always in other people’s offices, chatting and laughing and coming up with ideas, and we had these big meetings and everybody was there and I loved it,” he says. “Now, everybody in the building has masks and we’re limited in how many people can be there at a given time and where you can or can’t be, and because I’m the host, I’m in this bubble. They’re all like, ‘He cannot get COVID.’ And so, what was already an isolated experience was exacerbated, and all of these things just add up.”
Source: HollyWood Reporter
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