Screenshot: HBO

Last Week Tonight’s format could have looked a lot different if HBO hadn’t “saved” John Oliver from himself.

Appearing on the podcast What Now? with Trevor Noah, the HBO late-night host looked back on a pair of ill-fated test shows that led him to shy away from interviewing celebrity guests.

“We had a guest area, because it felt like you were supposed to have a guest,” Oliver explained of the original vision for Last Week Tonight. “That was the only thing I knew about American late-night shows. ‘Anything can happen, but there has to be a guest.’ There’s gotta be someone else.”

Such sit-downs became less of a focal point for the show once HBO witnessed Oliver’s propensity (or lack of) for patter.

“To their credit, HBO, after our two test shows, just said, ‘You know you don’t have to talk to anyone at the end…,’” Oliver recounted, noting he was “massively grateful” to the network for helping “save me from myself.”

According to Oliver, nixing the guest segment was integral to Last Week Tonight’s success for two reasons: “One, I think it was that bad. I think it genuinely was that bad,” he admitted. “And two, that changed everything for me. I can have that six minutes and we can make the story longer.”

Though the host gladly agreed to lean away from having guests, interviews weren’t completely out of the equation when Last Week Tonight began. The guest area remained a part of the set for the show’s launch, with Oliver using it on rare occasions during the first two seasons.

But Oliver’s struggle with guest interviews wasn’t a surprise to him. As he told fellow Daily Show alum Noah, celebrity interviews had been a struggle for him dating back to his time guest-hosting the Comedy Central show.

“That was the one part of that job I could never do, was talk to someone I had no interest in whatsoever,” Oliver admitted. “It was the actors, was the problem for me… Oh man, that was tough.”

“I’d run out of things to say so quickly,” Oliver continued, recalling an interview with one actor that felt like it had dragged on for some time.

“I looked over to [the floor manager] as if to say, ‘Are we good?’ and he said, ‘You’ve been going one minute.’ Sixty human seconds, and I was all out of questions!”

Last Week Tonight wrapped Season 12 on November 16; Season 13 is expected to launch in February.