{"id":237229,"date":"2026-01-17T00:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T00:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/237229\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T00:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T00:57:09","slug":"john-oliver-reveals-why-last-week-tonight-dropped-guests-it-was-that-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/237229\/","title":{"rendered":"John Oliver Reveals Why\u00a0‘Last Week Tonight’ Dropped Guests: ‘It Was\u00a0That\u00a0Bad’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tScreenshot: HBO\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Last Week Tonight<\/a>\u2019s format could have looked a lot different if HBO hadn\u2019t \u201csaved\u201d John Oliver<\/a> from himself.<\/p>\n

Appearing on the podcast What Now? with Trevor Noah<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a guest area, because it felt like you were supposed to have a guest,\u201d Oliver explained of the original vision for Last Week Tonight. \u201cThat was the only thing I knew about American late-night shows. \u2018Anything can happen, but there has to be a guest.\u2019 There\u2019s gotta be someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such sit-downs became less of a focal point for the show once HBO witnessed Oliver\u2019s propensity (or lack of) for patter.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo their credit, HBO, after our two test shows, just said, \u2018You know you don\u2019t have to talk to anyone at the end\u2026,\u2019\u201d Oliver recounted, noting he was \u201cmassively grateful\u201d to the network for helping \u201csave me from myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Oliver, nixing the guest segment was integral to Last Week Tonight\u2019s success for two reasons: \u201cOne, I think it was that bad. I think it genuinely was that bad,\u201d he admitted. \u201cAnd two, that changed everything for me. I can have that six minutes and we can make the story longer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the host gladly agreed to lean away from having guests, interviews weren\u2019t completely out of the equation when Last Week Tonight began. The guest area remained a part of the set for the show\u2019s launch, with Oliver using it on rare occasions during the first two seasons.<\/p>\n

But Oliver\u2019s struggle with guest interviews wasn\u2019t a surprise to him. As he told fellow Daily Show<\/a> alum Noah, celebrity interviews had been a struggle for him dating back to his time guest-hosting the Comedy Central show.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the one part of that job I could never do, was talk to someone I had no interest in whatsoever,\u201d Oliver admitted. \u201cIt was the actors, was the problem for me\u2026 Oh man, that was tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d run out of things to say so quickly,\u201d Oliver continued, recalling an interview with one actor that felt like it had dragged on for some time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI looked over to [the floor manager] as if to say, \u2018Are we good?\u2019 and he said, \u2018You\u2019ve been going one minute.\u2019 Sixty human seconds, and I was all out of questions!\u201d<\/p>\n

Last Week Tonight wrapped Season 12 on November 16; Season 13 is expected to launch in February.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Screenshot: HBO Last Week Tonight\u2019s format could have looked a lot different if HBO hadn\u2019t \u201csaved\u201d John Oliver…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,2592,24109,140012,111,139,69,91665,437,140051],"class_list":{"0":"post-237229","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-hbo","10":"tag-john-oliver","11":"tag-last-week-tonight-with-john-oliver","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-trevor-noah","16":"tag-tv","17":"tag-what-now"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}