The Exchanges

Q When was it clear that this thing was real and Scary. And when did you decide to just go for it and just start filming from home? Like, how did you guys come to that decision?

A I think that really March 11th, March 12th was a really critical period where a lot of people all at the same time realized that something big was really happening. And that was the moment when we, we got kicked out of our studio. Basically we shot our last show, I think on March 11th, but the, the building kind of closed around us cause they had found a couple of COVID cases in the building itself, and so they were evacuating the building as we were taping the show, and that moment, really, we knew that we would not be in the studio the following week. Everything started to shut down around us, and so we really advised people. We were like, grab your stuff, grab what you need, and go, and we did the same. Jason and I, we packed a suitcase, not really knowing that we would shoot the show, And at our house, we didn't, I didn't do a good job packing. I packed, like, five blazers and a bunch of high-heeled shoes. Like, I just panic shopped my apartment, and as we were up there for a couple of days, we really had no plan, except could we possibly shoot the show from up here? Like, I don't know. But then after a couple of days up there, Jason and I decided to just start shooting stuff, just because we wanted to mark the moment where we were just living up there, and What if I was like a woods woman living in the shack behind our, behind our garden? And so we just started shooting st…

AI assessment note: “March 11th, March 12th was a really critical period where a lot of people”

Q Um, you have a team, a big team that produces the show, I think, like, 70 people, so first of all, how have you been managing that And how has your team been managing through this?

A Um, I think, you know, everybody's been doing incredible work, you know, in the most anxiety riddled of circumstances. Everybody has their own personal life that they're also bringing to the table every day, which everybody's really frightened, and people live with varying degrees of privacy. I mean, we have lots of young people on staff who have roommates, and everybody's kind of Clustered in small apartments, so it's really difficult to not have a central place to go and make the show. We all can work very independently. We've proven that. I think the social stress is pretty acute. It's not that you have to be together to do this show, but we prefer to be together, and so that part has actually been, I think, pretty stressful.

AI assessment note: “everybody's been doing incredible work, you know, in the most anxiety riddled of circumstances”

Q Is there anything about the approach that you've taken these past few months, like where you couldn't focus on like perfect lighting or perfect set or You just had to do it. Is there anything about that approach that eventually you want to take back or that you will take back with you when you are in a more controlled environment?

A I think so. There are ways that we have changed the process of taping that makes sense for me to continue. Like normally we would, if we were in the studio, by way of example, on a normal Wednesday, we would do a rehearsal, a full rehearsal of the show around noon, 12 30, something like that. And then we do a long huddle, like a Three-hour huddle where we rewrite the show, because often a joke is so funny, and it looks great on the page, but when you say it out loud in a big, huge studio space, it just doesn't land the way you want it to, or I don't nail it, or something, and we're like, let's tweak that, so we make all of these little tweaks and adjustments, and then, of course, the audience comes in, and then a performance is very much for the audience, like it's, there's a community experience of it, and you're kind of Surfing the wave of their enthusiasm. It's a totally different type of experience. So adjusting the show, we now tape, we have to tape on Tuesday because the edit process takes an immense amount of time. It's a totally different experience of editing. So we have to do it a day before. So we don't have an opportunity to add jokes Wednesday morning or Wednesday at four o'clock. If something happens in the news, we can't quite pivot that quickly, but I don't I don't regret that. I can see now that maybe we don't need to do it that way. Maybe giving ourselves a da…

AI assessment note: “There are ways that we have changed the process of taping that makes sense”

Q Um, on a recent episode, you had, um, the New Yorker journalist Jelani Cobb on, and you asked him, if you go back in time and delete certain social media platforms, um, which ones would they be? You are very familiar with the pitfalls and the perils of social media. Like, what would you, if you could go back in time and change it, what would you do?

A Boy, I would, uh, I would just delete Facebook. I mean, I never was a Facebook person, but, um, it's just done so much damage, not just in our own country, but across the world. I mean, it's, there are countries across the world in which Facebook is, like, considered to be the government, practically. It's the only resource people have to communicate and to understand the world that they're living in, and I think that's very dangerous. You know, they just built a piece of machinery that they really did not understand its capabilities. I've never really understood why it came into people's lives, and they were so willing to give it all of their personal information. I've just never understood the function of it in someone's life, and I think it's done immense damage. So I would, um, that's one that I would really take a look at.

AI assessment note: “Boy, I would, uh, I would just delete Facebook.”

Q How has it been for you to, you know, not performing in front of an audience? Like, you know, you make a joke and you wonder, is anybody laughing or watching? Like, How do you, like, how are you managing that? Are you just.

A I'm not, you know, I don't come from a standup background. It's natural for me to work the crowd in my way of doing live to tape performance, and I certainly learned how to do that working at The Daily Show for a really long time, so I'm really good at it, and I enjoy that. I enjoy that back and forth with the audience. I really enjoy that kind of communion with them, but I don't need it I think I don't need it. Like, I think I have a good sense of what the rhythm of the show is without them, and if it's not safe to have an audience, and it's not, it's just not prudent to do that, I love our audience. I don't want to put them at risk, and I don't want to put our crew at risk, so we're not going to have an audience for a really long time. Really, who knows? If I recall correctly, when I started this show, I didn't really want to have a live audience. I didn't think it was necessary for what I wanted to do. In the end, I did decide to have a live studio audience, and, and it was really great, and I got a lot out of it, and I really enjoyed meeting people, because I really, really do enjoy that, but I can easily go back to not having an audience, because I do feel the audience somewhat. It's fine to do the show in the forest. It's a little weird to do it just for my husband, because he is, he's wildly supportive, he's like my biggest fan, of course, we've been married for 20 years…

AI assessment note: “I don't need it. Like, I think I have a good sense of what the rhythm”

Q dark time. I mean, it's been, like, the king of bad years in recent years. Um, obviously, I mean, you, you provide us with comic relief. Like, we come to you to, um, laugh. Like, that is what you do for us. But what about you? How do you, like, I mean, do you just have days where you just want to, like, hide under the covers and, like, cry?

A Of course. Of course. Oh, yes. I'm still, I do, this is my job. I do a comedy show. I love doing it. In some ways, like, if I wasn't making this show for broadcast, I'd probably be trying to make this show just for myself and my family. So it's a very natural, like, organic extension of who I am, but I'm, it's a rollercoaster ride. We don't, ultimately, we're very lucky. We're healthy. We're in a house. We're safe, so we're counting our blessings for one thing. We're working, which is an additional blessing, so I'm, like, really trying to be mindful of all the things that we do have to be thankful for, and of course, we're going through an absolute rollercoaster of emotion, because we're Ultimately human too, and we watch the news. We don't watch the news right now because we don't have any power, but I think maybe that's a blessing too.

AI assessment note: “Of course. Of course. Oh, yes.”