Their specials may wade into bleaker territory but the six top comics gathered for THR’s Stand-Up Emmy Roundtable spent most of their time together in stitches.
Over the course of an hour, Jamie Foxx, Chelsea Handler, Seth Meyers, Hasan Minhaj, Sarah Silverman and Roy Wood Jr. regaled each other with intimate and often hilarious tales of bombing on the world’s biggest stages, finding comedy in their darkest moments and, in the case of Minhaj, losing his dream job at Comedy Central.
While discussing the latter, Wood, who had been at The Daily Show, where he, too, had been in contention for the host gig, revealed what it was like to still be at the show when Minhaj’s offer was rescinded. “Nobody would give any details and we were all trying to figure out, ‘Well, if it’s not going to be Hasan, who’s it going to be? Should I stay? Well, what happened to Hasan?’” recalled Wood. “It was just, ‘We’re going to reopen the search.’ Nobody could even put into words what it was you were being accused of.”
It was Foxx, however, who was arguably most forthcoming during the mid-April afternoon shoot, recounting his recent, near-death experience, including the period during which he was in the hospital reading and believing the conspiracy theories about him. “When they said I was a clone, that made me flip. I’m sitting in the hospital bed like, ‘These bitch-ass motherfuckers are trying to clone me,’” he said. “And then I saw me walk into my room, but I’m white, so I see the white me. The next morning, I said, ‘I know what’s up, I saw the white clone and I know why you trying to clone me and make me white because I’ll sell better overseas.’ The psychiatrist just calmly goes, ‘I think we’re going to lower your dosage.’”
At other points during the hour, Silverman opened up about the tonal tightrope she walked with her latest Netflix hour, which centers on the recent death of her parents; Handler spoke candidly about the challenges of making comedy in the Trump area; and Meyers revealed his fears of his stand-up audience showing up and expecting political material when he’d prefer to leave that for Late Night.
As the wide-ranging conversation was approaching its end, Wood seized the opportunity to offer a long-overdue apology to Handler. “In 2008, I think, I came on [your E! series] Chelsea Lately and I was very dismissive about celebrity news as a thing to make humor about. As a result, I was never booked on Chelsea Lately again,” he said, adding: “Having now worked on CNN for 20 episodes [Wood hosts Have I Got News For You], and having guests who don’t give a fuck about the topic that the fucking show is about, is hard. And I’m sorry.” While touched by both the admission and the apology, Handler seemed to have no recollection of the event: “But yes, I hear what you’re saying, you have to respect the show you’re on.”
Watch the full Emmy roundtables on IFC on Fridays at 9 p.m. PT/12 a.m. ET or stream it on AMC+. THR Emmy Roundtables will be rolling out in print and online for the next five weeks. In addition to catching broadcast episodes of Off Script With The Hollywood Reporter on Fridays, look for complete videos of each Roundtable on THR.com and YouTube on Sundays through June 22.
