John Oliver
John Oliver
John William Oliver is an English comedian, political commentator, television host, and occasional actor. He is widely known in the United States for hosting HBO's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and for his work on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He co-hosted the satirical comedy podcast The Bugle and hosted John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show on Comedy Central...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth23 April 1977
vacation relax i-can
I can't relax. I find vacations problematic.
australia slippers racist
Australia turns out to be a sensational place, albeit one of the most comfortably racist places I've ever been in. They've really settled into their intolerance like an old resentful slipper.
eye thinking talking
I think being an outsider in general always helps you in comedy. I think it helps to have an outsider's eye. And so I have an outsider's voice. You know, as soon as I start talking, I don't belong here. And I think that helps in a way.
world asking answers
If you're asking me, would I have voted for Mitt Romney, the answer is absolutely not. Emphatically not. I cannot envision a world in which I would have voted for Mitt Romney unless I sustained a massive concussion.
powerful emotion kind
I'm British, so obviously I repress any powerful emotions of any kind in relation to anything.
two people listening
In improv, the whole thing is that it is a relationship between the two people, as a back and forth. In standup, you don't really want to be listening to what somebody is saying; you want to project your jokes into their face.
queens voice ears
My family are from Liverpool, so I have some twang there - I have a Midlands accent, and I was raised about an hour north of London, so my voice is a mess. Although, to American ears, it sounds like the crisp language of a queen's butler.
character people cartoon
People in Britain see Richard Quest as a kind of an offensive cartoon character.
jobs writing jokes
You can write jokes at any point of the day. Jokes are not that hard to write, or they shouldn't be when it is literally your job.
live-life visa
It's pretty physically unsettling, living life on a visa.
moral-high-ground wells reporters
You know that things are not going well when you lose the moral high ground to a TMZ reporter,
finding-yourself age lines
The poverty line is like the age of consent: if you find yourself parsing exactly where it is, you’ve probably already done something very, very wrong.
addiction beast
Stand-up, for me, is really more of an addiction, so you have to feed the beast whenever you can.
america wonderful stable
I would much rather America was a more stable, wonderful place. You know, I love it.