If Jon Stewart looks and sounds a bit more British this summer, that’s because John Oliver will be playing the role of “Jon Stewart” in Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Stewart is taking eight weeks off from the show this summer (plus the additional four weeks the show usually breaks from June through September) to write and direct the movie, Rosewater. Not so coincidentally, Stewart’s first feature film as a writer/director is based on a true story straight out of The Daily Show.
He has adapted the book, “Then They Came for Me: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival” by Iranian journalist Maziar Bahari. Bahari spent 118 days in jail in Iran when authorities there accused him of being a spy — after Comedy Central’s Jason Jones interviewed him for the show in a dramatic trip to Iran in 2009. You can watch that segment again here and now.
Bahari subsequently appearead on The Daily Show several times (here, here, here and here) to talk about his saga with Stewart. So this obviously is a personal and professional project for both men.
Is Comedy Central prepping John Oliver for his own spin-off by giving him the full run at The Daily Show anchor chair?
When Stewart took a break years ago, several of his “correspondents” substituted for him. Among them: Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell.