Moontower Preview! Hasan Minhaj Talks About Jon Stewart and Trevor Noah
Last year Hasan Minhaj was great at Moontower Comedy Festival and this year he’s coming back as a Daily Show correspondent. Minhaj got his gig with the show this December, at the same time as Trevor Noah was hired. Now just 5 months into his time with the show, Hasan has created memorable pieces, and learned so much. He’s also going to be on board for the changing of the guard, as Stewart says goodbye to the show and Trevor Noah takes over as the new host. We got to talk with Hasan and ask him about working at the Daily Show during such an exciting time, and about Moontower.
The IBang: You recently did a podcast about The Daily Show where you and a co-worker talked about some of the challenges of working there. What are some of the new skills you’ve had to learn since you started in December?
Hasan Minhaj: I think one of the big skills I had to learn here, is how important field is; how important it is to interview people. And you have to kind of put on a producer hat in the sense that you’re not only a performer but you’re writing the pieces, you’re writing the questions, and then once you grab all the footage from those interviews you have to play producer/editor and kind of edit that thing down with your field producer. So you’re wearing lot of different hats: performer, editor, producer, writer, it’s pretty intense.
The IBang: On Twitter you referred to your most recent Daily Show piece as a bucket list moment. What was it about that piece that was so great?
Hasan Minhaj: I got to do everything in all sound effects. I think a ten year old Hasan Minhaj would be so thrilled to see me doing a three and a half minute piece dedicated solely to the sound effects and explosions and video game characters. It’s one of those things…why I’m so grateful to Jon is because he allows us, the correspondents, to have that room to play and I get to do really really fun stuff while he plays straight man.
The IBang: Is it intimidating to play off him?
Hasan Minhaj: Jon is so good about being ‘hey you go be the funny person in this and let me play straight man, let me play old dude, let me play guy who is out of touch’ all those things are things that he encourages, and I feel very lucky in that regard that he is so open to that and it’s pretty awesome. He’s one of the most giving performers. When you share the screen with him all he does is set you up which is awesome.
The IBang: How has working for the show influenced your stand up?
Hasan Minhaj: A lot in the sense that, it’s less about ‘oh okay let me just make the joke’ and its more about ‘let me construct the soundest argument and then build jokes around that.’ And I think I had to rejigger my brain to think of things that way. To start with the argument itself and then do jokes, rather than do jokes and then kind of build an argument around it.
The IBang: Do you look to change people’s minds in your stand up?
Hasan Minhaj: I don’t know if I look to change people’s minds. What I really want to do is just share my narrative and be like, this is what I’ve experienced. I don’t know if you’ve felt this, but this is what I’ve experienced and then go from there.
The IBang: You and Trevor Noah came in together, does that create a bond between the two of you?
Hasan Minhaj: Because we were both hired at the same time, we kind of very much have a kinship. Like ‘Hey, we both joined this thing at the same time.’ So to see him take off and succeed and become the host of the show is really really awesome.
The IBang: Is Trevor Noah a good pick for the next host of The Daily Show?
Hasan Minhaj: I think he’s phenomenal. I just opened for him this past weekend, at Levity Live in West Nyack, and I was so impressed. His intelligence, empathy, humor, the subject matter that he’s hitting. I dont know a lot of headlining comedians at his age that are talking about Walter Scott, Charlie Hebdo, Treyvon Martin, then global politics and apartheid, then the ability to do act outs and voices, and go from Obama to Mandela, to playing a southern belle talking to him in Lexington KY, he has that range coupled with– and I’m saying this as me, maybe it’s not how everybody else feels– but I think he’s also incredibly charming and very good looking. The package together, I think at 31- he’s in a great spot. I don’t think anyone can ever really replace Jon Stewart, but that took time to build and obviously for Jon to become the Jedi he is, that took years and years of experience. But I do think he has the seeds of greatness inside of him.
The IBang: How do you think the direction of the show will change with Trevor as host?
Hasan Minhaj: I think one thing will definitely happen is the same thing Oliver brought to his show. That now the lense is from the outside in rather than from the inside out. What I mean by that is that for the longest time, shows were helmed by domestic voices, so this is an American’s perspective on the world. And now, it’s like ‘Hey, this is the world’s perspective on America.’ And I don’t know how America is going to feel about that, but I’m really excited and I think that dialog is necessary. Because the rest of the world always has to reckon with our influence; our movies, our culture, our music, our whatever. They always have to kind of have theirs, and absorb. Now I think that those things are going to be a two way street. So I think that’s a really really good thing.
The IBang: You’re going to Moontower this weekend. What’s that like?
Hasan Minhaj: I think Austin is just a great city and I love that Moontower is a festival that is dedicated solely to stand up. That’s pretty awesome that it’s like, hey we’re here just for this. It’s pretty great. It’s also really fun, the comics are fantastic, and it’s a really good time, I’m really excited. For me it always feels a little like comedy summer camp.
Hasan Minhaj will be performing four shows on Friday and Saturday night at the Moontower Comedy and Oddity Festival. You can catch him at Stars in Bars and Supershow on Friday night and Stars in Bars and Four Eyes on Saturday night. You can get information on the shows and ticketing information right here!
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