On second thought, Trevor Noah has decided to host another podcast.
Noah, who left Comedy Central and The Daily Show behind a year ago, previously hosted a podcast for Luminary in 2019 called On Second Thought, and now is back this time with Spotify and What Now? where his first guest is Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. On the show’s premiere episode Thursday, Johnson told Noah about political parties pitching him on a presidential run last year, the blowback he received earlier this year when he tried asking the masses for money to help Maui fire victims, and how the movie star and wrestler has dealt with depression.
Introducing listeners to his newest venture, Noah said he feels like the world is in a dangerous moment where “discussing how to navigate the minefield was as dangerous as the minefield itself.” Not that you’d ever get that sense listening to Noah and Johnson chat for about an hour.
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It’s part of the sales pitch that Noah wants to prove celebrities can talk about anything. Noble, to be sure. But not necessarily novel, particularly in an increasingly flooded podcast ecosystem.
Even among just former late-night TV hosts, Noah joins a club that already includes Conan O’Brien, Craig Ferguson, Chelsea Handler, Sarah Silverman, and Busy Philipps. Stephen Colbert also hosts a separate interview podcast in addition to his regularly scheduled Late Show on CBS. And don’t forget about the recently concluded Strike Force Five.
Just yesterday, SiriusXM held a star-studded event in Manhattan to relaunch the satellite radio giant’s new-and-improved app (coming mid-December), leaning into its emphasis on big names with a star-infused logo and several famous faces appearing before the media and investors, including its first and still biggest get, Howard Stern, as well as O’Brien, Kevin Hart, Andy Cohen, and a video announcement from yet another former late-night talk show host, James Corden, revealing that he too will get into the weekly podcast game in 2024.
What now, indeed.
While ad-libbing comedic gems at SiriusXM’s event, Hart claimed he gets the most satisfaction from his Laugh Out Loud radio channel by hosting his own podcast, Gold Minds. “It’s my job now that I embrace at the highest level, because I basically get to talk to a variety of people, from stars to entrepreneurs to all people in the business,” he said. “People need to hear that dreams do come true. People need to hear of the success stories. People need to hear that some paths are untraditional. And ultimately when you talk to people in an unconventional way with no program, with no script, you’ll find those serve as the best moments for the best conversations.”
If you have a gimmick—such as eating progressively hotter-sauced chicken wings while Sean Evans interrogates you on Hot Ones—then people will tune in just to see that.
Otherwise, what’s the difference between hearing Arnold Schwarzenegger promote his new memoir on Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend, WTF with Marc Maron, Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade, Literally! With Rob Lowe, The Tim Ferriss Show and several other podcasts last month when you may also have seen the ex-Governator talk about his book on TV via Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The View, The Kelly Clarkson Show, The Graham Norton Show and on and on?
To be fair, Schwarzenegger wants people to read his book and his publicists want to reach as many potential readers and book-buyers as possible. And at least some interviewers can tap into personal connections with their guests—such as Dana Carvey, whose “Hans & Franz” sketches on Saturday Night Live clearly found inspiration from Schwarzenegger and came closer than previously known to becoming a comedy movie vehicle for the action star.
But talk is cheap and so much cheaper to produce now.
Noah said he started his Spotify podcast because, as he put it, “So many of us have opinions and ideas about the world that we live in that we are either unable or unwilling or too scared to share. And I thought to myself. If we cannot have conversations about difficult things, if the conversations themselves are now the difficult things, then what hope do we have of fixing the difficult things?”
But at least in his first episode, the conversation was far from difficult. Noah could have asked Johnson why he and Oprah Winfrey didn’t just fund the Maui fire relief themselves. Instead, Noah merely asked Johnson how the criticism made him feel, without following up to get into how much should be expected of the rich and famous versus the rest of us.
And yet, when we look back on Noah’s time at The Daily Show, what is it we remember most: His prepared remarks with his celebrity guests? Or his off-the-cuff replies to queries from his live studio audience? Notably, Noah’s first and (so far) only Emmy Award comes from the latter via his “Between The Scenes” riffs.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Noah said he missed having his Comedy Central pulpit when Lizzo began facing legal threats from her dancers. “I would’ve loved to have had a candid conversation about that,” Noah told THR. “It’s like, how do we see work? How do we see how people are treated in work? What is the expectation and the idea of how people should or shouldn’t feel, and how applicable is that? I think it’s an interesting and complicated conversation to have.”
So when can we expect to hear these difficult conversations? And can we ever expect celebrities to be the ones starting them?
