John Oliver
John William Oliver is a British and American comedian. He hosts Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on HBO and started his career as a stand-up comedian in the United Kingdom and came to wider attention for his work in the United States as the senior British correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart from 2006 to 2013. Oliver won three Primetime Emmy Awards for writing for The Daily Show and became its guest host for an eight-week period in 2013. He also co-hosted the comedy podcast The Bugle with Andy Zaltzman, with whom Oliver had previously worked on the radio series Political Animal and The Department. From 2010 to 2013, he hosted the stand-up series John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show on Comedy Central. His acting roles include Ian Duncan on the NBC sitcom Community, as well as voice work in the animated films The Smurfs, The Smurfs 2, and The Lion King remake.
As the host of Last Week Tonight since 2014, Oliver has received widespread critical and popular recognition for the series, including winning twenty Emmy Awards and two Peabody Awards. The show's influence over US culture, legislation, and policymaking has been dubbed the "John Oliver effect", and he was included in the 2015 Time 100, where he was described as a "comedic agent of change powerful because he isn't afraid to tackle important issues thoughtfully, without fear or apology". His work has been described as journalism or investigative journalism, labels that he rejects. He became an American citizen in 2019.
Early life
John William Oliver was born in the Birmingham suburb of Erdington on 23 April 1977, the son of music teacher Carole and school headmaster and social worker Jim Oliver. His mother is from Liverpool, while his father comes from the Wirral. He has a younger sister who lives in Australia. His uncle was the composer Stephen Oliver. He grew up in Bedford, where he attended the Mark Rutherford School and learned to play the viola. He was raised Anglican, but later told interviewer Terry Gross that he lapsed at the age of 12 after the death of a school friend and an uncle, followed by a feeling of receiving no useful answers from the church. In the mid-to-late 1990s, he studied at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he was a member of the Cambridge Footlights. His Footlights contemporaries included comedians David Mitchell and Richard Ayoade, and he became the club's vice president in 1997. He and Footlights president Ayoade wrote and performed in several productions together, appearing in both Footlights' 1997 and 1998 touring shows: Emotional Baggage and Between a Rock and a Hard Place. In 1998, Oliver graduated with a degree in English.Since childhood, he has been a fan of Liverpool F.C., noting in interviews that "my mum's family are from Knotty Ash and my dad's family are from the Wirral, so supporting Liverpool was very much not a choice".
Career
1985–2005: Early career
In 1985, Oliver made his first on-screen appearance playing Felix Pardiggle, a minor role in the BBC drama Bleak House. In an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers, he commented, "When I was six years old... wanted a kid with dark hair and brown eyes, and I was two-for-two on that". In 2001, Oliver appeared as a bank manager in series two of People Like Us. Oliver said in a later Seth Meyers appearance that one of his first paying jobs was writing for the British morning show The Big Breakfast.Oliver's first major stand-up appearance was at the 2001 Edinburgh Festival Fringe as part of the late-night showcase The Comedy Zone, where he played an "oleaginous journalist". Oliver frequently worked with other members of the comedian group the Chocolate Milk Gang, including Daniel Kitson, Russell Howard, David O'Doherty, and Alun Cochrane. His debut solo show was at the 2002 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and he returned the following year. In 2004 and 2005, he performed in a double act and co-hosted the political radio show Political Animal with Andy Zaltzman.
From 2002 to 2003, Oliver worked on the BBC Three comedy series The State We're In, along with Anita Rani, Jon Holmes, and Robin Ince. In 2003, Oliver manned the "results desk" on an election night episode of Armando Iannucci's satirical show Gash on Channel 4. In 2004, Oliver wrote and performed in the satirical radio programme The Department on BBC Radio 4 with Andy Zaltzman and Chris Addison. Starting in June 2005, Oliver made appearances on British television as a panellist on the satirical news show Mock the Week, and became a frequent guest on the first two series.
2006–2013: ''The Daily Show with Jon Stewart''
In July 2006, Oliver joined The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as its Senior British Correspondent. He says he was interviewed for the show on the recommendation of comedian Ricky Gervais, who had never met Oliver, but was familiar with his work. Two weeks after the interview, he got the job, flying from London to New York City on a Sunday and unexpectedly appearing on camera the next day. Oliver received Emmy Awards for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series for The Daily Show in 2009, 2011, and 2012.In 2007, Oliver wrote and presented a BBC America campaign to have viewers use closed captions. Shown in brief segments before shows, one of the campaign messages said, "The following program contains accents you would have heard a lot more if you hadn't thrown our tea into Boston Harbor," another "Not even British people can follow the British accent 100 per cent of the time. Therefore you, like me, might want to use closed-captioning." Oliver used some of these jokes in his stand-up routine.
After moving to New York City, Oliver began performing stand-up comedy in clubs, later headlining shows in larger venues. From October 2007 to May 2015, Oliver co-hosted The Bugle, a weekly comedy podcast, with Andy Zaltzman. Originally produced by The Times, it became an independent project in 2012. In 2008, John Oliver: Terrifying Times, his first stand-up special, premiered on Comedy Central. In 2009, Comedy Central announced that it would be ordering six episodes of the John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show, a series on Comedy Central that featured sets from himself and other comedians, including Janeane Garofalo, Brian Posehn, Paul F. Tompkins and Marc Maron. From 2010 to 2013, four seasons were produced. In 2013, he went to Afghanistan on a USO tour to perform for the troops. Oliver continues to perform stand-up.
File:Stephen Colbert and John Oliver.jpg|thumb|Oliver and Stephen Colbert at the Montclair Film Festival in New Jersey|left|alt=Photo of Oliver, wearing a dark suit, standing next to Colbert, wearing a tan suit, both laughing and standing in front of a press backdrop.
Oliver had a recurring role on the NBC sitcom Community as the professor of psychology Ian Duncan. Owing to his work at The Daily Show, he declined the offer to become a regular member of the cast, and did not appear in the third, fourth, or sixth seasons, but returned in season five, appearing in seven of its thirteen episodes. In 2008, Oliver played Dick Pants in The Love Guru, his first film role. He later voiced Vanity Smurf in The Smurfs film and its sequel. Oliver performed several roles in the 2009 Comedy Central series Important Things with Demetri Martin. In 2009, Oliver made a cameo appearance in the music video for The Fiery Furnaces' single "Even in the Rain".
Starting in June 2013, Oliver guest-hosted The Daily Show for eight weeks while Stewart directed his film Rosewater. Oliver's performance received positive reviews, with some critics suggesting that he should eventually succeed Stewart as the host, or receive his own show. CBS discussed the possibility of Oliver replacing Craig Ferguson on The Late Late Show. Three months after his role as the interim Daily Show host ended, HBO announced it was giving Oliver his own late-night show.
2014–present: ''Last Week Tonight with John Oliver''
In 2014, Oliver began hosting his late-night news satire show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. The show features thoroughly researched segments dedicated to topics or events in the news. His initial two-year contract was extended through to 2017 in 2015, to 2020 in September 2017, to 2023 in September 2020, and to 2026 in December 2023. Oliver has stated that he has full creative freedom, including free rein to criticise corporations, given HBO's ad-free subscription model. In 2015, Oliver was named one of Time 100 influential people of the year for his work on the show. Across the TV airings, DVR, on-demand, and HBO Go, Last Week Tonight averaged 4.1 million weekly viewers in its first season. In 2014, Last Week Tonight was honoured with a Peabody Award in the "Entertainment" category for "bringing satire and journalism even closer together". The show received a second award in 2017. The show has also won 26 Primetime Emmy Awards, five Writers Guild of America Awards, eight Producers Guild Awards, and three Critics' Choice Television Awards.Oliver has guest-starred in several TV shows, including The Simpsons as Booth Wilkes-John ; Gravity Falls as the voice of Sherlock Holmes ; Rick and Morty as an amoeba named Dr Xenon Bloom ; Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja as the voice of Coach Green ; My Hero as a man from the BBC ; Green Wing as a car salesman ; Big Mouth as the camp counsellor Harry ; and Bob's Burgers as a cat agent. Oliver was originally cast in 2010 to star in the Terry Jones film Absolutely Anything as Neil Clarke, but scheduling conflicts due to the debut of Last Week Tonight in 2014 led to the role being recast for Simon Pegg. In 2019, Oliver voiced the porcupine Steve in the CGI animated film Wonder Park and hornbill Zazu in the remake of Disney's The Lion King. From 2018 to 2019, Oliver worked as an executive producer for Wyatt Cenac's Problem Areas. On 30 August 2023, Oliver began hosting the comedy podcast Strike Force Five with Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers, to support their staff members out of work due to the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike.