The Morning Show, Apple TV Plus’ freshman hit, has finally returned for its second season on Friday and brought with it a gaggle of stunning new talent to its already stunning ensemble, including Juliana Margulies, Will Arnett, Greta Lee, Holland Taylor, and Hasan Minhaj.
In this new season, Hasan plays Eric Nomani, a rising star who joins the team as Bradley Jackson’s (Reese Witherspoon) new co-anchor, helping her deliver that odd combination of hard news and embarrassing hijinks that The Morning Show demands.
In this Goggler exclusive, we speak to Hasan about why fiction, more so than the news, has become an important tool to help us cut through all of the noise.
Umapagan Ampikaipakan: Hasan, I’m still not over Patriot Act.
Hasan Minhaj: *LAUGHS*
UA: You’ve been a part of an actual news magazine show and now you’re part of this fictional one. I’m watching Season 2 of The Morning Show and thinking that these are topics that you would have covered on The Daily Show and even on Patriot Act. Why do you think these mediums have become so important in getting this message out? Whether it’s the “fake” news programmes or fiction TV shows.
HM: I think when you look at what I’ve worked on before, The Daily Show and Patriot Act, so much of it was synthesizing coffee into espresso. “Hey, here’s what’s happening in the world. Let me synthesize this down into comedy espresso. 15 minutes. 25 minutes. This is a bite sized piece of infotainment for you to understand what’s happening in the world.” A big, splashy, amazingly well written and well directed show like the Morning Show is more of a human exploration on the internal flaws that we all have as human beings.
I think so much of what’s happening right now in culture, whether it’s what’s happening on Internet, through social media discourse or the way in which, you know, the context collapse is happening through two hundred eighty characters or clickbait journalism. This show is an exploration of the actual humanity that people have in regards to these issues, to what extent are we explicitly or implicitly a part of the problem? And how do we forgive others and ourselves? That’s something that’s not happening on the Internet right now.
What I love most about The Morning Show is you have an hour to explore these characters. It’s not explicitly telling you how you should feel about these topics. It’s saying, “Hey, look at the way Eric is handling this. Look at the way Alex is handling this. Bradley. Corey.” And I think we can all see ourselves a little bit in all of these characters.
UA: You’re absolutely right. We’re all subjected to what I can only call epistemic violence on a daily basis. Whether it’s on the web, or on social media, it feels like everyone’s channeling Paddy Chayefsky and collectively screaming: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” How do you, as a performer, as a comedian, navigate that in America right now?
HM: So I think one of the things that I personally navigate as Hasan Minhaj, and this is my core philosophy, because every day I try to comport with two realities. To what extent can I change the world and to what extent can I change my world? And what I mean by that is my world. I, Hasan Minhaj, my wife Beena Patel, and my two children, that is my world. And I think what’s really important for myself, and this is just me checking myself, is that it’s not about the way in which blue check Twitter or blue check Instagram adjudicates me. It’s the people around me that matter the most and it’s their assessment of me.
And I think everybody on this call right now, we all have a blue check personality of who we are. And then there’s iMessage you. That’s who you really are. There’s WhatsApp you and the people on WhatsApp who really, really know who you are. That is what matters.
The Morning Show, Season 2, is an exploration on iMessage and WhatsApp you. Who is Mitch Kessler? Truly. Who is Eric Nomani. Truly. Who is Bradley Jackson? Who is Hasan Minhaj? Truly. That’s what interested me the most in this project as an artist. And I think we all have to ask ourselves, who are we truly? I’m not here to tell you who you are. I’m here to make that right between me, Beena, and my kids. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Who I really am.
UA: Thank you so much. Also… Patriot Act… you were robbed man. Robbed!
HM: Thanks man. I appreciate you. I’ll see you on tour man. I need to come to Malaysia. I’m going to get Ronnie Chieng and we’re going to come to Kuala Lumpur.
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