John Oliver has opened up about the origins behind his “strange” obsession with Adam Driver and the star’s hilarious appearance on his talk show.
The Star Wars actor appeared on Last Week Tonight on Sunday (15 November), calling in to confront Oliver over his infatuation with him.
Driver was less than impressed by the host’s comments that had become a common theme throughout the show’s seventh season.
“This bit? This bit, this thing you’ve been doing that’s either sexual or violent. This strange, strange bit that for some reason you’ve pulled me into,” said the actor.
On Wednesday’s episode (25 November) of Late Night with Seth Meyers, Oliver told viewers the story behind the long-running joke and how he had convinced Driver to take part in the bit.
He explained how the “initial seed” of the joke, which sees Oliver imploring Driver to “demolish him” in various ways, came out of “absolutely nowhere”.
It was when viewers reacted with mixed feelings that Oliver decided to troll his audience by continuing it.
“The water on that seed was, back when we had an audience, feeling real resistance from the audience at the joke,” said Oliver. “It felt like about 40 per cent enjoyed it. It logged in my head as: ‘Let’s try and do this again.’
“So we did it as a callback a few weeks later, and they weren’t really happy to have it back. And so at that point, it became something of an obsession in our staff.”
The joke began in February when Oliver said: “Step on my throat, Adam Driver, you rudely large man. Break my fingers, you brooding mountain.”
It reoccurred throughout the series in a number of instances, including Oliver demanding that Driver “shatter my knees, you f***able redwood” and “ravage my lungs, you relentless hillock”.
The show’s season seven finale saw Driver call into the programme to put an end to the joke. The actor feigned outrage at being included in the “strange, strange bit”.
Oliver told Meyers that he and his staff had reached out to Driver asking him if he would consider appearing on Last Week Tonight in a sketch.
“A few months into the bit… we reached out to him and said, ‘I don’t know if you know what we’ve been doing,’” he recalled. “‘We’ve been making some comments about you, and would you hypothetically be interested in responding towards the end of the year?’
“Then the reply came in: ‘He has heard about it, he thinks it’s very strange and he’s in.’”
The two talk show hosts went on to commend Driver for his acting skills that were well demonstrated in the hilarious sketch.
