Roy Wood Jr. Talks New Hulu Special ‘Lonely Flowers’

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Roy Wood Jr.’s latest special begins less with a joke and more with musings: “We’re not going to make it… Overall, as a society, we’re out of touch.” The comedian, known for nearly a decade of his sharp political debates The Daily ShowHe doesn’t talk about Trump or electoral politics at all. Instead, Lonely flowers examines how the threads of both large (gun violence) and small (rude customer service interactions) society have frayed.

That’s not to say he’s backed away from tackling the day’s news — he hosts CNN’s “Have I Got News For You,” the American adaptation of the long-running British series, along with panelists Amber Ruffin and Michael Ian Black .

“The cool thing about it is that they give us, and I say us, I mean myself, Michael Ian Black and Amber Ruffin, the freedom to tell the jokes that we want to tell.” And we’re in no way attached to anything tied to what’s going on within the network,” explains Wood Jr. during our phone conversation.

As for political comedy in the age of Trump 2.0, it depends on whether Trump does all the terrible things he promised. “I think where the comedy goes with Trump depends on how many of his policies he can actually get through and how heinous they are.

“You know, if we’re in Week 1, it’s a deportation gang and it’s ugly and it’s bad. Then I think the idea of ​​just calling Trump crazy and silly as a joke premise is, in my opinion, worthless because that hasn’t done us anything yet.”

But Lonely flowers It’s more about documenting a larger cultural change and less about the details of the political world. “I just feel like it was after Covid, not during Covid, but after Covid ended. But I feel like we just weren’t connected as people… I also deliberately didn’t talk about politics in the special. I wanted to talk about the state of society and people and where we are as people right now.”

Wood Jr. was a Daily Show He was a correspondent for eight years and was a fan favorite as host of the show after Trevor Noah’s departure, even before he was celebrated as host of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. But as indecision over Noah’s replacement dragged on, Wood Jr. decided to leave the show in 2023.

At this point he didn’t have a plan. This uncertainty, he explains, is simply part of being a comedian. “I had a radio show on Twitter that I got fired from. It happens. I had a sitcom on TBS. I got a handshake from the head of the network that we would get a fourth season. Two weeks later I found out we were canceled.

“So you know, the idea of ​​being scared or not knowing what I’m going to do next is the only difference between me Daily Show After my departure and other moments in my career when I wasn’t sure if I could at least make a decision this time.”

Lonely flowers was released on January 17th and is streaming on Hulu. You can also stream “Have I Got News for You” on Max the day after it airs with the Disney+/Hulu/Max bundle.