John Oliver On Close Bond With Fellow Late-Night Hosts & Winning Emmy Against ‘SNL’

deadline.com:

Carrying his two new Emmys awards, John Oliver was making his way through the packed HBO afterparty Monday night when he stopped to speak with Deadline about his relationship with fellow late-night hosts Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers.

Together, they launched a limited series podcast, Strike Force Five, during the WGA strike to support their crew members who had been out of work because the shows had shut down due to the strike. “Honestly the dynamic had less to do with the podcast and more to do with the fact that the strike was so stressful, it was nice to be able to actually lean on each other a little bit,” Oliver said about the quintet staying in constant communication during the work stoppage. “Not even necessarily anything to do with the podcast, just talking to each other regularly on Zoom.” Oliver noted the frosty relationship between then-top late-night hosts during the 2007-08 WGA strike when the shows eventually returned on the air, one by one, without writers.

It didn’t happen this time thanks to efforts to support struggling crew members via other means, including Strike Force Five. “It was so fractured the last night in 2008 because the hosts hated each other, and it was really helpful to be able to just lean on each other during that difficult time,” Oliver said. “The most useful thing was just being able before and during the strike to constantly be in contact with each other to make sure that we were all on the same page and we could keep the shows off the air.

For that, it was massively useful.” The close personal relationship between the five hosts has continued post-strike with them staying in a group chat together, Oliver revealed.