Roy Wood Jr. Speaks Out After ‘Daily Show’ Exit, Defends Hasan Minhaj and Questions the Future of Late-Night TV
variety.comBrian Steinberg Senior TV Editor During the recently ended writers strike, many people who worked on the staffs of TV’s late-night shows wished things would get back to normal.
Roy Wood Jr. was surprised to find that he was not one of them. Wood, one of the team of faux news correspondents on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” since 2015, says the strike got him thinking about his place at the venerable series — and about late-night TV in general.
He decided to exit, even though he has been seen in some circles as a candidate to take over as host of the program, which has been without a steady on-air leader since Trevor Noah left in late 2022. “I do not believe late-night as we know it will be the way we continue,” Wood tells Variety. “Budgets are changing, and we are going into the age of some people, demographically, who did not necessarily always grow up with late night.
So how do you engage those people and bring those people to the art form?” It’s an idea Wood says he wants to consider, and could not tackle if he were to remain with the program — especially with the network in the midst of what has become a protracted selection extravaganza, one that has tapped guests ranging from Sarah Silverman to Marlon Wayans. “What was clear to me with Comedy Central is just that choosing a host is going to take a lot longer than the time I need to get answers,” says Wood.
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