Joel McHale hilarious host of The Soup (and star of Community and the upcoming The X-Files reboot) the goss on what’s going down in his world.
In the past, you paid out Ryan Seacrest… a lot! Does he love or hate you?
“I am so insignificant in his world. He has made more money and he never needs
to care about anything again, so I am only contributing to his brand if I make fun of him. But he’s not around [the E! studios] much. He only does the red carpets and you don’t ever really see him.”
On The Soup, who did you enjoy poking fun at the most??
“There’s no-one that I go ‘Yeah, let’s get ’em.’ It’s whoever is being louder than the already very loud world of Hollywood. There’s shows that I like to make fun of, like a new show called Treetop Cat Rescue.”
Who is your favourite Kardashian?
“Who’s the one that we don’t ever see? Rob!”
The Soup used to be recorded live. How do you handle that
“I got pretty drunk [laughs]. No, I’m super dyslexic, so I’m terrible at reading, but I have gotten better at it. I couldn’t have done a live show 10 years ago, there’s no way. But I never get nervous anymore because I’ve hosted the White House Correspondents’ dinner – oh look, now I’m just dropping my accomplishments! But really, I don’t get nervous anymore. All I care about is that if the jokes are really funny.”
You recently shot The X-Files. Who is sexier – Gillian Anderson or David Duchovny?
“Gillian by a mile. But David has aged great. He’s not my type because he’s a man, so she is super attractive. He is good-looking, but I wouldn’t ask him out. But I’ll let him know that you’re interested!”
What’s your most annoying trait?
“I wish I could remember things. People come up to me and go, ‘Hey man, how’s it going?’ and I have no idea who’s talking to me. I go, ‘Great’. I never say, ‘It’s great to meet you’, because they say, ‘We had dinner last week…’ and then you’re like, ‘OK… I don’t remember’. I have 27 first cousins and I don’t know their names. I’m like, ‘I know this one is Chris. It’s gotta be Chris.’”
What about your worst habit?
“Probably drinking too much! I love wine. I was at the Melbourne Cup and drank a lot of Australian wine. Clonakilla, is that what it’s called? That stuff’s good.”
What’s the weirdest thing a heckler has ever said to you at a stand-up show?
“I had a weird one recently. He wasn’t really a heckler, but he wasn’t laughing and he wasn’t upset; he was just smiling ear to ear the whole time. It was like, ‘Are you going to murder me? What’s going on?’ It was creepy.”
Is that as nail-biting as it sounds?
“Well, we call it Treetop Slingshot, because often as they’re trying to grab
the cats, they’re pulling branches, the cat bites them, they lose control. So that’s pretty hilarious.”
Words by: Josie Rozenberg-Clarke
