Hasan Minhaj on going from The Daily Show to The Morning Show

If you really think about it, making the move to The Morning Show was a natural move for comedian, actor, and host Hasan Minhaj. After all, he’s been playing a pretend news anchor for years now on shows like The Daily Show. Making the jump to wholly fictional content would probably be a pretty easy step.

We talked to Minhaj via Zoom recently and asked him about his upcoming multi-episode arc on The Morning Show. “I feel like the past seven years of my career, I’ve spent so much time playing a fake TV news anchor,” said Minhaj. “I had no problem looking down the barrel of the camera and reading prompter. That was super easy. The new part was having to do a song and dance number with Reese Witherspoon and then having to do intense drama scenes with both Reese and Jennifer Aniston, which was really fun.”

Speaking of Aniston, Minhaj said it was pretty surreal acting with the sitcom icon, saying, “On day two, I had to do this very intense argument scene with Jennifer Aniston. My character is Eric and she’s obviously Alex Levy on the show, but in the middle of the scene, I was like, “is Rachel from Friends mad at me? I kind of had to be like, “no, no, no. You’re acting in a scene. She’s not mad at you. She’s mad at Eric.”

Minhaj also told us that, for The Morning Show, he was focused on capturing the “camp” of “fun and quippy morning TV,” from song and dance numbers to goofy banter between the two anchors sharing the desk. He said it’s “a little bit more sincere” than Patriot Act and The Daily Show, but fans of The Morning Show, now in its second season, probably know that already.

The new season of The Morning Show kicks off this Friday, September 17 on Apple TV+.