Inside ‘The Daily Show': The team behind the satirical news series on politics, puppies, punchlines — and staying sane
Since its debut in 1996, The Daily Show has been a cornerstone of political satire and late-night comedy. Under Jon Stewart's iconic leadership from 1999 to 2015, it evolved into a cultural phenomenon that reshaped how America engages with the news. After Stewart stepped down from his daily hosting duties, Trevor Noah took over the news desk. Following Noah's departure, Stewart made a return in 2024 as a weekly guest host on Mondays, joining a dynamic team of rotating hosts — Jordan Klepper, Desi Lydic, Ronny Chieng, Michael Kosta — and correspondents Troy Iwata, Josh Johnson and Grace Kuhlenschmidt. Each brings their own sharp perspective to the desk and in the field, continuing the show's tradition of blending humor with hard-hitting commentary. The Daily Show won two 2024 Emmy Awards for Best Talk Series and Best Picture Editing for Variety Programming from seven nominations, as well as the 2023 Emmy Award for Best Talk Series.
In this candid Q&A with Gold Derby, the current team shares stories about working with Stewart, their first days on the show, memorable fan encounters, favorite segments, and how they unwind after dissecting the political landscape of today.
More from GoldDerby
Ripped from the headlines: How the showrunners of 'Monsters,' 'Apple Cider Vinegar' and 'Good American Family' mined truth for drama
'The Traitors' Season 4 casts a different Rob from 'Survivor,' a K-pop star, and Taylor Swift's potential future mother-in-law
Dakota Fanning said 'yes' to 'The Perfect Couple' the moment she heard Nicole Kidman was involved, without knowing anything else about the show
Gold Derby: What's a vivid memory from your very first day at ?
Desi Lydic: I started right when Trevor [Noah] started at the show. They hired me when I was six months pregnant. I remember being so amped up and excited to show up to my dream job, but having low blood pressure. I was totally ready an hour and a half early and I walked down the hallway of the hotel room, hit the elevator door and started to get faint and then had to go back to the hotel room, lay down for a few minutes, then go try again. I somehow miraculously made it right on time. Then once I got in and met everybody, I was able to cool my pits a little bit, but it was a little dicey at first.
Jordan Klepper: I was so nervously coming to work with the one suit I owned that I bought for my wedding a few months beforehand. You come into the morning meeting and I'm intimidated. There's Jon, all the writers and producers and we started talking about how Crimea had just been invaded that morning and they're like, "Jordan's going to do a piece on that. He's going to be live from Crimea." They take me into the office with Jon and with a couple of the executive producers and start talking about how they're going to frame Crimea. And I remember thinking, "What is Crimea?"
Michael Kosta: I don't remember my first day, but I remember my audition. I was doing a piece about how extreme political views are like a horseshoe and extreme right goes all the way down to the bottom of the horseshoe and extreme left goes all the way down to the bottom of the horseshoe and they're pretty close to each other. I wanted a horseshoe as a visual aid for my audition and I didn't have one. Our studio is next to horse stables. So, I went next door and I got an old horseshoe and used it in my audition. It still sits in my office as a reminder that what a funny, weird situation this whole thing is, but what a privilege.
Ronny Chieng: I remember coming in and it was a dream job and moving to my dream city and it felt like the first day of school. I remember thinking, "Why are there so many dogs in the office?" There's, like, eight dogs just running around the office. I went in thinking this is going to be a bunch of people who are great at their job. And being inside the building confirmed that everyone there was great at their jobs. The day goes like a million miles an hour, but everyone's under control and none of those feelings have ever stopped. Every day when I go in there, it still feels like I'm just as excited as I was the first day.
Grace Kuhlenschmidt: I remember after my first day in the office calling my mom and one of the first things I said was, "There are so many dogs in the office."
Troy Iwata: My first day was just kind of a tour of the building and one of our field directors, Stacey was taking me around and I'm very grateful for that because she gave me the inside scoop of just how the place works and how to navigate everything. We were still in COVID times, so I had two masks on and she was showing me around, but no one knew who I was. Stacey and I are both mixed Asian people. So a few people thought that I was just her brother that she was taking around and actually I loved that.
Josh Johnson: My first day was as a writer back in 2017. I got my desk and it did become clear after maybe the second person who stopped by to say hi that I was taking the desk of someone who had left that was very, very, funny so then I was like, I hope to be as funny as this person. I hope that they don't want to come back and take this desk back.
When people recognize you on the street, what do they usually say?
Klepper: I am cursed with talking to MAGA people for my entire life. And so everybody wants to talk to me about the MAGA world and how to keep sane within the world of MAGA. If you're interested in that, just find me on the street and I've got hours on it.
Lydic: Mostly Jon Stewart — what's it like to work with Jon Stewart. I say it's beyond a dream and the only bad thing I can say about him is that he's very lazy and will only work one day a week. But that's great for all of us. We get to cover his shifts for the rest of the week.
Kosta: I get a lot of people thanking me for what the show does. I try to lower their expectations and say, I'm not a journalist, I'm a comedian. I've had a few people push back and say, stop, this is really important. You're one of the only shows that is consistently and effectively speaking truth to power, ridiculing who's in charge, and we think that's really important.
Chieng: I might be meeting the same people Kosta's meeting because it's almost the exact same conversation, but I also just get a lot of like, "Hey man, good job, love your stuff." And then people are usually nice enough to just move on and not bother me anymore.
Iwata: A lot of people say they love that they can go to us to get more palatable information on what's going on in the world and that we provide sort of escapism and calling out hypocrisy and just making them laugh at it because if you just watch the news all day, it's very heavy.
Kuhlenschmidt: I was in Ireland for a friend's wedding a couple weeks ago and his aunt's husband came up to me with a full thick German accent and was like, "I watch The Daily Show every day. I work in construction and I eat my lunch alone and watch it."
Johnson: I don't know if you could really call this a fan interaction, but I did order food while I was at the office one time and then I was having trouble finding the delivery guy, so I left the building and when we finally linked up he was like, "Oh, this is where they shoot The Daily Show? I wonder how tall Jordan [Klepper] is?"What's been your favorite segment or interview?
Klepper: I got to interview one of my idols, Eric Idle from Monty Python. Part of the reason I got into comedy is I fell in love with some of these legends of comedy who I watched for years. You live a pretty charmed life when you get rub shoulders with folks like that.
Kosta: I pitched a segment one of my first weeks here that we still do, which is called "Thank Me Later." I was feeling very defeated by the system, by not feeling like each person can make a difference in our democracy. Over the course of many years we found people that have changed things in our society. The first one was this guy named Gregory Watson who noticed that a congressional amendment had been sitting untouched ready to be ratified for 171 years, and eventually through writing letters and being a pest got the 27th Amendment of the United States ratified, which is that Congress can't give itself a raise in its current term.
Lydic: I was really grateful that I got to host the day after the election. It was a really tough day to come into work. Waking up that morning after the election and being so frustrated with the way that the media just immediately went to blame, Kamala [Harris] did this wrong, her campaign didn't do this. It was like, give us 48 hours and we'll get into dissecting that, but can we just take a moment and process this before we jump to playing the blame game? It felt really good to sit in that morning meeting and talk that out with everyone. It felt cathartic and then to be able to do it with the audience that night. I was proud of that show and how everyone showed up. It wasn't easy for a lot of people. It was a very proud day for The Daily Show.
Chieng: It sounds kind of corny, but honestly I feel that way every time I'm on the show behind the desk. There's always something in the news that's like, "Whoa, can you believe this happened and we have to joke about it?" Or it could be a time we have on a really legendary guest or it could be as simple as I'm hosting and someone I went to high school with in Singapore is in the audience.
Iwata: One of my most recent field pieces was about the mammoth and how a group of scientists are trying to de-extinct the mammoth and that just turned out so well. It was such a fun process to do. I always really enjoy when a field piece involves people that I know are insanely smarter than I am. I was talking to Harvard scientists and professors and I learned a lot. They were also very just confident in their field, so they were down to clown and just make fun of everything.
Kuhlenschmidt: One of my favorite sketches that we did recently was basically discussing how horrible and depressing the news has been, but if you see a little poster on a wall of a kitten hanging off a rope with the words hang in there, your whole day can be turned around. It was so silly. And yet the more I thought about that piece, I was like, wait, that actually is how my brain works. I can be so depressed and then a top forties pop song comes on and I'm like, oh my God, I'm a really happy girl. I do feel like levity is art in its own way.
Johnson: I worked on a chat with Kosta about the tariffs and how they were on again and off again. I think about it a lot because it's happening consistently. It's the only thing I've ever worked on at the show that is still happening all the time and it comes up in the news all the time. That's the closest I felt, whether it was the writers or it was Kosta that everybody came together to almost predict the future.
What do you do to unwind from all the political news?
Iwata: Honestly, coming here and the fact that everyone in this office has the goal of taking the news cycle and bringing levity to it and calling out hypocrisy and making it funny, that in itself helps. It's adjusted my take on the news because it's just adjusted how I interpret it. So I mean, honestly, just working here has kind of helped me avoid a lot of the dooming feelings.
Kuhlenschmidt: I find levity in almost exclusively watching reality TV, so that's kind of my curse, but it's working for me. Right now I'm watching Survivor, which is I think is an excellent season.
Johnson: As far as things that I use to wind down or give me some sense of joy and fun — a lot of fail videos. There's nothing like a good video of a guy racking up a lot of weight for the bench press and and then sometimes you can tell this is belief, this is a guy who's like, "I saw Captain America do it, and I'm feeling pretty good. I had two apples today, so looks like we're going to push 360." And then watching that bar slowly come down and seeing the realization on his face of like, "Oh, these are all heavy." Everything in here is heavy is a powerful reminder that we're only here for so long and it's important to cherish the time that we have.
Klepper: I fell in love with the NBA because that just takes me out of the news world. So NBA and Tim Robinson videos will set me straight.
Kosta: When I go home and on the weekends, I say I'm a camp counselor. I have a 5- and a 2-year-old, and there's no better way to get taken out of the news cycle than having to put together some toy for my 5-year-old — and then I do it wrong.
Chieng: This job has helped me rediscover reading again. I had to read to prep for some guests and reading is the perfect antidote to social media. Honestly. You can feel your brain damage decrease when you're reading a book. The New York Public Library and I'm sure whatever library in your city, is pretty amazing. This is a severely underutilized resource, so more people should be using a library.
Lydic: Ronny, that is such a healthy and well-rounded answer. I was going to say bourbon and reality TV.
Best of GoldDerby
'Agatha All Along' star Ali Ahn: Getting Patti LuPone's approval while singing was 'like I had died and gone to heaven'
Dakota Fanning said 'yes' to 'The Perfect Couple' the moment she heard Nicole Kidman was involved, without knowing anything else about the show
'Slow Horses' star Rosalind Eleazar gets real about her MI5 outcast Louisa Guy: 'She's really not OK'
Click here to read the full article.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘The Americas' producers on NBC's ambitious docuseries, Earth's most varied landscapes, and ‘absolute joy' working with Tom Hanks
Five years. 180 expeditions. One supercontinent. NBC's The Americas takes viewers on an epic journey from pole to pole, unveiling Earth's most dazzling landscapes, jaw-dropping wildlife, and never-before-seen phenomena — with a little help from Tom Hanks and Hans Zimmer. Buckle up, this is not your ordinary nature doc! The unprecedented scale and ambition delivers remarkable world firsts: new species, new intimate courtship, dramatic deep sea hunting and some of nature's strangest stories. Each hourlong episode features a different iconic location across the Americas: 'The Atlantic Coast,' 'Mexico,' 'The Wild West,' 'The Amazon,' 'The Frozen North,' 'The Gulf Coast,' 'The Andes,' 'The Caribbean,' 'The West Coast' and 'Patagonia.' More from GoldDerby Everything to know about 'Toy Story 5': the Pixar franchise returns June 2026 with new themes and familiar faces 'It almost killed me': Horror maestro Mike Flanagan looks back at career-making hits from 'Gerald's Game' to 'Hill House' to 'Life of Chuck' First look at JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette in 'American Love Story,' 'A Minecraft Movie' sets streaming premiere date, and more of today's top stories Executive producer Mike Gunton and editor Holly Spearing recently spoke to Gold Derby about their most ambitious project yet and collaborating with a legendary pair of two-time Oscar winners. Gold Derby: The Americas was five years in the making with over 180 expeditions, land and sea. So how do you even begin to conceptualize this sort of ambitious series? Mike Gunton: The word ambitious, I think, is the key word, because that was the goal, to do something that had the same level of ambition as something like a Planet Earth 2, which is a series I had just been working on. Is there anything on the planet that could match that in scale and ambition and that hadn't been done before? I scratched my head quite a lot, thought about Africa, maybe a few other places, and then thought, "No, there isn't anywhere." But then I thought, "Well, hold on a minute. North America's been looked at, maybe, South America. But what about thinking about them together?" As far as animals are concerned, and as far as nature is concerned, it is all joined together. It's a kind of a supercontinent. So I thought, "Well, maybe somebody must've done that," and then looked around and they hadn't. It doesn't have lions and it doesn't have elephants, but that's about it. In fact, it does have some kind of lion — it has mountain lions. It has all the biggest, the longest, the most impressive natural phenomena you can imagine. So it just had to be done. You've both worked on so many nature documentaries and series in your careers, what separates this from what you've done previously? Holly Spearing: Well, I think the scale is a big part of it. Ten episodes and covering an entire supercontinent that actually has its head up in one pole and its feet down in another pole — that is absolutely massive. It does really set it apart from anything I think either of us have done before. Gunton: Also, doing a project for this audience was a really interesting challenge because. ... We work for the BBC and so we make programs for British audiences. They do, of course, get shown around the world and they do get shown in America. But to make a series that directly speaks to an American audience on a national level is something I've never done. Nobody's ever done it to be absolutely honest with you. The opportunity of doing that was a very big part of why we wanted to do it. Did each location have an independent film crew? Were they taking place simultaneously, or how do you work that out logistically for these 10 episodes? Spearing: It was massively ambitious to cover the area, all the different seasons, all the different animal behaviors. And of course, yes, some of them were happening all at once. So the series is broken down into its 10 different episodes, and those teams work on their shoots, so it was a huge logistical exercise. It was 180 separate shoots, and these are expeditions. They're not just driving up to a location and getting out of a vehicle. Some of them are scaling up a mountain. They're going to one of the most remote islands off the end of South America where you actually have to take a medic with you because it would take so long to get to facilities that you'd need if anything happened. These were really ambitious shoots. And of course, we were covering different habitats from underwater to scaling up trees, deserts, all of those things that we had to face and encounter. But our crews, I have to say, are absolute masters at this. They're experienced and they did an absolutely outstanding job. Gunton: Holly's like a military commander. This is like a military operation. You have got so many resources to deploy because it's not just personnel, it's the most extraordinary variety of equipment, as you hinted at: ships, and we're not talking about little boats, we're talking about massive, really huge boats, helicopters, airplanes, submersibles, and cave divers. There's a sequence there — which I think is probably the bravest thing I've ever seen — where two guys go through those underground caves in Florida. There's no escape. If anything goes wrong, you've got nowhere to go. That's an insanely dangerous thing to do. And all of this has to not just be coordinated in terms of logistics but also has to be made safe. How has technology changed how you approach these topics throughout the years? Gunton: Over the years, we've started to use drone technology a bit more. But what was very fortunate with this series is that the stars aligned and and drone technology has improved – they're smaller. The camera quality was better. The pilots were not necessarily better, but more exposed to shooting in nature. The cameras have to move slowly, they have to get close to the animals, but very, very carefully. And also, the recruitment of real natural history experts at the controls of those drones was just a perfect marriage. We were able to get cameras to places that four or five years ago, we wouldn't have even attempted. Spearing: I think ultimately, what we're trying to do with this new technology is immerse ourselves in the world of the animals so we can see these locations through their eyes, and as Mike says, get really close to them. We think we had about 35 different camera rigs throughout the whole series just to cover all the different environments from underwater to filming things the size of a grain of rice. We talked about drones, but there are crew members within feet of wolves, bears, pumas. Is there anything that feels like it's too dangerous? Spearing: Well, really interesting you mentioned the puma story because our camera operator, John Shire, had actually built a relationship with this particular individual puma over many years. In fact, he filmed her as a cub and many people believe that she still recognizes him by scent. Many of our camera operators are absolute experts on animal behavior as well, and they have to be. They're constantly reading cues from the animals and working with that because they're looking for the behavior that we want to capture. You mentioned Tom Hanks, who narrates the series. How did he become involved? Gunton: When I first pitched this to NBC I didn't mention a narrator. But I did actually write in my notebook at the time, "Ooh, Tom Hanks would be the right person to do this." I didn't think about that for another two or three years. When we finally mentioned him they responded "Oh, yeah, of course. There's only a list of one. It has to be Tom Hanks." Luckily, he had been aware of the series. So I went out to LA, sat down in this little viewing theater with a rough cut of one of the episodes and showed it to him. It was quite nerve-wracking. You're sitting next to a two-time Oscar winner. About a minute into it, he went, "Oh, God," and then turned around to the guy who was running things and said, "Guys, have you seen this? This is insane!" And from then I just thought, "We're sold. He's got this. He absolutely knows what we're doing." He was an absolute joy. He is what you hope your heroes will be — the loveliest man you could imagine; smart, funny, and added so much value to it. Spearing: He was so collaborative to work with as well and just wanted to do the very best he could. He is a filmmaker after all, and he was also incredibly interested in how we got the shots. He loved all the stories from behind the scenes and the cameras. And then finally, one of the more maybe unsung heroes of a docuseries like this is the music. You have the great Hans Zimmer composing music, how did that come about? Spearing: He wrote an extraordinary theme for The Americas, which I think then set the style for all the other music that followed behind it for the individual sequences. Mike is a long-time collaborator with Hans. Gunton: When we've done panels or or live screenings, people put up their hands and say, "We love the music." I think he and his team just got it dead right; not too much. It was incredibly evocative and deeply enriched the drama while also capturing the essence of the locations. One of the key aspects of this series was not just telling stories about life and animals but placing them within their environments — highlighting the personality and unique signature of where they lived. That was the foundation. It was like a "super safari." If we could take you on the most extraordinary journey across the Americas, where would we stop, what would we show you, and what makes those places special? A crucial role of the music was to evoke that sense of wonder, and I think he accomplished that superbly. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. The Americas is streaming on Peacock. SIGN UP for Gold Derby's free newsletter with latest predictions Best of GoldDerby Asif Ali and Saagar Shaikh admit they 'never had the audacity to realize' a show like 'Deli Boys' was possible From 'Housewives' overload to the 'shadiest queens' alliance: The dish on 'The Traitors' Season 4 lineup Leslie Bibb breaks down her aha moments filming 'The White Lotus': 'Kate suddenly got jealous' Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
From ‘Housewives' overload to the ‘shadiest queens' alliance: The dish on ‘The Traitors' Season 4 lineup
Welcome to Reality Derby, Gold Derby's weekly deep dive into all things reality TV, hosted by senior editors Marcus James Dixon and Denton Davidson. Watch the video above. The cast of The Traitors Season 4 was unveiled on Friday, with a whopping 23 reality TV stars and notable figures about to compete for up to $250K. Among the roster are some of our favorite former gamers from Survivor and Big Brother, a pair of sassy Olympic figure skaters, and a whopping five women from The Real Housewives. More from GoldDerby 'The Americas' producers on NBC's ambitious docuseries, Earth's most varied landscapes, and 'absolute joy' working with Tom Hanks Inside the comedy pressure cooker: How 'SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night' exposed the madness behind the magic of 'Saturday Night Live' 'The Traitors' Season 4 casts a different Rob from 'Survivor,' a K-pop star, and Taylor Swift's potential future mother-in-law "I do feel like this is a little Real Housewives heavy," Davidson declares. "It's just not a show that I follow. And I understand the fan base is massive. So, the fact that they keep inviting more and more back, it clearly means that it's doing well for them. It's just not my wheelhouse. And they don't know how to play the game!" Says Dixon, "I really think that one of the Housewives are going to be a Traitor this year, because we did not get one last year in Season 3. In Season 2, we had Phaedra Parks, one of the best Traitors ever." The Housewives in this cycle are Dorinda Medley (returning from Season 2), Candiace Dillard Bassett, Caroline Stanbury, Lisa Rinna, and Porsha Williams. They both openly wonder if returning contestant Dorinda might be a Traitor this time around, since she was a Faithful last year. "If I was there, I would immediately target her again," laughs Davidson. "Poor Dorinda! Because they're going to think, 'Of course, she's coming back as a Traitor.'"for Churchill Downs When Davidson initially saw the cast list, he felt "meh," until he noticed Olympic figure skaters Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir in the lineup. He explains, "These are two people I didn't expect to be on a reality TV show — not because they don't have the personality, but because it just wasn't on my radar. Tara Lipinski was an Olympic gold medalist, and Johnny Weir is a very eccentric male figure skater, and they are two of the shadiest queens that do the commentary for the Winter Olympics. They're like every bestie pairing you would see in West Hollywood ... and it's going to be hilarious if one of them is actually a Traitor." Survivor star Rob Cesternino being cast on The Traitors is a big "F you" to the long-running CBS reality TV show, Dixon says. "He was in the running for Survivor 50, and I guess at the last moment he didn't get the call. And so The Traitors swoops in two weeks later, and they're like, 'OK, we want you in the castle.'" In other words, Survivor's "loss" is The Traitors' "gain." Other competition gamers about to go for the gold in Scotland include Yamil "Yam Yam" Arocho from Survivor, Natalie Anderson (without her twin sister, Nadiya Anderson) from The Amazing Race and Survivor, and Ian Terry and Tiffany Mitchell from Big Brother. "It's been a long time since we've seen [Ian]," Davidson realizes. "It'll be interesting to see what he's like now at age 34. He was so young when he was on Big Brother a thousand years ago." Tiffany was "the creator of the Cookout" and "America's Favorite Houseguest" on Big Brother, so "people love her," remembers Dixon. "I loved that whole season of Big Brother 23. I think it's the best season they've ever done, so I can't wait to see her. She's got a little villainous side." Dixon wonders if Carolyn Wiger "had any sway" in getting her Survivor 44 buddy, Yam Yam, onto The Traitors, since she was so popular in the castle last year. Just like Rob, Carolyn was in the running for Survivor 50, but she was ultimately cut, possibly because of her time on the rival series. "Jeff Probst is very jealous and protective, and does not like it when his Survivors are on The Traitors," Davidson warns. They also discuss the hot topic of Donna Kelce, the mother of NFL bros Travis and Jason Kelce, and whether Travis' girlfriend, Taylor Swift, might be posting about The Traitors this year. "You know she's going to watch," Davidson smiles. "She probably already does. I mean, I'm sure Donna had an advisor and got some advice from from Taylor and her kids, or at least spoke to them about it, so it'll be interesting to see their take." Season 4 of The Traitors is expected to air in early 2026, as the first three seasons all began in January. The show has already been picked up for a fifth season. Peacock SIGN UP for Gold Derby's free newsletter with latest predictions Best of GoldDerby Asif Ali and Saagar Shaikh admit they 'never had the audacity to realize' a show like 'Deli Boys' was possible Leslie Bibb breaks down her aha moments filming 'The White Lotus': 'Kate suddenly got jealous' 'Agatha All Along' star Ali Ahn: Getting Patti LuPone's approval while singing was 'like I had died and gone to heaven' Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘Sirens' creator Molly Smith Metzler on watching Julianne Moore, Meghann Fahy and Milly Alcock bring her characters to life: ‘it was really pinch me'
In Netflix's limited series Sirens, creator Molly Smith Metzler describes seeing stars Julianne Moore, Meghann Fahy, and Milly Alcock bring to life characters she originally wrote in a play more than 15 years ago — which the show is adapted from — as both 'dreamy' and 'incredible.' 'These characters have been with me for over a decade,' Metzler says. 'To show up on set and have them played by these three women — I mean, it was really pinch me.' More from GoldDerby Inside 'The Daily Show': The team behind the satirical news series on politics, puppies, punchlines - and staying sane Ripped from the headlines: How the showrunners of 'Monsters,' 'Apple Cider Vinegar' and 'Good American Family' mined truth for drama Dakota Fanning said 'yes' to 'The Perfect Couple' the moment she heard Nicole Kidman was involved, without knowing anything else about the show The show reimagines the mythology of sirens — those dangerously seductive women from Greek lore — not as villains but as complex individuals with stories of their own. Metzler was inspired in part by Margaret Atwood's poem Siren Song, which challenges traditional notions of female monstrosity. 'Why are they cast as monsters, and why do we cast women as monsters so easily?' she asks. 'Especially the beautiful ones.' That question becomes a central theme in Sirens, a show that leans into uncomfortable gray areas, especially around class and identity. 'Are you monstrous for trying to change your class and where you come from?' Metzler asks. 'Is ambition a monster?' Originally a 90-minute stage play, the adaptation into a miniseries allowed Metzler to explore these questions in new and layered ways. 'The play is in real time and in one room. It tells a tight story,' she explains. 'With the show, we got to blow that up — bigger themes, a larger cast, and much more space to play.' Among the most striking additions is the setting — a palatial home perched on a cliff in North Fork, Long Island. 'That staircase you see? It's real,' Metzler confirms. 'The whole house helped us convey how exclusive this world is.' Cr. Macall Polay/Netflix © 2025 The show's visual opulence — sumptuous parties, towering architecture, and pastel-drenched wardrobes — was carefully constructed to evoke the feeling of being both invited in and simultaneously shut out. That cultish feeling also plays out in the characters — especially Michaela, played by Moore. Her role, Metzler explains, could have easily gone too big or become caricatured, but Moore's precision and gravitas grounded her. 'Julie sets the tone of the work environment,' Metzler says. 'She's so professional, so generous, and the most prepared actor I've ever worked with. Michaela works because Julie played her.' As for the literal sirens of the show — the birds of prey featured onscreen — Metzler admits they were 'terrifying,' but that they seemed to bond deeply with Moore. 'They were hypnotized by her. We were all terrified, but they were in love with her.' Kevin Bacon also joined the cast in a role that didn't exist in the original play. Metzler describes his character Peter as 'the guy next door' who's friendly with the staff and drinks beer from a can. 'Kevin brought so much humanity to the role. It was a joy to write for him,' she says. One surprising and personal touch that viewers might miss? The female vocals in the score are performed by Fahey. 'She's got this stunning Broadway voice,' Metzler reveals. 'It's Devon's voice you're hearing. That made the whole thing feel more intimate, more personal.' Despite early awards buzz, Metzler is cautious about reading too much into the hype. 'I try to just appreciate any attention and take the opportunity to sing the praises of this team. If the show's good, it's because of them.' Best of GoldDerby Leslie Bibb breaks down her aha moments filming 'The White Lotus': 'Kate suddenly got jealous' 'Agatha All Along' star Ali Ahn: Getting Patti LuPone's approval while singing was 'like I had died and gone to heaven' Inside 'The Daily Show': The team behind the satirical news series on politics, puppies, punchlines — and staying sane Click here to read the full article.
