‘Last Week Tonight with John Oliver' director Paul Pennolino has to ‘land the plane on the Hudson' each week
Pennolino has worked on the HBO variety series since 2016. In what seems like a precarious time for late night franchises, the director explains, 'My job is to execute content and not opine on stuff like that. Although I will say, I think this broadcast is unlike any other. It is really smart and has evolved into a space where we can spend 40 minutes talking about an issue. I think it has a heck of a role. You know, my goddaughter, who's a student in college, actually watched the show in their classroom.'
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This year, Pennolino has received his ninth Emmy nomination. It's his eighth for working with Oliver in the variety series directing category. However the director has never won. On pulling together an episode of the show, he says, 'I care about the people I work for. I've known a lot of them for four decades. My job is when the inevitable bird strike is going to happen, I have to land the plane on the Hudson. Inevitably sometimes things will go wrong. Technology is not perfect. I feel like my role is to get it right and be in line with the comedic tone of the jokes within the headline.'
While Pennolino is still waiting to win this big award, Last Week has been an Emmy darling. It has won either the award for Best Scripted Variety Series or Best Variety Talk Series for the past nine years. Pennolino admits, 'I don't think I've ever worked with a talent that worked this hard and was committed to the message. You gotta be consistent and you have to have your habits. And I certainly have my rituals. And John isn't just sitting at a desk reading a teleprompter. It's performative. Sometimes, very rarely, I'll have to go to his dressing room before the show to give him a note. I'll walk by and he's in that office reading and pacing and performing that script in his own head. He's almost whispering it.'
This article and video are presented by HBO Max.
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