In case you haven't seen Jon Stewart on every talk show imaginable this past week, the Daily Show host has a new movie, Rosewater, coming out today. Thursday night was shameless self-promotion night on the show, but to sweeten the deal, Stewart handed the show over to John Oliver, his popular stand-in during the summer he filmed the movie. "I'll take another spin in the non-premium host chair," Oliver said gamely, after rising from underneath Stewart's desk.
(Later in the program, the subject of and collaborator on the film, journalist Maziar Bahari, noted that if he hadn't been arrested and tortured in Iran, Oliver wouldn't have his own HBO show now. "Do I owe [former Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad 10 percent of my future earnings?" Oliver replied cheekily.)
In this segment, Oliver interviews Jason Jones and the producer who traveled with him to Iran to interview Bahari, Tim Greenberg. It's an interesting behind-the-scene look at not just the seminal Bahari interview, but also what it was like for westerners (including a Jew) to visit Iran on the eve of the Green Revolution. --Peter Weber
The Week
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