How I Built Resilience: Samantha Bee of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee

Samantha Bee, the host of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, has been filming her show from her backyard in upstate New York since March. While Samantha remains unsure about returning to the studio, she's optimistic that her team will continue producing a broadcast-quality show remotely. These conversations are excerpts from our How I Built Resilience series, where Guy talks online with founders and entrepreneurs about how they're navigating turbulent times. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Guy Raz?

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• 4:21Guy Raz?

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• 5:06Guy Raz?

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• 5:49Guy Raz?

  who's also an executive producer on the show. Writing and producing a show remotely has been a learning experience for Samantha and her staff, but it's allowed them to rethink the production process. Samantha spoke to me from her apartment in New York City, where she returned just in time for our conversation. I know you've been filming the show from upstate New York in your backyard. You are now in your apartment in Manhattan. Like, I think you've just got there, right?

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Well, the tropical storm last week knocked out power to our house, and we have, do not have power yet at the house. We don't have power and we don't have internet. And today we'll make it officially. I think we're passing the one week mark since we've had power or internet. So we came into the city where we also have questionable internet. So I hope that it works.

• 6:40Guy Raz?

  Is there any talk about if, when the show might go back to the studio?

• 6:48Speaker 01

  We are constantly talking about it, but there doesn't seem to be any movement in that direction, which is really fine for now. And it's fine for September. It is not as fine for October, November, December, January, February. So, you know, it's, our studio is a huge shared space. We literally share our studio space with John Oliver's show and Dr. Oz's show. And so it's much more difficult. We don't control our own environment, so it's going to be very difficult for us to go back to the studio. So we're, there's about 10 different scenarios that we're kind of juggling for how to move the show forward into inclement weather or freezing cold. We'll see.

• 7:32Guy Raz?

  You have a team, a big team, that produces the show, I think like 70 people. So first of all, how have you been managing that? And how has your team been managing through this?

• 7:42Speaker 01

  I think, you know, everybody's been doing incredible work, you know, in the most anxiety-riddled of circumstances. Everybody has their own personal life that they're also bringing to the table every day, which everybody's really frightened. And people live with varying degrees of privacy. I mean, we have lots of young people on staff who have roommates and everybody's kind of clustered in small apartments. So it's really difficult to not have a central place to go and make the show. We all can work very independently. We've proven that. I think the social stress is pretty acute. It's not that you have to be together to do this show, but we prefer to be together. And so that part has actually been, I think, pretty stressful.

• 8:27Guy Raz?

  When was it clear that this thing was real and scary? And when did you decide to just go for it and just start filming from home? Like, how did you guys come to that decision?

• 8:37Speaker 01

  I think that really March 11th, March 12th was a really critical period where a lot of people all at the same time realized that something big was really happening. And that was the moment when we we got kicked out of our studio, basically. We shot our last show, I think on March 11th. But the the building kind of closed around us because they had found a couple of COVID cases in the building itself. And so they were evacuating the building as we were taping the show. And that moment, really, we knew that we would not be in the studio the following week. Everything started to shut down around us. And so we really advised people, we were like, grab your stuff, grab what you need and go.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  And we did the same, Jason and I, we packed a suitcase, not really knowing that we would shoot the show in at our house. We didn't, I didn't do a good job packing. I packed like five blazers and a bunch of high heel shoes. Like, I just panic shopped my apartment. And as we were up there for a couple of days, we really had no plan. Except, could we possibly shoot the show from up here? Like, I don't know. But then after a couple of days up there, Jason and I decided to just start shooting stuff, just because we wanted to mark the moment where we were just living up there. And what if I was like a woods woman living in the shack behind our behind our garden? And so we just started shooting stuff.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  And it really turned out to be a proof of concept to the network that we could shoot in our backyard and that it would look good and that it could be broadcast quality, even though it's shot on an iPhone. made the decision to shoot outside so that we wouldn't need lights so that we could just have use the light of the sun because we thought okay we'll we'll just use this big golden bulb that's in the sky that'll light everything that'll be cheap and that's how it started and then it just grew and grew over the course of days to where it really seemed possible so then we just tried to make a show and it worked.

• 10:33Guy Raz?

  I mean you've been like you've used your kids iPads as teleprompters.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  Oh, and that has not changed that has remained stable I still use my daughter's iPad as there's a teleprompter there's a teleprompter app that I use it works great I clip it to a stand I run it myself it's a very DIY kind of experience but you know Jason and I come from the world of sketch which is totally DIY and we've always been that way as a couple making movies in our house and doing stuff like that it's it's one of those full circle moments.

• 11:05Guy Raz?

  How has it been for you to you know not performing in front of an audience like you know you make a joke and you wonder is anybody laughing or watching like how do you like how are you managing that are you just?

• 11:16Speaker 01

  I'm not you know I don't come from a stand-up background it's natural for me to work the crowd in my way of doing live to tape performance and I certainly learned how to do that working at The Daily Show for a really long time so I'm really good at it and I enjoy that I enjoy that back and forth with the audience I really enjoy that kind of communion with them but I don't need it I think I don't need it like I think I have a good sense of what the rhythm of the show is without them and if it's not safe to have an audience and it's not it's just not prudent to do that I love our audience I don't want to put them at risk and I don't want to put our crew at risk so we're not going to have an audience for a really long time really who

• 11:55Speaker 01

  knows if I recall correctly when I started this show I didn't really want to have a live audience I didn't think it was necessary for what I wanted to do in the end I did decide to have a live studio audience and and it was really great and I got a lot out of it and I really enjoyed meeting people because I really really do enjoy that but I can easily go back to not having an audience because I do feel the audience somewhat. It's fine to do the show in the forest. It's a little weird to do it just for my husband. Because he is, he's wildly support, he's like my biggest fan. Of course, we've been married for 20 years. But also, he will tell me when I do something badly and he is not afraid.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  He is not shy about telling me when I'm doing something wrong or I could do something better. I can improve. So it's, it's very much a back and forth between the two of us. And our kids are there sometimes because they're holding equipment. If they're willing to do it, which they are not often willing to do it. Because it's kind of, it's really boring for them. But it's really helpful when they help us. It's actually really great. So that part is daunting. And then it's also daunting to do Zoom meetings. So we're having like these big meetings, like staff wide meetings. But if you, if you're looking at your own, if you're looking at the other person in your computer or you're looking at yourself, you're not really relating to other people. So you're really only relating to people through this like dot in your computer. Because you're not really looking at anyone.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  You're just talking to a dot, which it's not ideal. It's not ideal.

• 13:25Guy Raz?

  I want to ask you about those meetings. Do you guys have a daily staff meeting, like a daily Zoom meeting?

• 13:30Speaker 01

  I don't have a daily staff meeting with everyone, but there are daily meetings for sure. Across departments, yeah.

• 13:37Guy Raz?

  Yeah, I mean, I, and I struggle with this. And I've, I've asked people who've come on the show about this because it's, it is in a sense a way to connect and it's a way for everybody to see each other and just to, just to see faces. It's a little bit awkward when you're, you're kind of staring into this green dot on your computer.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Yes, it's not ideal. I don't like it. I don't think there's anyone at work who likes it. It does feel awkward. Like, you know, usually I'm talking and it feels like I'm monologuing. Do you know there's no back and forth? You're just not seeing the nuance. Like you're not seeing the, the micro expressions on people's faces and they're not really catching your body language. And I start to ramble because I'm trying to fill space because no one's really like, there's just no, there's no give and take. Lots of people mute their microphones because they're like rattling bags or they have kids who are homeschooling and it's nice and it's respectful. But at some point I was like, please stop muting. I'd really rather hear the crunching bag or something than just like silence.

• 14:40Guy Raz?

  Is there anything about the approach that you've taken these past events? Like where you couldn't focus on like perfect lighting or a perfect set or? You just had to do it. Is there anything about that approach that eventually you want to take back or that you will take back with you when you are in a more controlled environment?

• 14:56Speaker 01

  I think so. There are ways that we have changed the process of taping that makes sense for me to continue. Like normally, we would, if we were in the studio, by way of example, on a normal Wednesday, we would do a rehearsal, a full rehearsal of the show around noon, 12:30, something like that. And then we do a long huddle, like a three-hour huddle, where we rewrite the show. Because often, a joke is so funny, and it looks great on the page, but when you say it out loud in a big, huge studio space, it just doesn't land the way you want it to, or I don't nail it, or something. And we're like, let's tweak that. So we make all of these little tweaks and adjustments. And then, of course, the audience comes in. And then, a performance is very much for the audience.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  Like, it's, there's a community experience of it, and you're kind of surfing the wave of their enthusiasm. It's a totally different type of experience. So, adjusting the show, we now tape, we have to tape on Tuesday because the edit process takes an immense amount of time. It's a totally different experience of editing. So we have to do it a day before, so we don't have an opportunity to add jokes Wednesday morning, or Wednesday at 4 o'clock. If something happens in the news, we can't quite pivot that quickly. But I don't, I don't regret that. I can see now that maybe we don't need to do it that way. Maybe giving ourselves a day in between is a perfectly fine way. What I'm saying is, I've missed the community of it, and I missed the rewrite, because it's really rollicking

• 16:21Speaker 01

  and fun, and graphics is changing things, and we're making all these changes. I miss that enthusiasm and that moment where we're all in the grind together. I miss being together with people. But I don't really miss the actual technical aspect of it. And so I think we'll bring that back when we're in a more normal situation. But who knows, really, when that will be?

• 16:41Guy Raz?

  When we come back in just a moment, Samantha answers some audience questions and talks about the future of television production. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This, Resilience Edition from NPR.

• 17:02Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This, Resilience Edition. So comedian Samantha Bee has been filming her show from her home and providing some comic relief during these pretty challenging times. Because so much of your comedy focuses, obviously, on news and current events and politics, and it is, let's say, a dark time. I mean, it's been like the king of bad years in recent years. Obviously, I mean, you, you provide us with comic relief. Like, we come to you to laugh. Like, that is what you do for us. But what about you? How do you, like, I mean, do you just have days where you just want to, like, hide under the covers and, like, cry?

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Of course. Of course. Oh, yes. I'm still, I do, this is my job. I do a comedy show. I love doing it. In some ways, like, if I wasn't making this show for broadcast, I'd probably be trying to make this show just for myself and my family. So it's a very natural, like, organic extension of who I am, but I'm, it's a roller coaster ride. We don't, ultimately, we're very lucky. We're healthy. We're in a house. We're safe. So we're counting our blessings, for one thing. We're working, which is an additional blessing. So I'm, like, really trying to be mindful of all the things that we do have to be thankful for. And of course, we're going through an absolute roller coaster of emotion, because

• 18:20Speaker 01

  we're ultimately human, too, and we watch the news. We don't watch the news right now because we don't have any power. But I think maybe that's a blessing, too.

• 18:30Guy Raz?

  Hey, you just launched a podcast. What does that allow you to do that you can't do on, on television?

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Well, it's a long, it's such a long conversation, which is really beneficial. I, I do interview a lot of people on the show, which I love. I actually just love interviewing people. I truly do. But the show is 21 minutes. I mean, the show itself, the entirety of the show is 21 minutes. So when I interview someone, we talk for half an hour, and then we end up using five minutes of that whole conversation. So it's also just, it's something I truly love to do. I'll be interviewing people for my whole life, when I retire, when I'm... An elderly person in a home, I'll still be interviewing people like I just am so curious about them. So it's really fun for me. I don't find it to be an onerous task to like sit down with a list of people who I really dig

• 19:21Speaker 01

  and talk to them for forty five minutes. It's great.

• 19:23Guy Raz?

  Um, on a recent episode, you had um, the New Yorker journalist Jelani Cobb on and you asked him, if you go back in time and delete certain social media platforms, um, which ones would they be? You are very familiar with the pitfalls and the perils of social media. Like, what would you, if you go back in time and change it, what would you do?

• 19:42Speaker 01

  Boy, I would uh, I would just delete Facebook. I mean, I would never was a Facebook person. But um, it's just done so much damage, not just in our own country, but across the world. I mean, it's there are countries across the world in which Facebook is like considered to be the government practically. It's the only resource people have to communicate and to understand the world that they're living in. And I think that's very dangerous. You know, they just built a piece of machinery that they really did not understand its capabilities. I've never really understood why it came into people's lives and they were so willing to give it all of their personal information. I've just never understood the function of it in someone's life, and I think it's done immense damage. So I would um,

• 20:27Speaker 01

  that's one that I would really take a look at.

• 20:29Guy Raz?

  Um, this, I might combine two questions from Shayna Ingram and Kim Cope. You've got kids at home. How are you and Jason doing with school starting again? And how are you like, you know, working from home during COVID? And also living from home?

• 20:43Speaker 01

  I mean, it is a struggle, I think, across the board. I'm so worried about the fall. Honestly, we have kids in the New York City public school system. They're going back to school in September. Of course, we're very stressed and worried. We trust our school administrators to have gamed out every scenario. And so I'm going to go with whatever their plans end up being. I still think it's a moving target a little bit because it's only August eleventh. So I'm not entirely sure that the final decision has been made by any of the school administrators for what's happening in September. I'm going to trust our individual principals. I've got a lot of masks on order. We'll be masked. We'll respect those systems. But I do expect that our children will be going back for some type of blended learning.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  It's immensely worrying and it's been so difficult for parents. And I really, really, I really feel that too, personally.

• 21:38Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Sam, before I let you go, I mean, when you think about how the industry will change, you know, we had, we've had some people from the industry on, producers, and we had Jeremy Zimmer, the head of UTA on a couple of weeks ago. Television really is not being made in general. There's a little bit, but in general, it's not being made. There's going to be a shortage of new television in like a few months. But when you think about how this pandemic is already changing the industry and even changing what you do, are there things about those changes that you actually think have been good in some ways?

• 22:09Speaker 01

  Um, I think it's been revelatory to realize that we actually could change some pretty fundamental systems within our process. Like, we just, we just built the show a certain way and actually pivoting and doing the show a different way has been fine. And you feel sometimes when you have a system in place that really works for you, that you can't ever make a big change. Well, in this case, we were absolutely forced to make a big change. And some of the ways that it changed were very good. And I actually do think, if I may say so myself, that the backdrop of the forest is very pretty.

• 22:42Guy Raz?

  It is. It's great.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  It's very nice to look at and it's seasonal. So when the leaves start to change, it'll be very, it'll be very attractive. As with like the industry as a whole, I'm not sure what is good about the changes that will be moving forward. You know, I think there's a way to shoot things safely. I think there's a way for us to return to sort of like, quote unquote, normal, like, regular looking television. And that really probably requires quarantining entire productions together. That can be done. Networks have been through, this is unprecedented for them. They've lost so much ad revenue. They're probably going to try and start making shows more cheaply. And that doesn't necessarily

• 23:24Speaker 01

  mean that they will be great. There'll be a lot of reality in our lives for the next little while. We're certainly all looking back at regular television now and going, "Look at all those people in a restaurant." Like, we, you know, we're watching Tom Cruise movies and we're like, "Look at that cafe. It's just all breathing on each other." So I do think it'll change the tone of programming, but I don't know what I can say. Moving forward will be great. I haven't figured that out yet. I'll let you know what the brighter side is the next time I come on.

• 23:56Guy Raz?

  Right, perfect. But at the, at the end of the day, you have become a better camera operator and a sound recorder.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  We have become better at that. We've become very good at lighting. Like, we've become very good at harnessing the power of the sun to just make it glow just so, which is always beneficial. Just very good.

• 24:16Guy Raz?

  Samantha Bee, co-creator of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. Thank you so much.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  This was such a pleasure. It's great talking to you.

• 24:23Guy Raz?

  That's an excerpt from my conversation with Samantha Bee, the host and co-creator of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. To see our full interview, you can go to facebook.com/HowIBuiltThis. And if you want to see all of our past live interviews, you can find them there or at youtube.com/NPR. If you want to find out more about the How I Built This Resilience Series or other virtual NPR events, you can go to nprpresents.org. This episode was produced by Candace Lim with help from Will Mitchell, Tyra Lockhart, Matt Adams, Gianna Capadona, John Isabella, Julia Carney, Niva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Thanks for listening. Stay safe, and I'll see you back here in a few days. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.