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Jessica Williams Leaving 'The Daily Show' For Her Own Comedy Central Series
By
Ben Yakas
Published Jun 29, 2016
Modified Jun 29, 2016
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Jun 29, 2016
Modified Jun 29, 2016
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The Daily Show ended its spectacular run on Comedy Central last year when Jon Stewart left the show to pursue other—wait, it's still on? Oh right, of course it's still on, how could we forget. Unfortunately, now that we know it's still on air, we won't even get to enjoy the best part of the current show, as correspondent Jessica Williams announced today that she is leaving the show for good to work on her own sitcom for Comedy Central.
"I feel so many emotions," the 26-year-old Daily Show correspondent told EW. "I feel like I'm growing up and graduating.” Although she only went around telling her coworkers about the news this week, her last field piece "on Bernie Sanders supporters that are going to vote for Trump" will be aired tomorrow.
Williams, who joined the show in 2012, signed a development deal with Comedy Central last March, putting the writing on the wall in terms of her exit. She'll now be working on writing, producing, and starring in a pilot for a half-hour scripted series, co-produced by Broad City writer Naomi Ekperigin. She explained the idea for the show:
I’ve had this idea for a while about a young woman who is a feminist and who imagines herself to be “woke.” I think that a lot of the time, we have this idea that when you are, like, “woke” — and please always put this in quotations! — that you should always have your shit together. But I know that often for me, as a black woman of color, I feel like I’m supposed to represent these ideals and values that I was taught as a young lady. Like I’m supposed to carry myself in a special type of way, but oftentimes I’m, like… I’m still in my 20s, and still kind of a mess. So it’s a show about somebody in their 20s who has all these social ideas, but still does not have it together. [Pauses] And she’s, like, goofy and silly and funny!
The main thing about the show is that I’m excited to, in a silly and funny way, be able to explore ideas of feminism and race and LGBT issues — things that I care about and that I talk about on The Daily Show and that I deal with on [her podcast] 2 Dope Queens.
There isn't much talk about current host Trevor Noah, but when asked about her favorite memory of doing the show, she was quick to bring up her old mentor:
Doing live shows in the studio with Jon [Stewart] were some of my favorite moments. Every now and then, I had the ability to make Jon laugh, and that to me was really fun. Sometimes he’d laugh, and sometimes he’d put his script to his face because something was really funny. He wouldn’t just do it just because — he’d do it because he genuinely thought it was funny. Those are some of my favorite moments that I’ll never forget.
As for whether or not she might be interested in returning to the late night television world someday, she left the door ajar: "Yeah, definitely," she said. "I feel like that’s something I would do years down the line, once I’ve sort of figured it out and want, like, a job that I do every single day. [Laughs] I definitely think that that’s in my futch. That’s short for future."
Tagged
comedy central
daily show
graduation
Jessica Williams
the daily show
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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