HBO’s Emmy-nominated Real Time with Bill Maher is known for its news-making segments on the serious headlines of the day, but Maher finally gets to let his hair down with his new podcast, Club Random.
There, he sits down with an individual celebrity guest, and a drink — and/or a joint or two — and just talks.
Guests have included Woody Harrelson, Quentin Tarantino and William Shatner, and the candid conversations are anything but the usual.
“Most of the people who have been here in this seat … leave saying, ‘I’ve never had an interview like that.’ And I always tell them, ‘Because it wasn’t an interview,'” Maher tells ABC Audio.
“In an interview … a person has an agenda and questions, and they know where it’s going and has done some work,” Maher says. “This is something completely different. And that’s why it felt different.”
Maher insists that while he works hard on Real Time, Club Random is “very much” a chance for him to unwind.
He says unlike episodes of Club Random, Real Time viewers “have never caught me in 20 years saying the words, ‘Wait, what were we just talking about?’ You can find it on almost every episode of Club Random …”
“Because that is one of the properties of marijuana,” he says with a laugh. “That’s what I really love about this experience, is because it’s very similar to what I do just in my normal life.”
He clarifies, “I couldn’t party like this every night. But when I do want to kind of just let it rip, it’s so much fun just to be in that moment where you kind of don’t know what is going to come up.”
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