There’s something funny about this roundtable

New York-based comedy writers and actors Jeremy Levick and Rajat Suresh, who regularly mock pop culture and news in videos they share on Twitter, recently tackled a topic that’s close to our hearts here The Hollywood Reporter – The THR Actors Roundtable.

In early March, before the Oscars, Levick and Suresh started The Hollywood Recorder Actors Roundtablea 54-minute parody of the long-running hit THR Franchise. For her fictional news agency The Hollywood RecorderLevick and Suresh recreated the THR Roundtable experience down to the smallest detail, from our high-caliber and inclusive line-ups, to our moderators’ hard-hitting questions (“Finish that sentence: I’m acting because…”) to our use of a really, really, really big table. The Recorder’‘s Roundtable features Justin Theroux as a self-reliant actor promoting an Oscar-baiting film (for the record, we’ve never met anyone like him) and includes appearances by actors Colin Stokes as host, Vince Edgehill, Stephen Cofield Jr. and Stu Li.

THR We recently caught up with Levick and Suresh via email to find out more about their inspiration, their creative process, and the next two fun guys who really made us feel like we were seen.

What triggered your idea The Hollywood Recorder Actors Roundtable?

RAJAT SURESH Our performances in severance pay And fair view were really incredible, but zero media asked us to be part of their talks. So we decided to take matters into our own hands and spend a lot of money to create the video and media platform ourselves.

JEREMY LEVICK The format is also very dramatic and serious, which makes us laugh. And every entertainment magazine seems to be adding celebrities to their YouTube video content, so it seemed like a good time for us to get involved. Above all, we have always been a big fan of round shapes. This was a great way for us to finally put one in a video. I’ve been a fan of circles since I came out of the womb, which is a type of circle. Rajat plays basketball, a sport that basically involves throwing one circle into another circle. Justin Theroux has a circle in his name (the letter “o”).

Her attention to detail is impressive, right down to the set, the way it’s shot and edited, and the fact that there’s always at least one guy in a leather jacket. How was your research process?

SECURE Basically, our research process was just watching a bunch of roundtable videos. Our production designer Guy Kozak and our director Johnny Frohman did a great job helping us customize the look. Justin brought the leather jacket himself.

LEVICK We considered all the different options you guys made for the set. We liked the black background with streaks of light. But ultimately with Johnny and Guy we decided that the pitch black background with fairy lights was the funniest / fit the mood we wanted best. Our only regret is that we didn’t get some of those dolly wide-angle shots with a blurry lightbulb in the foreground. This shot is really funny.

SECURE To be honest, a lot of the pre-shoot work went into figuring out where to buy a large table and how to fit it into a small space. How the hell do you do that?

LEVICK Who is your table type?

SECURE We also watched the videos with an eye on how the actors move. I based my body language on Dev Patel.

LEVICK I based my body language on the chairs.

how did you cast that Was Justin Theroux immediately down?

LEVICK We wanted a recognizable celebrity to be there. We knew someone who had developed an oddball comedy project with Justin, so we thought he might be interested. We called him and he was downstairs straight away. The other three actors are great too: Vince Edgehill, Stu Li and Stephen Cofield Jr.

SECURE Justin is a big fan of fair view and was constantly chasing Jeremy to work with him, so yeah, he was down right away.

How long was your shoot? Is everything scripted or is there some improvisation?

SECURE It basically took a whole day to shoot, with a general mix of scripting and improvisation. The cutaway scenes were shot on different days and were more scripted.

What feedback did you receive on the roundtable? (For what it’s worth, I’ve had a few people mail it to me asking if it’s legit.)

SECURE For what it’s worth it Is real. Please tell all the people who sent it to you that it’s real.

LEVICK Stephen Galloway showed up to me with a baseball bat. Other than that, people have said they liked it.

What’s next for you as comedians and writers?

SECURE Lots of big things on the horizon. I was in a Pepsi ad recently, but Pepsi got mad at me for tweeting that I circumcised myself on a Pepsi can.

LEVICK I, on the other hand, was circumcised at birth. Anyway, we were writing for the upcoming season of What we do in the shadows. It would be great if you could write one of these headlines for us. We didn’t tell anyone so it would be a Hollywood reporter EXCLUSIVE: “BREAKING: The shade Taps Jeremy and Rajat as scribes.” And it was also meant to be breaking news.

Suggestions for our next roundtable at THR?

LEVICK You should use our tabletop in your next video. You would have to buy that first. It’s $1,000. We’ve said this in another interview, but in my Facebook Marketplace post it’s an 8ft diameter round table made of maple plywood/MDF, 1.5″ thick with maple edges. Table can be disassembled into two parts, assembly on site with screws from below.

SECURE It costs $1,000 and it’s just the tip. No legs, just top. You would simply have to put it on the table you already own. Please buy it.

Watch Levick and Suresh’s full The Hollywood Recorder Actors Roundtable below.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.