When stars make the rounds of talk shows to promote their news projects, it’s usually a pretty standard affair, with a host acting interested, and the guest tossing around a few anecdotes about the making of this or that. But celebs on the YouTube talk show, “Hot Ones,” have a very different experience.
“Hot Ones,” which first launched in 2018, involves host Sean Evans asking fairly ordinary questions about a visiting celebrity’s new movie or whatever. But instead of comfortably sitting and smiling, the guests join Evans in sampling super-spicy chicken wings, which grow ever hotter as the interview goes on.
This tends to produce a more, let’s say, unrehearsed experience, as the stars sweat, get runny noses, cough, and otherwise react to what sure looks like painfully fiery wings.
In an episode from early June, Evans talked to guest Julia Louis-Dreyfus, best-known for her roles in “Seinfeld” and “Veep.” After doing her promotional duties for her new movie, “You Hurt My Feelings,” which reunites Louis-Dreyfus with director Nicole Holofcener, Louis-Dreyfus gamely made her way through a series of increasingly hot wings.
In honor of a Portland hot spell, where the temperature is expected to approach 100 degrees, here’s a look at Louis-Dreyfus suffering through another kind of heat. And as a bonus, at about the 18-minute mark in the interview, Louis-Dreyfus gives a shout-out to a scenic spot in Oregon where we definitely wish we were right now.
As Louis-Dreyfus coughs, Evans asks her, “As a longtime champion of the cause, what would you say is the most underrated national park?”
Louis-Dreyfus has been a supporter of, among other organizations, the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit group dedicated to protecting and preserving the country’s National Park System.
Before answering Evans’ question, Louis-Dreyfus — who appears to be feeling the effects of the hot wings — covers her face with a napkin, then says, “There’s Crater Lake National Park,” as an image of the Oregon landmark appears onscreen. “But I’ve never been there. So how do I know?”
Louis-Dreyfus goes on to say that visiting Crater Lake National Park is on her to-do list, because “it’s really cool-looking.”
(You can stream “You Hurt My Feelings” on platforms including Amazon Prime Video and DirecTV; “Veep” is streaming on platforms including Max and Hulu)
— Kristi Turnquist
503-221-8227; kturnquist@oregonian.com; @Kristiturnquist
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