John Oliver

John William Oliver (born 23 April 1977) is a British-American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. Oliver started his career as a stand-up comedian in the United Kingdom. He came to wider attention for his work in the United States as Senior British Correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart from 2006 to 2013. Oliver won three Primetime Emmy Awards for writing for The Daily Show and he became the guest host for an eight-week period in 2013. He also co-hosted the comedy podcast The Bugle with Andy Zaltzman, with whom Oliver had previously worked with on the radio series Political Animal. From 2010 to 2013, Oliver hosted his stand-up series John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show on Comedy Central. He has also acted on television, most prominently in a recurring role as Dr Ian Duncan on the NBC sitcom Community, and in films, including voice-over work in The Smurfs (2011), The Smurfs 2 (2013), and the 2019 remake of The Lion King. He became a US citizen in 2019. Since 2014, Oliver has been the host of the HBO series Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. He has received widespread critical and popular recognition for his work on the series, and its influence over US culture, legislation and policymaking has been dubbed the "John Oliver effect". For his work on Last Week Tonight, Oliver has won fourteen Emmy Awards and two Peabody Awards and was included in the 2015 Time 100. Time described him as a "comedic agent of change...powerful because he isn't afraid to tackle important issues thoughtfully, without fear or apology". Oliver's work has been described as journalism or investigative journalism; labels that Oliver rejects. Early life and education John William Oliver was born on 23 April 1977 in Birmingham, England, to Carole and Jim Oliver. His father, from the Wirral Peninsula, was both a school headmaster and social worker, and his mother, from Liverpool, was a music teacher. His uncle was the composer Stephen Oliver. Oliver attended the Mark Rutherford School in Bedford and learned to play the viola as a child. Following secondary school, he studied at Christ's College, Cambridge. While a student there in the mid-to-late 1990s, Oliver was a member of the Cambridge Footlights, the university theatrical club run by students of Cambridge University. Oliver's contemporaries included David Mitchell and Richard Ayoade, and he became the club's vice president in 1997.