Nikki Glaser doesn’t plan to blow her golden opportunity.
On Sunday, Glaser will host the 82nd Golden Globes. She plans for the gig to be more like her breakout Tom Brady roast performance and less like Jo Koy’s 2024 turn as Golden Globes host.
A year ago, Koy bombed quite hard in a ballroom full of movie and TV stars. He was on short notice, way out of his element, and a bit sophomoric with the jokes. His monologue was rough, to put it succinctly — and kindly. Glaser, like the rest of us, took notice. She also took notes.
“It taught me the importance of contextualizing yourself to the room as a comedian,” Glaser told Variety. “Comedians, we would love to be thought of in the same light as these A-listers, but we just aren’t. His monologue would have gone a lot better had he acknowledged, ‘Who am I?’”
Unlike Glaser, Koy is no roast comic. His material focuses largely on cultural quirks he sees within his Filipino culture. Koy’s audiences eat it up, but the 2023 Golden Globes were not Koy’s crowd.
“He’s a guy that kills harder than anyone I’ve seen kill before — to his audience,” she said. “So I think he thought that would be the vibe there.”
That “was a little naive,” she added. Glaser says she’s “going the other way.”
“I’m…not assuming anyone knows who I am,” Glaser said, “and making sure they’re introduced to me before I start making jokes about them.”
Glaser can be an acquired taste herself — just ask some NFL viewers. Her humor is often crude and shocking, but she is excellent at taking the rich and famous down a peg or two. Sometimes it can be a few too many pegs, something Glaser will want to avoid on Sunday.
Though Glaser has been doing standup for more than two decades, she only became a (semi-) household name in May 2024 after absolutely slaughtering at Netflix’s live special “The Greatest Roast of All Time: Tom Brady.”
Glaser says she feels “really ready” for the Globes — “I just know it’ll be killer.” But she’s not taking chances. Glaser said comedians hosting big awards shows have the “advantage” to work their monologue out ahead of time in the comedy clubs, which she’s been doing.
“Ricky (Gervais) is a stand-up, so he knows the club circuit — he could have worked it out, and I’m sure he did,” she said. “And Jo Koy also could have done that, and I don’t know that he did. I’m sure some people worry about the jokes getting out; I just know from doing roasts that this is part of my process.”
See the fruits of her process on Sunday, January 5 on CBS.
