What makes a good subject for a Comedy Central roast? Jonas Larsen, the network’s co-head of original content, has a simple yardstick—one he’s taken to calling “the billboard test
” Larsen, who has overseen the comedy network’s specials for years, explained the concept during a recent phone interview: “If you’re driving down Sunset Boulevard in L
A., and you see a billboard for the Roast.are you going to go, ‘Whoa, I’ve got to check that out?’” Ideally, the answer will be a yes, for two reasons: “They’ve had a really, really long and fruitful career—but they also have had some public issues, potentially, or there’s good material on them
” Take, for instance, Alec Baldwin, who on Sunday night will take his lumps from the usual bunch of comedians and actors, including Roast Master Sean Hayes, Robert De Niro, Blake Griffin, Caitlyn Jenner, and Jeff Ross
True, Baldwin has had a full career in Hollywood, both on the big and small screen and on Broadway—but, as Larsen points out, “he’s also had some very public run-ins with paparazzi, and law, and American Airlines, and so on
You know that you have some great jokes already.” The roast tradition began with the New York Friars, a private comedy club that held its own annual roast once a year, dating back to the 1950s
Comedy Central began airing the events in 1998. In 2003, when the agreement with the Friars expired, the network began producing its own roasts, starting with Denis Leary’s in 2003
Since then, the annual broadcast has become a defining component of Comedy Central’s lineup
Over the years, the roasts have been hit-or-miss. But when they’re great, they’re really great
Case in point? The Roast of Charlie Sheen—where a lot of the craziest moments actually happened off-screen
“That roast obviously came about right at the height of his spiral—his very public spiral,” Larsen said
Naturally, he and a few other producers were worried about the event’s timing, and decided to sit down with Sheen to talk through their concerns
Larsen and Comedy Central president Kent Alterman were surprised by what they found: “He was so sharp
And not only that, he was so aware of what was going on around him—to the point where you’re like, ‘Oh, he’s acting out
Something is going on,’” said Larsen. Overall, he found Sheen a pleasure to work with, and game for just about anything
Larsen and his team also discovered while filming promos for the big event that their star has a photographic memory
“When we showed up on set, we handed him a script, which he had had in advance, and he took one look at it, and he never looked at it again
… You know how many drugs that he has consumed over the years? It is unreal that he could do that,” he said
Another fun Sheen story? The show’s producers had an idea to shoot a roast promo in which they recreated a scene from Apocalypse Now—putting Sheen in the role his father, Martin Sheen, occupied as the star of the original film
Sheen invited the group to his house to film it in his hot tub. “We proceeded to smuggle all our camera gear into his house, because he lives in a gated community and we’re not allowed to shoot there,” Larsen said
“As we get there, he goes, ‘Oh yeah. Yeah, I've got Roman coming over, so he can help out
’” Roman who? you might wonder. That would be Roman Coppola, whom Sheen had enlisted to codirect
“Those two, as children, spent time together on set of Apocalypse Now, and became very close back then,” Larsen said
“Then, as we were setting up, Martin Sheen shows up to see his grandchildren, and [Charlie]’s like, ‘Hey, can you participate in this?’ And I don’t think Martin had any idea what we were shooting
He was like, ‘Sure, whatever you want to do.’” As the crew set up in Sheen’s backyard, Martin played with his grandchildren
Sheen invited the whole team to a premiere party the night his roast aired—which, for those who do not recall, was the same night Two and a Half Men debuted Ashton Kutcher as Sheen’s replacement
“That preceded us, so we actually sat with Charlie, watching Ashton Kutcher take over from him on Two and a Half Men, and then watched the roast with him immediately following, which is both surreal and amazing—and he was so gracious about it,” Larsen remembered
Sheen’s roast remains one of the best loved in the event’s history.Advertisement But no roast has been more talked about than Donald Trump’s, which aired just months before Sheen’s did, in 2011—and included such chestnuts as, “The only difference between you and Michael Douglas from Wall Street is nobody’s going to be sad when you get cancer
” That special, Larsen said, “was an interesting experience, to say the least.” Looking back, Larsen feels pretty sure Trump volunteered to get roasted in order to get more exposure; he was, at the time, contemplating a 2012 presidential campaign that ultimately fizzled out
Larsen was surprised to learn from the experience that Trump didn’t have as much depth as he expected: “I came to find out that the real Donald Trump is that guy you see on TV now all the time
” “I was really taken aback,” Larsen continued. “I was really disappointed, because I was like, There's nothing more to him than that?
He really is that guy?” Though Larsen spent some time planning the event with Trump, he and his roastee had less contact than he usually does with celebrities ahead of their big night
When he called to schedule promotional shoots, he was told that “Mr. Trump”—because, yes, his team calls him “Mr
Trump,” Larsen said, and never “Donald”—“can squeeze you in for 20 minutes on this and this date
” When Larsen countered that he’d need Trump for half a day, he was told, “Yeah, but he’s very efficient—so we can give you 20 minutes
” As much as Larsen disagrees with Trump’s politics, he has to admit: Once they devised a quick promo idea, Trump did get it done in 20 minutes
Although he also needed a quick break to fix his hairspray. “I remember the hair person went up to him and started spraying,” Larsen said
“He just grabbed the can, sprayed it himself because he knew exactly how to do it
He was very efficient. We got the shot, we got his scene and then he moved on to the next one
” One strange quirk, however, was that when posing for photos, Trump kept assuming the same position—even when asked to switch things up
“He kept doing the same pose, which is him leaning forward, pointing with his index finger
Like, you know, the finger-gun thing with his mouth slightly open like he's yelling at someone,” Larsen said
“I think I got him to cross his arms once, but that was it. It was so bizarre to me
and then I looked it up, and I saw that most of the tabloid photos of him was the same pose
That was just kind of his ‘Blue Steel.’” While the team wrote jokes, Larsen said, Trump would also poll the room, asking everyone around him, “Do you think this is funny?” It’s natural to wonder what role Comedy Central roasts play in the current culture
Our national dialogue has transformed dramatically since 2003; in a world where Twitter basically functions as a 24/7 roasting machine, what do these events actually add to the culture? For his part, Larsen believes roasts still do something special—mainly by acting as a vehicle for catharsis
Unlike Twitter, which can sometimes feel like shouting into the ether, the jokes hurled at roastees actually do hit their objects in the face
“Once it's been said, it doesn't need to be said again,” Larsen said. “Because it's been said in the most brutal way possible
We don’t roast anybody that’s not on the stage. It’s about saying it to their face
” At its best, Larsen said, the roast allows celebrities—both the roastees and, later, the roasters—to take responsibility for everything they’ve done in their lives
Advertisement So, what can viewers expect when Alec Baldwin takes the stage on Sunday? First off, get ready for De Niro to go all-in
For Larsen, a self-described De Niro stan, “It was a dream come true to have him there
But for him to then also really take it seriously. I mean, he worked with his writer for weeks,” Larsen said
“He practiced his set; he studied it down to his facial expressions. He’s a consummate pro
He killed.” And unlike some roasts, which feature duds alongside stronger sets, Larsen insisted that this time around there’s not a bomb in the bunch
Baldwin, Larsen added, was a good sport throughout the night—and Larsen was surprised to learn that the Emmy winner did a lot of legwork himself
“If he has a press question, he calls our press guy directly,” Larsen said. “You get an anonymous number call, and it’s a Alec Baldwin—and he has a couple of questions for you
He just deals with people directly like that, which is very uncommon, I think, for certainly a star of his stature
It became a little bit, especially around Comedy Central—kind of a fun thing. Like, ‘I got a call from Alec Baldwin
’ ‘He called me!’ It was just fun.” — Our cover story: Lupita Nyong’o on Us, Black Panther, and much more— Five appalling stories from the set of The Wizard of Oz— Hugh Grant’s very English comeback— How’s Joker? Our critic says Joaquin Phoenix towers in a deeply troubling film— Lori Loughlin finally gets a win Looking for more? Sign up for our daily Hollywood newsletter and never miss a story