WhenJason Mantzoukaswas announced as a competitor for Season 19 ofTaskmaster, I knew he’d be a perfect fit. Not only is it the only competition show on television that requires you to be a little bit insane going in — something he’s proven he definitely can be across his various film and TV roles — but I knew for a fact that he’s a huge fan of the show. He knows the British comedy series as well as any other super fan, and when I sat down to talk with him about being a part of the show’s landmark nineteenth series, it felt less like an interview and more like shooting the shit with a friend about a shared favorite.
It’s clear to me that this isn’t just a publicity opportunity for him — it never is for any of the contestants, unless you countmaking a fool of yourself on prime time TVgood press. But he truly loves the series, and it comes through in his enthusiasm for every part of the process, including taking selfies inside theTaskmasterhouse (a rented property in Chiswick) because he couldn’t quite believe he was there.
“I was a fan to the degree that I was like, “Oh, I’m such a fan of this!” Not just like, “I’m enjoying it,” but likethat kind of fandom that’s like, “I want to do that. I want to beinsidethe show,”he tells me, a statement any diehard fan can relate to. “I happen to be very lucky that I can activate people on my behalf; I said to my manager, “Can you just ask the producers?” So, when they were willing to talk to me and then were so immediately interested in me being a part of it, I was like, “Oh my god.”
Is It Possible to Forget You’re on TV? On ‘Taskmaster,’ It Is
Mantouzkas couldn’t come up with any particular moments that made him a fan in the first place — though he does specifically cite Season 5 contestantBob Mortimeras a highlight — but being on the show hasn’t made him any less of one, even while he was actively taping the studio segments of the series:
“Those taping shows are like a three-and-a-half-hour live comedy show. There’s 300-some-odd people in the audience, and you’re on stage with six other people or whatever it is, and you’re doing a show. What’s crazy, the weird magic trick that happens is the minute they start playing [the pre-recorded tasks], you go from, “I’m inside of a comedy show. I’m doing a comedy show for a live audience,” and then the minute they cut to the screen, I might as well be sitting on my sofa at home watching the show. I suddenly just become a viewer, and I’m just like…[laughs]. And then I’m like, “I’m on camera right now. I’m still on a stage being filmed.” So, you kind of forget, because I’m so conditioned to just enjoy the show.”
The series has had a few non-Brit contestants, namelyMae Martin, the Canadian winner of Season 15, as well as expatsKatherine RyanandDesiree Burch, among others, but Season 19 marks the first time they’ve imported a comedian from outside the UK to compete in the series. When I asked if the idea of being the first in that category intimidated him, Mantzoukas said that he was less concerned with audience reception of an American than he was being accepted by his fellow contestants — who, yes, he does have a group chat with:
“The only thing I was genuinely nervous about was that — and boy, was I so happy to be proven completely wrong — the other contestants, simply by the nature of the scene that they’re in, might know each other and that they might have a camaraderie or an ease, or they might have relationships. I didn’t want to be the odd man out on stage. But the minute I got there, we got to all hang out for a little while beforehand, and it was immediately like, what a great ensemble. What a great group of people. We all just immediately started hanging out. We started eating our lunches together… So, we got on very well, which I was really happy about.”
In a world where driving barges, painting in the dark, andmaking giant dot-to-dot pictures are the norm, he’s not shy to admit to “eating shit” during a couple of tasks — his words, not mine. But he also gives huge credit to the show’s creative team for diversifying the challenges, enough so that one person or another didn’t have it easy every single episode: “I think every time I read the task, I was like, “I don’t remember anything I just read. I have to reread it again.”I would read and reread to be like, “How are they fucking with me here?”I would look under every table, and I was trying to figure out every trick possible and still fucked up, like, royally.”
His only regret, though? “That I truly didn’t cause any grievous personal harm to Alex Horne.”
Our full chat was too good not to share, so you can read the whole thing below, and check outTaskmasterSeason 19 when it premieres in the UK today, May 1, and on YouTube for the rest of the world on May 2.
COLLIDER: I’m so excited to talk to you. I’m a giganticTaskmasterfan, and when I found out you were going to be on the show, my friends and I were like, “Oh, they’ve picked the perfect person for this.”
JASON MANTZOUKAS: Oh, that’s so good! I’m so glad. Have you seen the episodes yet?
I’ve only watched a couple because I wanted to watch the rest with my friends. But for the episodes Ihaveseen, I have to ask: how many times did you try to get on the roof, and how many times did Health and Safety tell you no?
MANTZOUKAS: Any time we were outside, and the task was anything that I could build a way to get on the roof, I would start there, and they would tell me no. Then at a certain point, they started to just preemptively be like, “Please don’t even attempt to get on the roof.” They really started to anticipate that I was going to try. Any time they told me I couldn’t do something, I immediately tried to implement that into every task I could.
That’s theTaskmasterway, isn’t it? You have to go as far as you’re willing to.
MANTZOUKAS: And my job, I felt very acutely, was to make Alex’s job as difficult as possible. I wasn’t there to make friends, Maggie. I was there to cause chaos.
As you should, honestly, because that’s where the bestTaskmastertasks come from. Rhod Gilbert threw a javelin at him at one point.
MANTZOUKAS: I agree! Oh, absolutely. My only regret of the whole season, and I don’t think this is saying too much or spoiling anything, is that I truly didn’t cause any grievous personal harm to Alex Horne, and I wish I had. I really wish I’d managed to harm him in some meaningful way so that in years to come, when people were to say, “What is that scar?” or, “How did you get that injury?”he wouldhaveto say, “Jason Mantzoukas did this to me.”
[laughs]I feel like that would have gotten you points from Greg, too.
MANTZOUKAS: I agree! But he’s squirrelly. He can dodge projectiles. He knows. He’s squirrelly.
But you’re also deathly allergic to eggs, and there are often egg-related tasks in this show, too. How do you feel about being responsible for an egglessTaskmasterseason?
MANTZOUKAS: It was very funny because as it started to become a reality that this might happen and I might actually be able to go and do this and how exciting, I had a real moment of, like, “Oh no, I’ve got to let them know that I can’t do anything with eggs, and I hope that’s okay.” Because, as you just alluded to, eggs are so integral to so many of the tasks. So, I had a very real exchange with them to kind of explain my allergy, and I can’t really even touch stuff, and blah, blah, blah. But they were very sweet because I was like, “Oh, I feel like I might be throwing a real monkey wrench into their thing.” They were very sweet, all of the crew that do all the tasks and put it all together, because there were a fair amount of [tasks that are like], “You have to eat a thing,” you have to interact with food stuff a bunch. They were very sweetly like, “We looked at all the ingredients.”They would show me the ingredients list just to make sure I felt comfortable, which I was very grateful for.But yeah, it was a very real conversation for such a silly show.
So, no grievous bodily harm to the contestants, but we can cause grievous bodily harm to Alex. Got it.
MANTZOUKAS: We can at leastattemptit, Maggie. We can at least attempt.
Mantzoukas Still Can’t Believe They Let Him Compete on ‘Taskmaster’
I know you were a fan of the show, or you had at least seen it before they asked you to come on. When that exchange started, what was your initial reaction to getting to go and be on the set?
MANTZOUKAS: Beyond excited, especially because I was a fan. I was a fan to the degree that I was like, “Oh, I’m such a fan of this!” Not just like, “I’m enjoying it,” but like that kind of fandom that’s like, “I want todothat. I want to beinsidethe show.” I happen to be very lucky that I can activate people on my behalf; I said to my manager, “Can you just ask the producers?” Because I knew that they’d never flown people out for the show. They’ve never had American-based contestants. It was so much so that I was like, “Oh, maybe that’s not their interest. Maybe it’s better for the way they do the show if everybody is from their community and they know everybody.”So, when they were willing to talk to me and then were so immediately interested in me being a part of it, I was like, “Oh my god.”As ifyouwere toldyoucan go.
They kept catching me, in theTaskmasterhouse, taking selfies with things, and they kept saying, “What are you doing?” I was like, “Guys, I love this show.”Taskmasterin the UK is massive. It’s the equivalent of anSNLor a very popular show [here], but they know that it’s not as popular here, so I think they kept being surprised that I was actually a fan, you know what I mean? So much so that I would take selfies with props or that I would just be, in downtime, wanting to talk about, like, Sam Campbell, and they’d be like, “You watched that, too?” I’m like, “Guys, I’ve watched everything.”
Do you have a favorite task from prior seasons?
MANTZOUKAS: That’s a good question. I should think about that because that came up recently, too. There are so many tasks that I love because the tasks themselves are quite funny or clever. But really, it is just players. It is just watching players go through it. I don’t know what you do to try and recommend the show or turn people onto the show,but the YouTube channel is so good at having both the entire library there, which is incredible, and what a resource, but the ability to pick the clip shows that are like, “Oh, here’s Rhod Gilbert. Here’s chaos unfettered.” Or, “Here’s the 10 best times people failed.”
Sometimes those are great to send to people to be like, “This is what the show’s like,” so that they’re not like, “Here, watch a 45-minute show.” It’s like, “Watch this 10-minute clip that I think you’ll like because you like when things get out of control, or you’ll like this comedian,” or, “I know you like this comedian. Oh, here’s 10 minutes of uninterrupted James Acaster brilliance. Boom.” So, it’s specific casts, it’s players, it’s anything Bob Mortimer. I’ll watch Bob Mortimer tasks all the time just because I just find him so delightful and funny. That whole season, I think, is incredible. I love it. But to answer your question, I don’t have, like, “This is theone,” type of task.
The one I think of constantly is the one from Season 15 when they have to get the things on the barge pole. Partly because of Kiell [Smith-Bynoe’s] little song, but also partly because of Jenny [Eclair] and Ivo [Graham] crashing the barge multiple times.
MANTZOUKAS: Oh, yeah. It’s great.
That’s the one I pitch people on the show. I’m like, “Start with that episode. If you don’t like it, I don’t mind, but you will love it.”
MANTZOUKAS: It’s the best.
I’ve talked to Greg and Alex before, but I’ve never talked to a contestant before, and I was curious about what it’s like watching your tasks back in the studio. Are you cringing the whole time you’re watching the VT? Are you going, “Damn it, I should have done something different?” What is that experience like?
MANTZOUKAS: It depends on what the task is. It’s really interesting. Those taping shows are, like, three and a half hours long, and you do two a day. So, it’s a long day. But the magic trick of it is you’re sitting there, and it’s a live comedy show. It’s like a three-and-a-half-hour live comedy show.There’s 300-some-odd people in the audience, and you’re on stage with six other people or whatever it is, and you’re doing a show.Every once in a while, the show cuts to the screen and you watch the clip package, the edited-together tasks. What’s crazy, the weird magic trick that happens is the minute they start playing, you go from, “I’m inside of a comedy show. I’m doing a comedy show for a live audience. I’m aware it’s being taped, but really, I’m here for this,” and then the minute they cut to the screen, I might as well be sitting on my sofa at home watching the show. I suddenly just become a viewer, and I’m just like [laughs], and then I’m like, “I’m on camera right now. I’m still on a stage being filmed.” So, you kind of forget, because I’m so conditioned to just enjoy the show.
But then, certain tasks, I was like,“Oh, no, I know what’s about to happen. I’m about to eat shit.”Or other tasks where I’m like, “Oh, I think I nailed this one.” So, you have the hubris of certain tasks that you think you did well, you have the dread of the tasks that you know you botched, and then, truly, there’s a handful of tasks that I was like, “I don’t even remember this. What is this?” Because it was eight months ago, and it was brief. Because some of them are over in five minutes, and you’re doing a dozen or more tasks a day. So, a lot of times, he’ll introduce one, and I’ll be like, “What was this?” Then it’ll come up and I’ll be like, “Oh, fuck, this dumb thing.”
Did you have any confidence going in that you were going to be good, and did that just immediately evaporate when you opened a task and realized that Alex was a complete madman?
MANTZOUKAS: It’s not that I had confidence that I would be good in the show.Taskmasteris a show that is a comedy show, and it’s a task/puzzle, scavenger hunt-type show. In the comedy show, I was like, “Okay, I feel like I can do that,” because watching that show felt very similar to me to doing live comedy, doing live improv shows, doing live podcasts, doingHow Did This Get Made?live orComedy Bang! Bang!live. It’s a large overlap. So, I was like, “Well, I think I could do that.” But the tasks, I was like, “Some of these are right in my wheelhouse, and some of these are not at all.” And that’s what I think they do very well, is both in casting the ensemble and in giving you tasks, because some tasks I felt very good in terms of, like, “Oh, I think this task aligns with how I think,” and then some were like, “Oh, absolutely not. I’mwayout of my element.” So, that’s what’s fun about the show.
A lot of times, too, when you’re watching at home, it’s like watchingJeopardyor whatever, where you’re like, “I know the answer,” but the minute you get there and you start reading a task… Because you’re also so hyped. I couldn’t believe I was there. I couldn’t believe I was in the house. I couldn’t believe it was all happening. I couldn’t believe I was walking out. I couldn’t believe I was opening a task. Then, the first day of tasks, I think every time I read the task, I was like, “I don’t remember anything I just read. I have to reread it again.” So, if they released the unedited clips of just my tasks, you would see me reading and rereading without reading, “Your time starts now,” or without reading the last line. I would read and reread to be like, “How are they fucking with me here?”I would look under every table, and I was trying to figure out every trick possible and still fucked up, like, royally.
That’s a good way to go in, I guess. But I know you also, at least a little bit, know some other contestants, because I show people the picture of you and Nish Kumar dressed as each other for Halloween, literally, any chance I get. Did you talk to him or reach out to anybody else to ask for advice, or did you just decide, “I know the basis of the show. I’m just going to go in and do what I can"?
MANTZOUKAS: A little bit the latter. More the latter. I was very excited and confident to go in and do my thing. I talked to Alex. I talked to the Andys, the producers. I’d had enough conversations that I was like, “Okay, I think this is going to go well.” But I did talk to Nish. I did talk to Aisling [Bea], just in general, because even though I had talked to everybody, I didn’t know them. I don’t know Alex. These were all new people to me. So,I just talked to Nish and Aisling, in general, about their experience, the best practices for a group of people that I don’t know.
Because that’s the thing is being dropped into a production that very much exists, what a wonderful group of people they have that are the same group of people, like very familial, very small group of people who are making this great show. I also want to be like, “I’m here to play in your world.” I want to be a good player while I’m consistently trying to destroy your show from the inside, if that makes sense.
Would He Fit In With the Brits on ‘Taskmaster’? That Was Jason Mantzoukas’s Only Worry
I want to ask you about how you felt about being the first American import, because obviously, you’ve had Desiree Burch and Mae Martin, who aren’t UK comedians by nationality, but you’re the first one they’ve shipped over, so to speak. Were you nervous about that at all? Were you nervous about the reception of it?
MANTZOUKAS: No, I wasn’t nervous about the reception of it. The only thing I was genuinely nervous about was that — and boy, was I so happy to be proven completely wrong — the other contestants, simply by the nature of the scene that they’re in, might know each other and that they might have a camaraderie or an ease, or they might have relationships. I didn’t want to be the odd man out on stage. So much of what’s fun about the show is the roasting, the ball busting, the teasing, the onstage banter, and I was like, “I don’t want people to feel like, “I don’t know the American, so I can’t take shots at him.” I didn’t want them to feel like, “This guy’s a stranger.”
But the minute I got there, we got to all hang out for a little while beforehand, and it was immediately like, what a great ensemble.What a great group of people. We all just immediately started hanging out. We started eating our lunches together. I was just texting with them — we’re all on a text chain together. So, we got on very well, which I was really happy about because that was the only thing. I was like, “I just don’t want to be the odd man out. I don’t want people to feel like they can’t tease me or take shots at me,” and/or, “I don’t want people to be upset if I’m going at them the way that I’m getting.” So, that was really it. It really was more just like, “Well, I hope on stage it feels very easy and open,” and it did.
That absolutely comes across. When you were announced, my friends and I, we always look forward to the lineup announcement, we were like, “Oh, yeah, here’s the exact energy that’s going to fit into what this show is trying to do.” I don’t think they’ve ever picked one that doesn’t, but immediately we were like, “I don’t even need to see what he’s going to do. We know it’s going to be great.”
MANTZOUKAS: Oh, good!
And largely the reaction I’ve seen has been, “Oh, shit, they gothim?” Everybody’s excited about it.
MANTZOUKAS: Good! I’m so glad. I’m so glad because, genuinely, it’s such a beloved show. And whether it’s on theHow Did This Get Madetour we just did or at other social things, I’ve just started having people say to me, “Hey, good luck onTaskmaster,” or “Can’t wait forTaskmaster,” which is so cool.
When I doTaskmasterstuff, I always like to wrap up with a little bit of a silly question, because it’s a silly show. You are also in the Percy Jackson series, and I would be remiss not to ask something related to that, because I’ve loved those since I was eight years old. What do you think is more difficult, aPercy Jacksonquest or competing onTaskmaster?
MANTZOUKAS: Wow! You know, aPercy Jacksonquest is difficult because, I’ll be honest, it can be life-threatening. You’re going to have to deal with the monsters of mythology who are after you, and, boy, can that be quite dangerous. But I would take that any day over having to spend one more minute with Alex Horne. You know? Like, I would rather have a sword fight with Ares than have to spend another minute with Alex Horne in low-stakes conversation. You know what he is? He’s kind of like the energy vampire onWhat We Do in the Shadows. He really is. I feel like after a day spent with Alex Horne, somehow I’m older and he’s younger. There’s something there. We should look into it.
Maybe that’s why the show is so successful — he’s just slowly draining every comedian in England of their energy.
MANTZOUKAS: How have they done 19 seasons in 10 years? That doesn’t add up.
Season 19 ofTaskmasterpremieres tomorrow, May 2, on YouTube in the U.S.
