Long before Last Week Tonight, John Oliver was a “street urchin.” In fact, it was his television debut.
Oliver reminisced about his “first and only real acting gig” during his chat on Late Night with Seth Meyers last night, noting that the role was filmed at Bedfordshire, England’s Stewartby brickworks—the site of Universal Studios’ planned Great Britain theme park. That building was (and is) so bleak, he explained, that it was used to film a BBC period drama called Bleak House.
When Bleak House (released in the US as a part of Masterpiece Theatre) aired in 1985, viewers had no idea that one of the children onscreen would become a familiar face some two decades later.
“I was in an adaptation of a Dickensian drama, and I played a Victorian orphan,” Oliver mentioned off-handedly to Seth Meyers, piquing the host’s interest. “I was a street urchin who, I believe, had been taken by a governess and was being shopped around.”
Although Last Week Tonight host didn’t have a single line in his one episode, he did get a several minutes of screen time, netted a closeup, and got to act alongside English actress Diana Rigg.
Oliver discussed the Bleak House gig during an earlier visit to Late Night, recounting why he took the role in the first place. “The BBC was shooting a costume drama called Bleak House nearby my school, and they wanted a kid with dark hair and brown eyes. And I was two for two on that,” he explained.
“It sounds like an offensive stereotype about a British person,” he added of his role as an orphan.
When Oliver learned he could miss school to be on set, he quickly agreed. The set, however, was apparently just as dreadful. “They said to us, ‘We just need you to look bored,’” he told Meyers, “and all of us said ‘No problem. We are that.’”
Oliver would return to performing at age 23 in 2001. By 2006, he had joined The Daily Show as a correspondent and eventual guest host, before exiting to host Last Week Tonight in 2014. But Bleak House wasn’t truly Oliver’s only acting gig. In addition to some voice roles, the comic appeared in 18 episodes of Community as Dr. Ian Duncan.
But it all started with Bleak House. Now, thanks to one intrepid YouTuber, Oliver fans can time travel back to that moment. Footage of a very genuinely bored 7-year-old Oliver in the role of Felix Pardiggle can be viewed below (his closeup comes 1:10 into the clip):
