If you’d said to any Mel Brooks fan even three years ago that we’d finally be getting a long-awaited sequel to History of the World, Part I, the epic parody film that took audiences through all of human history, they’d likely have called you crazy. But, in 2023, that vision is finally a reality, and the much anticipated History of the World, Part II, has finally arrived, shepherded in by writers, stars, and executive producers Wanda Sykes, Nick Kroll, and Ike Barinholtz.
The series continues the tradition begun by Brooks, framing each episode as a series of sketches covering the entire history of civilization — and then some. Among the many, many stars of the show are Josh Gad, who plays Shakespeare, Jay Ellis as Jesus of Nazareth, and Zazie Beetz, playing Mary Magdalene. The three star in a number of sketches stretching across the series, including Shakespeare leading a writer’s room in an attempt to brainstorm his next big hit, or Jesus and Mary as parodies of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, attempting to writer Jesus’s last great sermon in the style of The Beatles’ final performance.
Collider was excited to sit down with Gad, Beetz, and Ellis to talk about the show and how they got involved. During this interview, they discussed what it was like getting to improv with comedy greats on the show’s production team, where they first encountered Brooks’s work, and most importantly — who does the best British accent.
Check out the interview in the player above, or read a transcript below, and check out History of the World, Part II, streaming on Hulu.
Well, it is lovely to meet all of you. I adored the show. And just as a side note, Jay, congrats on the SAG Award last night for Top Gun. I'm sure you've gotten that a million times by now, but...
JAY ELLIS: You are the first person, Maggie. Thank you so much. The rest of the world sucks.
JOSH GAD: Sorry about that, Jay. Hulu didn't put it in my talking notes, or else I totally would've congratulated you.
ELLIS: Hulu is nothing to me.
[laughter] Well, to start out, obviously you're involved with a Mel Brooks project, and he's had such a massive influence on film and television basically since the start of the medium with Sid Caesar. So I was curious, for each of you, what was your introduction to Mel Brooks?
GAD: Mine was Spaceballs. That was the first movie that I remember seeing in the theater that was a Mel Brooks film, and it was as astonishing to me as Star Wars was. Like, I was young, but I totally understood all of the gags. I laughed in all the right places, and then I went down a deep dive, and I probably watched History of the World, Blazing Saddles, and Young Frankenstein, like sixty times each. We just had the VHS tapes, and I would go nuts.
ZAZIE BEETZ: For me, it was Blazing Saddles. I think I saw it for the first time when I was like 11 or 12, and I remember just kind of...yeah, I was at a friend's house and her dad just threw it on, and I didn't really expect anything at all and was kind of like, "What the hell is this?" I was like, "What?" Also, I remember just being quite enchanted by that film at that age.
ELLIS: I'm going to copy with Zaz, mine was Blazing Saddles as well. My dad had the cassette. I traveled around...my dad was in the Air Force, so we traveled around a lot and his cassettes were his life—or his VHS, excuse me, were his life. His childhood was in there. His high school years were in there. My parents had me really, really young, so that was something that he would sit around and watch all the time. And I remember, similar to Zazie, I was just like, "What in the hell is happening? Why is my father laughing so hard at all of these very questionable things? And why am I also leaning in so much?" And I just want to do this, and I love this. So Blazing Saddles for me, for sure.
So how did you guys get involved with this? Was this something that you expressed interest in because of Mel Brooks's influence on your work, or was it something different?
BEETZ: I was contacted. Yeah, I remember... I don't actually remember. I was contacted and was so excited. I mean, I had met Nick [Kroll] once before and profusely word-vomited my adoration for Big Mouth, and I think I met him a couple of times and did that every time. So I want to think that he liked that and then gave me a call. But yeah, it was a happy sort of reach out from Nick and Ike and Mel Brooks.
GAD: I got a very frantic call from Ike Barinholtz telling me, not asking me if I wanted to do it, but telling me that I needed to do it because apparently Mel Brooks asked for me, which I'm sure was said to everybody else in the project.
BEETZ: Oh, yeah.
GAD: Yeah. So it was a great way of gaslighting every one of us into doing it because we're all...apparently Mel Brooks is really up with every movie that comes out, he knows all of them intimately. But it was, I'm sure like these guys, a no-brainer. The fact that we get…that we're blessed enough to do a Mel Brooks project in 2023 with a 96-year-old living legend who is as important to film as Spielberg, but in the comedy space, like that to me is...it was just a dream come true.
ELLIS: Yeah. I remember getting the call, Nick called, and I remember he just said, "Hey, so we're doing History of the World." And I was like, "Yep, what do you need?" He didn't need to finish what it was, and I was already in there. Similar to what Josh said, it's crazy that we get to have the opportunity to work with this living legend who asked for all of us by name, and even referenced all the characters of ours that he loves. They definitely sell you. Nick and Ike sell you. Wanda was like, "Are you doing it or you not doing it? Are you doing it or not doing it?" Wanda's like, "I don't know. I don't have time for your bullshit." But no. This was a no-brainer for sure.
And I know, Jay and Zazie, you two both got to work quite closely with Nick because you got to play Mary Magdalene and Jesus, and you were in one of the few sketches that sort of stretches over a handful of episodes. You get to do that wonderful Beatles parody. So in terms of that, those characters, was there sort of any room for improv because you had longer screen time? Or was it all on the page really?
BEETZ: I mean, what's not improvised?
ELLIS: Yeah.
BEETZ: It was actually really nice because I don't think of myself as a comedian at all. I get very nervous, but I felt like, I was like, "This is the environment where I can just go for the lowest common denominator joke, and it will be accepted." And so it was so fun to just sort of...I mean, yeah, we were improvising a lot, and it was very encouraged and a very welcoming audience. I think Ike kept breaking, laughing all the time, which made me feel really good about myself. So yes, I would say that, improv.
ELLIS: Tons of improv. I think one of my favorite things was not knowing what Zazie was going to do for Yoko. There was this line in the script where it was like, "Yoko shrieks" or something like that, and not knowing what sound was going to come out of her mouth. And I'll never forget…all of us, we couldn't use the take. There's no way that we could have used that take because every single person broke when she made this like...she grabbed the mic and is just swaying back and forth and does this guttural “ooh.” It was absolutely amazing. But they just encouraged us to just have fun with these characters, and I think because that particular skit is based obviously off of the Beatles doc [Get Back], it was this thing of like, how far can you push playing with Jesus as Lennon and Mary as Yoko? How far can you push those things and play with that? And so I don't know that a scripted word made it in the take.
BEETZ: In the show.
I think that was definitely one of my favorite bits, and sort of connected to that…this might involve you three kind of duking it out, but you do all three do British accents at some point. So who do you think does the best out of the three of you?
ELLIS: Josh Gad.
BEETZ: Josh Gad.
GAD: Oh, wow. I was also going to say Josh Gad. I'm so happy you guys beat me to...no, the truth is I'm terrible at British. It was so funny because I was like, "Do you want me to do this for comedic effect, or do you want the audience to laugh at how bad I sound doing it?" And they insisted that I did it, and I'm still not sure if they're going to laugh with me or at me. So either way, I guess it's a win for the sketch.
One last question for you guys, and it's a little bit out there, it's a little bit silly, but if you could go to any historical time period, History of the World-leaning or not, which one would you pick?
GAD: Ooh.
BEETZ: I'm obsessed with the Victorian and Edwardian period. I just moved into this place that has all these very Victorian feelings and it's like...so the energy I'm into. So I would, aesthetically…aesthetically I would do that.
ELLIS: Yeah. Yeah. Not a lot of places we can really go, but history is history. I'd probably go to Rome. I'd probably see what it was like to be a Caesar, go to the Colosseum, hang out, watch a battle happen, I don't know.
BEETZ: Nice.
ELLIS: Walk around in a robe and just stinky all the time.
GAD: All of these sound theoretically fun for about five minutes. And then they just sound really complicated and dangerous. I guess I would—
BEETZ: The '90s?
GAD: Yeah, I would probably safely go to 1996 and just...yeah, I think I would feel confident, most confident and comfortable, maybe as far back into the '80s and just sort of relive that again. Otherwise, the Italian Renaissance to me would be a cool place to be. Just kind of checking in on what good old Michelangelo and his Ninja Turtle pals are up to. That would be mine.
History of the World Part II is streaming on Hulu.