Widely known for his interview show “Hot Ones,” Sean Evans interviews celebrities from various backgrounds, all while eating increasingly spicy chicken wings. Evans interviewed “Stranger Things” star Caleb McLaughlin in a live rendition of his Youtube show in Reynolds Performance Hall Sept. 15.
Evans has a journalism degree from the University of Illinois and began “Hot Ones” in 2015 when media companies began to rely heavily on video entertainment.
“We were challenged with coming up with a video product,” Evans said. “We thought to ourselves, ‘maybe we could do a celebrity interview show just because of our proximity to it,’ just because we were close [and] maybe we could trick enough people into our studio to do something.”
“But then the question became, what are we going to do? What is our show? We thought at the time celebrity interview shows are boring, so how do we make them not boring? The reason they’re boring is because everyone’s in sort of a PR-driven flight pattern.” Evans said.
“So we were like, how do we disrupt that? Chris Schonberger, the genius he is, was like ‘well what if we interviewed celebrities? But I mean, [with] increasingly spicy chicken wings over the course of the interview.’ And then I was like ‘you’re a genius.’”
Evans and Schonberger then went on to write the pilot immediately after and have continued to film for eight years, leading to their success and continuing to film their 18th season.
Evans has had the opportunity to work with people such as Paul Rudd, Millie Bobby Brown, Scarlett Johannsson, Gordon Ramsay and others.
“It’s crazy how in the beginning we had to basically trick people into doing it,” Evans said. “Once we get into the seat and just make it happen, like then, you know, it’s better to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission, and we [were] big on that theory at the beginning of Hot Ones.”
Evans brought along 20-year-old actor Caleb McLaughlin, who is best known for his role as Lucas Sinclair in “Stranger Things.”
McLaughlin went back in for a second bite on multiple occasions throughout the challenge.
“Maybe when you did “Truth or Dab” it was like Peter Parker getting bit by the spider, now you’re good to go, maybe you’re a certified spicer,” Evans said.
McLaughlin’s career began with his role as Young Simba in Broadway’s “The Lion King.” He said the song that is the most fun to perform live is “I Just Can’t Wait to be King.”
“If you do a bad audition, they’ll tell you,” McLaughlin said, “For my very first audition, they told me I was bad. You know, [in] TV, though, they’re talking pretty cheap like ‘wow, you’re amazing. I like your hat. Your pants are so cool,’ [and] then you won’t get the job.”
In addition to acting, McLaughlin also balances being involved in the music industry. He currently has two singles, titled “Soul Travel” and “Neighborhood.”
“You have to prepare for [TV], it’s happened before where I’m like ‘oh yeah, I don’t have lines today,’ then it’s like this long page,” McLaughlin said. “Within the [music] studio you can kick back, eat some wings, go to the store and then figure it out.”
After eating one of the hottest wings on the table, McLaughlin discussed his preparation for the scene where his character Lucas cries over the dead body of another character.
“I knew I had to cry two months prior, so I mentally prepared myself for two months and [then] they were like ‘we’re doing the crying scene,’” McLaughlin said. “I was like ‘oh OK, cool, just give me fifteen minutes’ and what I do is I kind of just like sit there and meditate and then I’m ready.”
“What you don’t realize is that the scene is like 2 minutes, not even thirty seconds crying, right? But then you had them like ‘all right, the camera wasn’t at the angle of what it is. We have to shoot it from here, we try to shoot it from here, from there, Erica’s going to come in, you’re gonna look at her. We want you to give that same performance every time,’” McLaughlin said. “That’s an all-day [thing].”
McLaughlin said that despite his character being very emotional often, he does not worry about it as much as other elements.
“It’s a lot of work, so we kind of need to worry about crying as the last part,” McLaughlin said. “Just having to do it over and over and over, keeping the same energy, where people are like ‘look what my wife sent me,’ and you’re like ‘alright stop, you need to focus, Max is dying.”
Before eating the last and hottest wing of the challenge, both Evans and McLaughlin put extra hot sauce on their wing. It is called “The Last Dab,” and is a tradition to put an extra kick on top of an already spicy wing.
After “The Last Dab,” both Evans and McLaughlin completed the spicy challenge. Evans offered McLaughlin a gift for his achievement.
“I know that your trophy case is full of [Screen Actors Guild] Awards and Emmys from your record-breaking show, but I want to add one more to the mantle and present you with this bottle of ‘Da Bomb,’” Evans said. “[It is] a Hot Ones lifetime achievement award.”
