Hillary Clinton’s Between Two Ferns was Largely Improvised

Hillary Clinton might be funnier than you think. Although the Presidential candidate isn’t exactly known for her comedy chops, it turns out that most of her Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis was improvisation. All of her terrifying side-eye was completely unscripted, as were most of her comments.

In an interview with Vulture, Between Two Ferns creator Scott Aukerman revealed that Clinton didn’t know what the questions would be beforehand.

It actually was not much of a vetting process. When we do these we prefer to do them with a lot of improvisation, where the interviewee doesn’t know what the questions are beforehand, so the campaign was pretty cool about that. In this one, actually, the majority of it was improvised.

Between Two Ferns is often an awkward ordeal. Galifianakis relies on a type of humor that is often cringe-inducing, and it’s clear from Clinton’s demeanor that she understood that going into the interview. What’s more, the whole thing was actually her idea.

Back in August we heard that there was interest. What we later found out was that she was the one who suggested doing it. Half the time the person being interviewed reaches out personally … we heard that there was interest from Hillary Clinton, but we started taking it seriously when we heard, “Oh no, it’s her idea and if you say, ‘yes,’ it’ll actually happen.”

Clinton also happened to be suffering from pneumonia when the interview occurred on Sept. 9. The things one sacrifices for comedy.