Jason Mantzoukas Has All the Time in the World to Answer ‘Taskmaster’ Questions

Rafi in The League. Dennis Feinstein in Parks and Recreation. Adrian Pimento in Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Derek in The Good Place. If you’ve watched or listened to comedy at any point in the past 15 years or so, you’ve seen and almost certainly been delighted by Jason Mantzoukas. Now the seemingly fearless self-described “maniac” is taking on what may be his biggest challenge yet: the 19th season of Taskmaster. 

The British panel show has previously included an American player — Desiree Burch, who appeared in Season 12 — but she’s an ex-pat living in the U.K.; Mantzoukas will be the first American who commuted to star in the show alongside fellow cast members Matthew Baynton, Fatiha El-Ghorri, Stevie Martin and Rosie Ramsey. 

When we talked over Zoom last month, Mantzoukas graciously let me go over our allotted time asking every non-spoilery question I had about the new season (which premieres today in the U.K., and will drop on YouTube in the U.S. tomorrow). So yes, we cover the ins and outs of topics including taped tasks versus studio segments, “the Andys” (producer Cartwright and director Devonshire) and Mantzoukas’ friendship with comic and Season Five contestant Nish Kumar. But read on for more on his current tour with his movie podcast How Did This Get Made?, how he’s preparing to say goodbye to playing Jay in the imminent final season of Big Mouth and much more.

How did you first become aware of Taskmaster as a fan?

I probably first became aware of it generally as one of the standout British panel shows. And I knew some people that were on it, but this was at a time when it wasn’t super-easy to see it here in the States. So I’d seen bits of it here and there, but then once they started putting everything on YouTube — full seasons, full episodes — that’s when I went hard into the show and it became more than just knowing about Season Five or Season Seven or the seasons that I have some connection to. It really became like, “Oh, I can just give into my completionist tendencies, and I can start at the beginning and I can go all the way through.”

Is there an episode that you’ve watched more than the others, perhaps to introduce it to someone?

There isn’t necessarily an episode. To introduce it to people, I tend to pick some of the compilations, because then I can basically get a bite-sized example that is, in my understanding, tailor-made for whoever I’m showing. I think, “In order to turn this person on to Taskmaster, I think they would appreciate people failing at things.” Or: “I think this person would respond to people being very clever and smart at puzzles.” It’s tailoring it to what I think is going to hook someone in: “I think you would like 10 uninterrupted minutes of James Acaster or Sam Campbell.” If I’m trying to turn someone onto the show, I want to frontload it as much as possible in what I think is going to suck them in.

What was the path for you to go from fan to player?

It was genuinely that I watched it enough and I started to feel really powerfully like, the studio show operates a lot like the shows that I do already — live podcasts, live improv shows, live Comedy Bang Bang, all these shows that are juggling an ensemble of people that are here to do a thing but aren’t exactly sure how that thing’s going to unfold. So the improvisational nature of it really hit me in a sweet spot because that’s my background. And then just the ensemble nature of the shaggy hangout show where comedians are just riffing and roasting each other and doing bits in a manner that isn’t all about the points and the contest. And I feel like the way that panel shows function over there, the device is really just an opportunity for funny people to be funny with each other and then get out of the way.

So I just had my manager reach out. They’d never had someone who’s based in the U.S. come over to do the show. So I was like, “Maybe they just aren’t interested in that. Maybe they’re pulling from their community, people that they know.” It would make sense to me that they kind of keep it insular because I know it’s a very small world. It’s a very small crew. It’s a very familial setup. So I was like, “Let me just see if they’ll talk to me.” They came back, and they were like, “They’d love to talk to you.” And I was like, “Great.” So within a week of me being like, “Hey, do you think they would talk to me?,” I was on a Zoom with Alex and one of the Andys, and it was off and running.

Dreams really do come true.

For real. It was so exciting. It was also, I don’t know if you experienced this — inside of comedy circles, somebody might’ve heard of Taskmaster, or some people might be aware of the American attempt that Comedy Central did years ago and all these things, but for the most part, people haven’t heard of the show. So it was very funny for me to feel like, “I’m pursuing this thing that I’m a massive fan of, that’s this huge show.” And then I’d say to a friend, “I’m going to do this thing.” And they’d be like, “What is that?” Even my manager or the people that I was bringing i to my passion to be like, “I want to figure this out,” they’d be like, “No, just, sorry, what is this again? Genuinely, you’re going to have to bring me up to speed on what we’re even talking about.”

Well, one person who knows about it is Paul F. Tompkins, who posted on Bluesky, “Now I know how Scheana felt when Ariana got Dancing With the Stars.” What would you say to him about this — if you could. I assume your friendship is over because of this.

Yes. Well, I mean, first of all, I would have to have him explain to me the specifics of all that. I believe that is Bravo. Those are Bravo specifics.

That’s correct.

Yes. But yeah, one of the hard things was for a long time they asked me to not tell people and to not talk about it. So there were people like Paul and other people that I know who are huge fans of the show, where I was like, “I can’t tell them. I’m not supposed to talk about it.” So now I can talk about it. I did a show last night, and afterwards in front of the theater, I was talking to some of the folks who are friends with one of the other performers, and one of the people was like, “I need to ask you all about Taskmaster.” I was like, “Let’s go. I have all the time in the world to answer Taskmaster questions.”

Good, because I have a lot more. You said they’ve never had someone who wasn’t based in the U.K. What were the logistics for you? How long did you have to go there?

I went three different times, for a week each time. Two of those chunks were to do just the tasks, and then one was to film just the studio segments. They’re all a couple of months apart, so by the time you get to the studio, they’ve cut all the tasks. So you’re watching it live. It’s a really wild experience. First of all, it’s a wild thing to walk out on the Taskmaster stage, sit down, and be like, “Okay, I’m doing it. And now I’m doing a show — boom, boom, we’re doing a live show. There’s 300 people here. We’re doing a three-and-a-half hour comedy show, great, energy up.” But then they throw it to a package where you’re going to watch how we all did the task. And immediately, I’m just a fan of the show, watching. Every once in a while I’d be like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. We’re still on camera. What am I doing? We’re still on stage doing the show.” 

So it’s this really tricky thing where you kind of give in to your normal vibe of, “Ah, we’re watching,” but then it cuts back and it’s like, “Oh no, Greg is here. Alex is here. We’re inside of the show.”

Outside of this, do you enjoy playing a party game? 

Yeah, I do. Less so party games, more so like board games. I mean, certainly I will, if it's a big party and people want to play Celebrity or Charades or whatever, but I’m a lot more into board games. I’ve got a group of friends, and we do game nights regularly that are built around a game called Tripoley, which is a card game that lasts a long time, and it’s kind of a betting game, but there’s strategy to it. And then we also play Sequence. We got heavy into Monopoly Deal. A card game called Dutch Blitz, we got very obsessed with for a while. Yeah, we’ve got a lot of games. When this group goes on vacation, there’s an extra suitcase that just has games and puzzles

That sounds like heaven.

Oh, it’s the best.

Past players like Fern Brady and Nick Mohammed have chosen outfits for their tasks that were a bit high-maintenance. Did you ever consider doing anything like that?

I didn’t really. For a little while, I thought about it like, “If I were to do a costume, what would it be specifically for the tasks? Maybe it’d be nice to have something that’s like a mechanic’s jumpsuit or something that can get dirty,” but at the end of the day, I was like, “I want to be comfortable. I want to wear the stuff that I’m comfortable in and not have to worry about my wardrobe.” You know what I mean? Not have another thing to worry about, which is, “Oh, I’m doing this task, and boy am I disappointed that I chose my character to wear a top hat or a cape or some piece of nonsense.” Though I think those choices in seasons past are dynamite and gangbusters.

Players are mostly comedians, so they’re quick, but how much of an advantage do you think it gives you to have formal improv training when it comes to the tasks?

Oh, zero. I don’t think improv helps me accomplish tasks any better, but I think it allows me to both be trying to accomplish my tasks while also roasting Alex. It affords me the ability to multitask pretty well, to be very quick following a mistake with a joke. It’s a tool that helps me serve the comedy of the show, but not really the puzzles or the tasks.

There are times when people yell at Alex and it seems like a joke, and other times when it seems almost serious. Were there times when you felt like afterwards you had to apologize for real? 

No, never. When I kind of reached out to them and started talking to Alex about doing the show and so forth, I was like, “I really want to come in full-on. I want to be the heel. I want be a villain. I want to be the ugly American. I’m here to be bluff and bluster and provide manic energy.” Chaotic mischief was my goal, which I was very upfront about, and they were like, “Great. That’s great. Terrific.” 

But then there would be tasks and I’d just get furious with Alex and rip into him and be savage, and they’d be like, “Great.” And I’d go back to my little room, and a couple times the first couple of days we shot, one of the Andys would come back and be like, “Hey, I just want to make sure, is everything okay? Is there any part of that that you didn’t like?” And I was like, “What are you talking about? I’m having a blast. Amazing.” I will say it was such a vote of confidence for my acting ability, but I was like, “Oh, no, no, no. That’s for the show. I’m having the time of my life, but I want the audience to feel like I’m furious. That’s the goal here.”

I mean, the times that you try to destroy the house says a lot.

Oh yeah. Destroy the house, light it on fire, get on the roof, all this. Any time I could set up a situation where I knew they would have to tell me no, and that I could then just rail against that: perfect. Amazing.

Was even a tiny part of you concerned that you might be playing team tasks with a person or people who didn’t take it as seriously as you did?

Here’s the thing, and I want to be very clear: I love playing games. I’m a huge game person. I’m not playing games to win. I’m, in fact, not competitive. I’m not competitive to a degree that I’m so much more in pursuit of the good time than I am victory. 

To me, watching Taskmaster: these points are arbitrary. There is no succeeding here. We’re all at the whim of a giant who is petty and callous and frankly a total asshole. So to compete in a way that is trying to win, I think is just foolish.

So I’m not competitive. I loved my team, and there is no world in which I’m ever nervous that, “Oh no, I’m on a team with someone who’s not here to win.” I want to make the best show possible. I want to be a part of the show the way that I watch the show. Versus sometimes when you watch the show and someone’s arguing and bickering because they want more points, I’m like, “To what end?”

Speaking of Greg, you said you had met some of the people before you started on the show. Was he one of them?

I had met him, but I didn’t know him. I met him at a party some years ago. I was in London shooting a movie and went to a Halloween party, and I went with the comedian Nish Kumar. He dressed as me and I dressed as him. Amazing. And so we had name tags on, we had each other’s signature outfit on. He had my EpiPen. I had one of his cards from The Mash Report. 

We went to this party together, and Greg Davies was one of the first people that we saw together. He was immediately obsessed with the fact that we had come together, as each other. So I’d met him at that party and chatted a bit, but I didn’t know him well. I did know Nish. I’ve known Aisling Bea from for a while. So there’s people that I’ve known here and there. I’d never met Alex, though. I had no frame of reference for him.

Were you starstruck at all meeting them?

No, not starstruck. It’s less starstruck by them and more that I couldn’t believe I was in the studio. You know what I mean? I’m never starstruck by people who do the thing I do. Why? They’re just a couple of dummies like me. I don’t care. They do what I do. I do what they do. But that stage, that iconic red and black stage and all that stuff, I’m like, “Oh, this is Taskmaster. I know what this is.” That was cool.

They kept catching me taking pictures and selfies in the Taskmaster house. Similar to how it took them a while to understand that I wasn’t really angry and that I was having a blast, it took them a little bit to figure out that I genuinely was such a fan. I remember one of the first days, one of the Andys said, “We know you’re a fan, but how did you find it?” I was like, “Guys, this is a huge show.” I know it’s not huge in the U.S., but at that point, I think they were on Season 17 or something like that. It was very funny. I feel like because it’s such a small little community — their crew is the same. Their whole group is the same. It’s very familial at the house. They’re doing their thing. So sometimes I think it feels like the larger world doesn’t exist, in a way. So to come in and be not just trying to destroy everything, but also being so reverential toward everything, and things reminding me of past seasons and me asking them questions, they were like, “Wow, you really are a fan.” I was like, “Yes, I am.”

Is the construction of the show such that other than for team tasks, there are people that you just never meet until it’s almost time to start shooting in the studio?

Completely. Yes. That’s exactly what they do. They try to keep you alone when you shoot tasks, obviously other than the team day.

I show up for a week of tasks. Every day, morning ’til night, I just do task, task, task, task, task, without any breaks. I think I had thought it would make more sense production-wise for everybody to be there: They’d set up the task, and then everybody just goes and does it. But they really don’t want us talking to each other. They don’t want us talking about how we did the task.

When we did have a team day, they were very clear: “Please don’t talk to your teammates about the solo tasks that you’ve done. Don’t talk about how you solved this or how you did that. Let that all happen on stage in the studio. It’ll be more fun to have all of that be revealed live, which makes total sense for the show. But it meant that I was a little bit nervous just because I was like, “They’re all going to know each other.” Or: “Some of them are going to know each other and have a rapport that I will be on the outs of.” But boy, was I pleased to arrive day one to the loveliest group of people who genuinely all immediately got along and fell right into a rhythm with each other. That was fantastic. 

As for an ensemble, that stage is seven people doing a comedy show for three-and-a-half hours. So having that ensemble be very complimentary, very supportive, very funny— I mean, of course, they’re all hilarious people, but to make the show successful, they also have to be good listeners, good at sharing, everybody being able to set other people up for their jokes or their bits. That’s huge. That doesn’t always happen, especially on a TV show where a lot of people are like, “Me, me, where’s my joke?” So it was so funny to realize that, oh, here I am, Fatiha on one side, Matthew on the other, and them setting me up for jokes, me setting them up for jokes. I got very lucky. They do a wonderful job casting the show. They cast such a complimentary ensemble of people.

When you’re doing the last studio task, how does it feel? It must be like the last day of camp.

Heartbreaking, heartbreaking, heartbreaking. I was saying this to them. My cast, I think, got very close. We would eat lunch together every day. We’re on a text chain — very sweet. But I was like, “I’m sad. I'm sad.” It’s this thing that I’ve thought so much about for so many of the last bunch of years, that I’ve been obsessed with first as a viewer, then obsessed with trying to get myself onto it, and then — even though they were immediately receptive to me doing it — it was actually figuring out when and how I could do it. So then there was a period where it was fraught, like, “Oh, no, am I not going to be able to do it? Oh, no.” And then, “Oh, wait, no, it is maybe going to happen.” Then being able to do it and having the pure joy of knowing that over the next year I’m going to go to England a bunch of times and I’m going to shoot tasks, and then I’m going to get in the studio and that.

So all of last year, there was so much looking forward to it. There was so much like, “Ooh, I’m so excited. I get to go do more tasks.” And then it was like, “Oh, I’m so excited. I can’t wait for the studio shows.” Everything would be two to three months later. So it was a whole year of having stuff to look forward to. So I think what I felt going into the last task was, “I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to do this again. Unless I’m the champion, which I very well may be, and I get to come back for a one-off, I’m never going to go do tasks again. I’m never going to be on this stage again. This is it. This is the end of this whole thing that I’ve been hustling these last couple of years,” and boy was that heartbreaking.

We all were very emotional. We all were feeling “last day of camp” kind of vibes, but I was just like, “Oh, I’m so bummed because I can’t look forward to coming out here again. I don’t have anything to come out for, and I won’t be able to see all you guys.” I was like, “You guys are going to get to hang out, but I’m not going to get to see you guys.” And that’s what it is on the text chain. They’re all trying to arrange times to hang out and get dinner or watch the premiere together or whatever, and I’m just like, (heartbroken groan).

When you have a direct line to Alex Horne, how tempting is it to text him task suggestions?

Oh, not tempting at all. I don’t think twice about tasks. You know what I suspect I will do is text him when I’m watching a future season to be like, “I would’ve done this differently.” That’s the text he will be getting more so than tasks. I don’t think in terms of the tasks. I think in terms of being there to do the comedy show, not the puzzle show, if that makes sense.

Now, that being said, I love doing puzzles. I love doing the tasks as the springboard, but I’m always thinking “How is this situation and these people here — including Alex, including the camera crew, including director Andy — how can I use all of these people to make what I believe is the funniest version of this task?”

Moving on to some non-Taskmaster questions. Reading your old interviews, a word that keeps coming up — often from you — to describe your other characters is “maniac.” Would you still say that’s your signature?

For lack of a better term, I do play a lot of maniacs. I think it’s part and parcel of the fact that a lot of people's introduction to me was the Rafi character on The League, and that character is perhaps the most maniacal, most lunatic, most unhinged character. 

I sometimes feel like people lock you in as the thing they saw you do first. A lot of people saw me as Rafi first, and then I’d say a bunch of roles that followed directly cribbed from that. It was people having seen Rafi and being like, “Oh, I’m going to make him a scumbag on this.” In those first few years, I had a bunch of roles that overlapped and felt similar. Now, there’s a bunch of roles that aren’t maniacs in that same era as well. Nadal in The Dictator or my characters from Sleeping With Other People or How to Be Single. These are regular people. These just aren't as noisy performances as Adrian Pimento.

Derek?

But that’s the thing: I don’t think Derek is a maniac, at all. I think he’s a true innocent. There’s no malice to Derek, whereas there is true malice in Dennis Feinstein. Dennis Feinstein is a villain. Derek is the polar opposite. To me, he is a childlike innocent. 

Anyway, I will say it is fun to be able to be the maniac. It’s a very fun space or a role or a lane to occupy as a character. Or, if it’s me on Taskmaster, to be able to go places that are outrageous. It’s fun. To be that wild card character is a very freeing experience.

You also do a lot of voiceover work, including the voice of Tommy Lee’s penis in Pam & Tommy. How did this role come to you, and did you sense at the time that you were going to be connected to a future Oscar nominee?

I had no idea. It was truly random. I got a text from (star and producer) Seth Rogen that just was like, “Hey, we’re working on this Pam & Tommy thing. Give me a call. I have something I wanted to talk to you about.” 

I called him, and he was like, “So this is the deal. We’re doing this thing. There’s a scene. Tommy Lee talks to his penis and the penis talks back, and we thought it’d be funny if you did the penis.” And I was like, “Yeah, great. Do it. Let’s go.” 

We had, I’m serious, a three-minute conversation, hung up, and then, I don’t know, a couple of weeks later, they scheduled it. I was traveling for something and I was in, I think, a Chicago hotel room. I built a little fort of pillows and towels to put myself in. Got on the Zoom with Craig Gillespie, the director, and we did it for— It’s only a couple of lines, so it took us maybe half an hour or less. Absolutely hilarious, insane. They had a little clip of what Sebastian had done, so I could see basically what he was doing. And then we did a couple of different versions of it. “What if it was this way? What if it was that way? Okay, great, thanks so much.” And I was like, “Oh, that’s so funny. What a wild, weird thing.”

Then it came out, and it was huge and that was surprising. I didn’t think that this scene would be so memorable that even you and I would be talking about it these years later.

And then you also get to be on a Disney+ show about Greek gods. You really get to do it all.

Oh yeah. I get to be Dionysus on Percy Jackson and yell at kids. 

I get to be Tommy Lee's penis. I get to be Bulcha The Hutt in Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures, and then of course Jay from Big Mouth, still fucking those pillows. What are we up to here? What a wild career. 

Speaking of which, the final season of Big Mouth is coming. What are you going to miss most about playing Jay?

I said this when we did the last table read, because we did it all together. In the recent years, table reads have become a lot more on a Zoom like this, but we used to do table reads every Tuesday. The whole cast would go down and meet in person when we’d read the script. It was like 10 a.m. on a Tuesday, and honestly, the funniest comedy show in L.A. was every Tuesday at 10 a.m.: the Big Mouth table read.

We did the final one and it was super-emotional, it was super-funny, it was great. I was talking to the creators afterwards, and I was like, “I’m really sad that I’m not going to get to continue to be part of Jay growing up.” I’m so invested in this kid — I think a lot of us are, because we pour in so much of our own teenage memories. There’s so much of ourselves in a lot of these characters that it really felt like there was something special about getting to play them. They’re aging, but they’re aging slowly that I’m like, “Oh, I’m not going to get to do high school as Jay. I’m bummed.” Boy would I love it if we just kept going and I got to. 

This is a character that I find just heartbreaking. I feel so invested in how neglected he is, how unloved he is, how much he’s just on his own, a feral child who’s raising himself. The only good parent he has is his dog. It’s a truly devastating character that I love playing, and so I’m just going to miss getting to learn more about where Jay goes. That’s the character, to me, that feels the most fleshed-out and well-rounded. I say that as knowing that’s an insane statement about one of the characters on Big Mouth, but truly, I feel very emotionally attached to him. He’s been through so much, and I’ve been there with him. So even though he isn’t based on my childhood — he’s much more based on a couple of friends of (co-creators) Nick (Kroll) and Andrew (Goldberg)’s. — there’s still a tremendous amount of it that feels like my childhood, even if it’s not specifically mine.

You’ve been touring recently with How Did This Get Made?. What can Toronto look forward to when you visit there?

Boy, I don’t know what movie we’re doing, but I’m thrilled to be coming. We just finished two weeks of shows that were a blast. It’s really, I will say, not unlike Taskmaster, because I feel like one of the things that really drew me to doing it was how similar it seemed to doing live podcasts, doing live How Did This Get Made?, doing live Comedy Bang Bang, doing these shows that have a very loose structure, and having that ability to find things in the moment, explore them and just chase whatever is funny or whatever’s interesting.

Doing How Did This Get Made? is just a blast to be able to be out on the road doing these shows because the audiences are hyped. The audience for a podcast is unlike any other kind of audience because they’re already so invested and so on our side. Nick Kroll sat in with us for a show a while ago, and he was like, “You don’t have to prove anything to your audience. The minute you walk out on stage, they’re sold. You don’t have to win them over. You don’t have to structure it so that your first few jokes bring them in. They’re hyped. They’re at an 11 from the beginning, and they only get crazier.” 

And it’s fun. It’s fun because a huge part of it is the fans. And I’m speaking as a huge fan of things — that’s how I got on Taskmaster, that’s how I got on Invincible, that’s how I got on Gilmore Girls, that’s how I got in John Wick. I’m a fan of these things first, and then I wrestle my way into ‘em.