Exclusive: Trevor Noah on success, America and his Daily Show debut

A week into his new life as anchor of 'The Daily Show', Trevor Noah has proved he has what it takes. But he still doesn't like talking about himself. By Sue de Groot

When he was the voice of Cell C, Trevor Noah spoke to some South Africans every day. "You have a message," he'd murmur confidentially into our ears. "Press one to listen."

On the phone from New York, Noah's voice was deeper, more considered - the voice of a man who knows what he has to say but is going to think before he says it.

There was less than a week to go until his first appearance as host of The Daily Show , and the entertainment media was paying fierce attention. Could Noah really fill the shoes of Jon Stewart, the face of Comedy Central's satirical news programme for 16 years?

Noah was much too busy to waste time worrying about how long his new career would last.

"I'm not looking that far ahead," he said. "I'm looking at Monday. I'm very nervous, obviously, because it's a giant undertaking, but I'm excited for it as well. It's one of those experiences that genuinely is once in a lifetime, so I don't want to do myself the injustice of not enjoying it. Everything else from there, well, I'll take it as it comes."

This sanguine outlook masks a serious work ethic. Noah is not just anchor on The Daily Show; he is its executive producer, responsible for developing content. That means he can never switch off. The show that appears on TV each night is the result of massive combined effort.

"There are lots of meetings, and lots of writing scripts," he said. "There's a lot of watching the news, a lot of watching TV, a lot of reading the news and dissecting the news. We have a team dedicated to monitoring everything that's happening on news channels all over the world, and then we have a team of writers and we have editors... it's a giant machine that makes sure the show goes out, because we are doing it every single day. We are not in the luxury position where we can pre-record shows to play later."

His otherwise calm voice rose on the words every single day, an emotional clue as to how crazy-big this enterprise is.

Six months ago, Noah was South Africa's most successful comedian. His home-grown brand of humour magically translated elsewhere; his travelling one-man shows delighted audiences of multiple nationalities. He appeared on the British TV show QI and in the US became the first South African comic on The Tonight Show and The Late Show with David Letterman.

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Last year he made several appearances on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, but nothing prepared us for the announcement that he would take over from Stewart.

Suddenly the entire TV-watching world wanted to know about him. "Who is Trevor Noah?" the international press has been asking, and: "Can a South African win an American audience?"

In attempts to expose "the real Trevor Noah", much has been made of his mixed-race heritage, his abusive stepfather and his disadvantaged childhood in Soweto, all subjects on which he has spoken openly. He is less forthcoming about current relationships. The UK's Daily Mail concocted a tale about the broken-hearted "girl he left behind", with a slew of Facebook photographs showing Noah with Cape Town physiotherapist Dani Gabriel. Attempts to sensationalise this into gossip were thwarted by Gabriel's refusal to say anything bad about him. There is, it seems, no dirt on Noah.

That did not stop people looking for it. A short-lived smear campaign used old social media posts to claim that Noah was racist, sexist, fattist and anti-Semitic. Interrogated by David Itzkoff of the New York Times, Noah said: "You do not know what may or may not offend somebody. People go, 'Trevor, you should clean your tweets'. I go, I cleaned my life - I tried to grow as a human being. Someone goes, 'Yeah, but you wrote this in 2009'. I go, well, thank God I didn't write it in 2015. That to me is progress."

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Speculation has been rife about how he will make the transition from comedy driven by cultural stereotypes to astute political commentary. Noah is unfazed by those who doubt an outsider's ability to deliver insightful analysis of US affairs.

"I think in South Africa we have a good understanding of American politics," he said on the phone. "We have always been exposed to it, so this is not something that's completely foreign to me. I've been watching CNN for years. I've been keeping up with what's happening - obviously not as in-depth, so now I have to delve into it, but I think everywhere in the world, politics is politics and politicians are politicians, so it's more of the same."

New York feels like home to him now. "I've been a citizen of the world for a long time... and because New York is a world city, I don't feel like an outsider at all. I'm just in another place, doing my work."

His work, which involves lampooning newsmakers, will be extra-demanding in the run-up to US elections. He has no special plans for Donald Trump (the comedian's gift from heaven). "Oh no, no no, you do not plan for Donald Trump. Donald Trump just does, and then you will get it from there."

Coming from what he calls "one of the craziest countries around," he finds his new home "more sane in some ways", but there are some things that still baffle him. "The biggest thing that throws me off here is the size of everything. Excess is the norm. That's always a very interesting thing for me, to see how much of everything you can have here. The portion sizes... here when it says 'serves two', that's two families."

Observing events in the US can make him feel conflicted, just as his work did in South Africa. "I was always extremely torn between the needs of my work as a comedian and the needs of my country, because what was going bad in the country would be good for me, but also at the same time bad for me... so I was wanting it to go bad enough that I'd be able to make jokes, but good enough that I wouldn't want to leave the place where I am making the jokes."

block_quotes_start If you look at success as an opportunity to stick it to people who hindered you, you lose the opportunity to celebrate people who supported you block_quotes_end

Like many people, Noah finds it easier to joke about painful matters than to talk seriously about himself. His one-liners often hold barbed clues ("I was born a crime"; "I can always fall back on poverty" and so on), but he guards his privacy: "I prefer talking about other people to talking about myself." He doesn't exactly deflect questions, but has made an art of polite reticence. For example:

Is he a good interviewer? "That's conversation, in my opinion. That's easy enough to do."

Is there anyone he would refuse to have on his show? "No, I'd be keen to interview anybody. There's always opportunity."

Is there one person he relies on, a Robin to his Batman? "I think it's more of The Avengers out here."

Who does he trust most? "Oh I trust many people. I'm very lucky in that I have a wonderful circle of friends... I've got my friends from SA, I've got friends in the US that I made many years ago. I have a group of people, a network I can lean on for support, for conversation, for company... that's something I'm not in short supply of."

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Does he ever need to get away from people? "No, I never feel tired of people. I guess I'm lucky in that I meet cool people. I've been having a great time."

He does, however, become animated on the subject of sleep. "I sleep well. I never rob myself of sleep; that is one thing I'm very cognisant of all the time. It's the difference between being healthy and not; the difference between being sharp and not. It's everything to me. Sleep is as important as everything else I do."

Noah has had to handle countless reporters, some of them doubtless trying to trip him up, so it's not surprising that he has become skilled in the smooth spin of celebrities. But he has always been self-effacing.

I met Noah in 2006. He was 22, a new voice on South Africa's stand-up comedy scene, and had braids. Those braids make him cringe now. "Every generation has its hairstyle. We all look back on a certain age and think, 'What on earth were we doing?' And that was mine."

He was one of five relatively unknown young comedians around whom a sitcom was being built. I was briefly one of the writers. At our first meeting, the female comedian in the cast took one look at Noah and said, "I want my character to have an affair with his character. I want to kiss him." Noah just smiled. Where the others tried to shout each other down, he delivered quiet, considered observations. Mostly, he listened.

Here's the point of the story. After a few weeks of "rehearsals" - which mostly entailed lolling around at Zoo Lake and talking about nothing - the producers decided they had budget for only four leads. One actor would have to go. They cut Noah.

Cue gasps of outrage.

Nine years later, he laughs about it. "They cut me because I needed to go on and do The Daily Show. You never know at the time, but everything works in your favour. You don't know why, you just have to be positive and keep working towards your goals."

Noah's presence in the cast might not have improved the show, which tanked. But had things gone differently, no matter how bad it was, TV channels might now be clamouring to buy repeats. Perhaps the producers feel like the publisher who rejected JK Rowling's first Harry Potter manuscript. Or not.

Noah refuses to engage in schadenfreude about this or any other negativity he has experienced. "I won't lie and say people have not done things to me in the past, but if I dwelled on that then I wouldn't be taking time to rather enjoy it with the people I should be enjoying it with. If you look at your successes as an opportunity to stick it to people who you feel hindered your progress in the past, then you're losing the opportunity to celebrate the people who supported you in the past. So... I don't know, I just decided. I found a happier place, a more peaceful place, to enjoy, to go on the bright side of it."

This is the bright side. On Monday night, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah had its debut, watched by 7.5 million viewers in the US. On Tuesday, ahead of the televised show in SA, Comedy Central's African distributor held a screening in a Joburg cinema packed with perfumed VIPs and twittering members of the press. Guests were offered cupcakes with Noah's face iced on them.

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An executive from the channel gave a speech in which he called Noah "proof that hard work pays off". The audience cheered. When Noah appeared on the big screen, all twinkling and dimpled in a sharp blue suit, the audience went, as they say, ballistic. On the soundtrack we could hear the live audience, which included a few South African dignitaries, doing the same.

His introductory gags were perfectly pitched. Of Stewart's departure he said: "Dad has left. The family has a new stepdad, and he's black." Of not being the first person approached for the post he said: "A job Americans rejected is being done by an immigrant."

Between segments, Noah continued to play on his outsider status ("The Mets made the play-offs - I don't know what that is, but Jon told me it would work") as did his sidekicks ("These white folks ain't decided if they like you yet").

He said he hoped not to make Stewart look like "the crazy old dude who left his inheritance to some random kid from Africa" and received loud applause when he declared: "Let's continue the war on bullshit."

It worked. Folks of all shades liked the random kid from Africa. "What were we so afraid of?" asked The Washington Post. "Once Noah hits his stride and defines his own voice it will be like nothing ever happened," said The Guardian. "Like a new iPhone ... sleeker, fresher and redesigned," said The New York Times.

The most scathing criticism anyone could muster seemed to be that Noah smiled too much. With dimples like that, who wouldn't?

At the end of the show, when the team took their bows, Noah was still smiling but clearly tired. How exhilarated he must have been, and equally, how exhausted. This is his life now. He will go to bed, sleep well, and in the morning get up to do it all over again.

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah is at 9pm, Tuesday to Friday, on Comedy Central (DStv channel 122)