Jon Stewart Taking Hiatus From Daily Show; John Oliver To Take Over In June

Reuters reports that Jon Stewart, the host of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show", is taking a leave of absence from the show starting Monday, June 10. Correspondent for the fake news program John Oliver will take over the lead position through September 3 as Jon Stewart makes his directorial debut with the movie "Rosewater".

John Oliver joined "The Daily Show" in 2006, as the "Senior British Correspondent". Oliver is originally from England, and in his act for the show he has frequently used disparities between English and American culture as the object of jokes. He also performs standup and writes and stars in the weekly podcast called "The Bugle: Audio Newspaper for a Visual World". On his first week on the job, he will host Seth Rogan (June 10), Armando Iannucci (June 11), a musical performance by Mavis Staples (June 12) and Fareed Zakaria (June 13).

"Don't worry, it's still going to be everything that you love about 'The Daily Show,' just without the thing that you love the most about it," read a statement from Oliver.

"Rosewater" which is based on the best-selling memoir "Then They Came for Me: A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival", will be the story of BBC journalist Maziar Bahari's trip to Iran in 2009 to cover the country's elections. Bahari was imprisoned and tortured by the Iranian government for 118 days; he was later able to identify his torturer by the rosewater scent of his cologne. Stewart is also writing the screenplay to the film, which will apparently not be given a comic treatment. The comedian has participated in several filmic ventures but his roles have generally been limited. Perhaps his best-known contributions have been in the cult stoners' classic "Half Baked", the Adam Sandler hit "Big Daddy" and the high-profile flop "Death To Smoochy". He is known to joke on "The Daily Show" about his ineptitude as an actor.

"The Daily Show" existed for several years before Jon Stewart took the helm from Craig Kilborn in 1999. But it was Stewart who drew audiences and critical laudation: in 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009, and 2011, the show won Emmy awards for Outstanding Writing as well as the Primetime Emmy for 10 consecutive years, from 2003 to 2012.