Rachel Maddow surprised, well, pretty much everyone on Monday night when she announced that she will be taking a brief hiatus from her nightly MSNBC news show. But what was even more surprising was the reason she gave for her break in filming: She’s making a movie with Ben Stiller and Lorne Michaels.
As Deadline reports, Maddow—who was hosting her show from home after having been exposed to someone who had tested positive for COVID and was symptomatic (though Maddow herself had tested negative)—will begin her break following Thursday’s broadcast. She’ll be working on a movie adaptation of her podcast, Bag Man, which she’ll be executive producing with Stiller set to direct and Michaels producing it.
“This has been in the works for a while now,” Maddow explained, “but now it looks like it’s going to happen.” Maddow said that she’d be back on MSNBC in April, but did preface that by noting that there “may eventually be another hiatus again sometime in my future, but for now we’re just taking it one step at a time.”
Bag Man, which focuses on the bribery scandal that led to the resignation of Spiro Agnew, Richard Nixon’s VP, in 1973, had also been adapted into a book. “As you can tell I’m nervous about all this,” Maddow said. “It’s a change in my life, but it’s all for the good.”
(Via Deadline)