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Home / Entertainment

Jemaine Clement on Flight of The Conchords success: 'We had a much easier time in America'

NZ Herald
1 Jul, 2021 09:13 PM2 mins to read

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Jemaine Clement has opened up about finding success in Hollywood with Flight of The Conchords. Photo / Getty Images

Jemaine Clement has opened up about finding success in Hollywood with Flight of The Conchords. Photo / Getty Images

Jemaine Clement has opened up about his Hollywood success and teased a new project with Taika Waititi.

As well as speaking about a new show in the works with Waititi, Clement reflected on his success with Flight of The Conchords in America. He admits that he and Bret McKenzie "had a much easier time" finding success in Hollywood than in New Zealand.

Flight of The Conchords debuted in 2007 on HBO and ran for two seasons. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Clement says Flight of The Conchord's Hollywood success needed to happen before they could make a local comedy show like Wellington Paranormal.

Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement. Photo / Getty Images
Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement. Photo / Getty Images

"When we were making Conchords, they weren't making very many New Zealand comedy shows then. They'd sort of given up on it. We had a much easier time in America than in New Zealand. After doing Conchords and because the Shadows movie did well, we got to make [Wellington Paranormal]."

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"I always thought we'd be doing things here," he says, speaking about how he envisioned staying in New Zealand early on in his career.

"And now I'm doing that, but I had to go to Hollywood first because it's harder to do here, in a way."

Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi are teaming up to create a new action-comedy. Photo / Getty Images
Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi are teaming up to create a new action-comedy. Photo / Getty Images

Clement also told Entertainment Weekly he and Waititi had just started writing a new project together.

"I can't tell you much about it yet, but what's fun about it and what makes it exciting for me is it's something I always wanted to do which is long-form episodes in a sitcom.

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"It's an action-adventure comedy. It'll be different from what I've usually done. I've made three sitcoms now, and I hope this one is still funny but more of an adventure series."

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