{"id":148556,"date":"2025-06-01T04:28:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-01T04:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/148556\/"},"modified":"2025-06-01T04:28:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-01T04:28:10","slug":"demi-adejuyigbe-everything-i-do-is-because-of-my-love-for-oceans-eleven-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/148556\/","title":{"rendered":"Demi Adejuyigbe: \u2018Everything I do is because of my love for Ocean\u2019s Eleven\u2019 | Comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

On 21 September each year between 2016 and 2021, you made a series of increasingly elaborate tributes to the Earth, Wind and Fire song September that were viewed millions of times. Do you hate that song now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I do feel stressed whenever I hear September but I try to ignore it. A few years ago, before the last video came out, I had a panic attack at a Home Depot simply by imagining that it came on. That\u2019s when I was like, I gotta stop doing this \u2013 I don\u2019t think I enjoy it any more. I made people think I really love that song. It was just a fun idea. I don\u2019t want people to feel bad for me. I was hoist by my own petard. I\u2019m the one who made it a thing!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

What\u2019s been your most cringeworthy run-in with a celebrity?<\/strong><\/p>\n

One year I was at a festival when Charli xcx was performing. I have mutual friends with her and I knew that we share a birthday, we\u2019re the exact same age and we were both born in the UK. So I was a little drunk and I didn\u2019t see her set but I was side of stage and saw her standing there, typing on her phone. So I went up to her and said, \u201cHey, great performance up there. It\u2019s funny, you and I have the same birthday.\u201d And she said, \u201cOh thanks. Cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

I later learned that something went wrong during her set and it hadn\u2019t happened yet. Clearly she knew I hadn\u2019t been watching her at all. I\u2019m sure weird stuff happens to her all the time but this was a decade ago and I think about it every time she pops up. It is not interesting to have the same birthday as someone.<\/p>\n

I sing your fake Lana Del Rey song at least once a week. What is your favourite of all your musical parodies?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think my Childish Gambino rap L-A-N-D-O, which was a fake tie-in track about Star Wars filled with Star Wars puns. The timing was just right because everyone went, \u201cWait, is this real?\u201d The Lana Del Rey one is also a favourite \u2013 the reveal of who she is singing about builds so slowly, it is very satisfying.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I love all the artists I choose, which means I can recognise the patterns in their songs and write a pretty convincing parody. It\u2019s fun to inhabit someone else\u2019s skin like that. It\u2019s not about making fun of them \u2013 so much of the joke is trying to pass my songs off as the real thing.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

What is the most effort you\u2019ve put into a joke that you wished more people appreciated?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A couple of years ago, I wrote a fake children\u2019s book that retold the story of the Fast and the Furious films<\/a>. I had a friend illustrate it for me, and I just put it on Medium. It was a very accurate recap of the franchise. But it just came and went! It\u2019s like I let my child out in the world and now I have no idea where it is.<\/p>\n

If you could change the size of any animal to keep as a pet, what would it be?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A pig. I would love to have a pet pig but they grow really big. If I could have a pig that just stayed small, I would let it roam around the house and play with my cat. Pigs are so cute. They are so cuddly and slovenly. I even like that they\u2019re big but a small one would be easier to deal with.<\/p>\n

Do you remember how George Clooney had a massive pet pig for like 20 years<\/a> and it slept in his bed with him? And all through the 1990s, everyone was like, \u2018So why is this guy a bachelor?\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t imagine too many women were staying over. \u201cYou have to leave, the pig sleeps here.\u201d<\/p>\n

What book, film or album do you always return to, and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking of Clooney, the movie I always return to is Ocean\u2019s Eleven. It is the platonic ideal of a watchable film. It\u2019s so well written, well scripted and well directed. It stands out as an example of the last movie star era, where you just can\u2019t believe all these people are in a movie together. These days that\u2019s how every big movie is made. But Ocean\u2019s Eleven defined my idea of what movies can and should be. I love heists and cons. Actually, everything I do, trying to deceive an audience and capture their attention, is because of my love for Ocean\u2019s Eleven.<\/p>\n

But what about Don Cheadle\u2019s cockney accent?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, I love it. Yes it\u2019s bad but it exists in a world where you don\u2019t care it\u2019s bad. I think they should all be doing bad accents. They\u2019d get away with it because it\u2019s all charm. If you look very closely, Brad Pitt and George Clooney are actually very stupid in it and they fuck up a lot. But when you watch it, you go, \u201cDamn, those guys are brilliant.\u201d They needed 11 people to get the job done!<\/p>\n

George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Elliott Gould and Don Cheadle in Ocean\u2019s Eleven. Photograph: Warner Bros\/Allstar<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the best lesson you\u2019ve learned from someone you\u2019ve worked with?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was 23 or 24 and working in my first writers room, on The Good Place. I would point out problems in the scripts a lot \u2013 \u201cOh, this doesn\u2019t work\u201d or \u201cThis sort of breaks the world, we can\u2019t use that\u201d \u2013 and I could feel the tension building. Someone eventually gave me the advice that if you\u2019re going to point out a problem, try and point out a solution too. You don\u2019t want to be the person who\u2019s just saying \u201cthat doesn\u2019t work\u201d. Either propose a fix or accept that it is a temporary solution. Some things won\u2019t work perfectly to you but let it go.<\/p>\n

Would you rather die at the bottom of the ocean or out in space?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Space. I don\u2019t fear the ocean like a lot of people do but I feel like I wouldn\u2019t be impressed by the bottom of the ocean. Imagine being in space! I look down. I see Earth. I see starlight. Space is more magnificent, more fancy. Who cares about the ocean. I\u2019ve been in water before.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your most controversial pop culture opinion?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Superhero films are necessary. I\u2019m not saying they\u2019re great or they\u2019re bad. But a lot of people think Marvel films are the death of cinema and I think that we need to remember that we need big blockbusters that everyone wants to see in order for theaters to thrive \u2013 and unfortunately, Marvel movies are the thing of the moment. We need them so we can also have Phantom Thread playing in theaters, because some people won\u2019t go see anything else. Yes, we do need more films like Sinners but we also need Avengers 25 so a family of six can take all their kids to see that three times.<\/p>\n

I think a lot of people believe that if Marvel weren\u2019t taking up all the screens then a family would go see a Steven Soderbergh instead. No, they just won\u2019t go to the theatre at all, unfortunately.<\/p>\n

What is the weirdest thing you have done for love?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have repeatedly put a lot of effort into unrequited crushes that wasn\u2019t necessary. I\u2019ve made art for people that took so much work and time, even when it has been clear they aren\u2019t into me. You are not going to convince someone that you love them by Photoshopping fake Criterion DVDs for them. That is a lesson that everyone has to learn \u2013 I just had to relearn it a couple times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On 21 September each year between 2016 and 2021, you made a series of increasingly elaborate tributes to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[77,3943,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-148556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114606224648750413","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}