‘Hot Ones’ host Sean Evans is one of the internet’s best interviewers. His secret weapon? It’s a family affair

By Dan Heching, CNN

(CNN) — In addition to his proven mettle for spicy foods, Sean Evans from the YouTube series “Hot Ones” is known to be one of the best celebrity interviewers, whose impeccably researched questions have left everyone from Lady Gaga to Josh Brolin impressed.

Brolin even quipped in his episode, “I don’t know who’s working for you, but don’t fire them.”

Good news is Evans has no plans to do so, considering he crafts the show’s spectacularly pointed questions in collaboration with his brother Gavin and executive producer (and “Hot Ones” creator) Chris Schonberger.

“We don’t have a research team,” Evans told CNN in a recent interview. “I hired my little brother years ago to help out with the lift… We just do it the same way now as we did in the beginning, and I think that’s the only way that you can really get better at it.”

He added: “I’ll never get rid of him, but I (wouldn’t) want to. He’s the best.”

The beginning of “Hot Ones” was now ten years ago, when Evans first challenged a celebrity – rapper Tony Yayo in the first-ever episode – to take on the spicy “wings of death” and answer queries while simultaneously contending with the fire in his mouth. (They supply cauliflower wings for the vegetarians.)

The show has since amassed over 4 billion views, inspired a line of branded hot sauces and several brand partnerships. This week, a new menu in collaboration with Popeyes will be part of a special reunion episode with Keke Palmer, her third appearance on the show and someone Evans calls “one of my favorite people in the world to interview.”

But when guests are less familiar to Evans, he has a tried-and-true method that begins with immersing himself in the work and world of his interview subject, sometimes up to a week ahead of the next episode.

“I really like to marinate in the art of someone’s work,” he said. “So for interviewing a singer, their discography will be the soundtrack of my life for that week. Or if they’re an actor, I’ll close out my night with a double feature every time.”

Evans, 39, seems to like being involved in the show on a granular level. He prides himself on arriving two hours before each shoot “to just get good vibes going.” You could maybe even call it part of his own secret sauce.

“I never feel too entitled, you know? I don’t think I’m, like, so handsome that they have to put me on TV, or so charismatic that my personality can cash the checks. I do think, on some level, I have to get in the mud and do the work, and it’ll probably be that way to the end,” he said. “I’m not getting any younger over here.”

Much like his habitual prep before a show, Evans leans into a specific regimen on shoot days as well, relishing the “adrenaline rush of a deadline,” either finalizing his interview questions the night before or that morning.

He also painstakingly goes over his “run of show” – i.e., his order of intended questions – repeatedly.

“Because you always have to be thinking about, ‘Is this line of questioning going to work? Like, what if it’s bricking out of the gate? Do I have some sort of plan B?’” he reasoned. “I want to be an active listener this entire time, so I can’t be so obsessed with, like, ‘What is my next question again?’”

As seen on the spicy show time and again, not everything always goes to plan. Like when Bill Murray took Evans and the “Hot Ones” team on a bit of a ride at the end of their episode shoot after conquering his wing lineup with impressive stoicism.

“Afterwards, there’s always some sort of postmortem with the guests. Sometimes we include a little scene of that as like a bonus scene on the episodes,” Evans explained. “And so sometimes you’re sitting there chatting. Sometimes it’s quick, sometimes it’s Bill Murray, who’s gonna sit there and have three bowls of ice cream and talk about college basketball for like an hour.”

Ice cream as a hot wings chaser, Bill?! No thank you!

What can’t be denied is that after ten years, countless guests and the same spicy wings, “Hot Ones” still knows how to cook up entertainment. That, to Evans, is perhaps, the most surprising thing to swallow.

“Most interviews – like 90% of them – should fail when you really think about it,” he said. “All of that artifice to get something real, to get a real natural reaction to something, a real human experience, rather than two actors doing a performance – that, I think, is the hardest thing. To get an actual, real human moment, which maybe sounds bizarre, but I think that’s the truth.”

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