'Love Island USA' Narrator Iain Stirling Always Knew Huda Mustafa Would Be A "Superstar"

New York Post

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00:00We are here with the voice everybody knows, the comedian, the person behind Love Island USA, UK

00:06Love Island Games. It's Ian Sterling. I'm so excited to talk to you because I am such a big

00:11fan of Love Island USA. That's my jam. Well, what's it like for you to be the voice of like

00:16this entire franchise, which has just blown up, especially over the last few years? Yeah,

00:21it's been sort of crazy. And I film it back in the UK, like in my house. So I'm sort of in this

00:26box on my own. And I finish it like three o'clock in the morning. And then I've just watched an

00:31episode. I'm like, oh, who do I talk to? And I was like, I'll just go to bed. So I've sort of been

00:35cut off from it. So it's been really wild coming over to the US and like, I'll order a coffee and

00:40like someone will hear me talking and be like, are you the Love Island guy? And I'm like, yeah,

00:44trying to get free stuff. I've not had anything yet. Dunkin' Donuts, if you're watching, I go in

00:49there every morning. People are so used to hearing you. What's something they usually say when they

00:53actually do meet you face to face? Now, normally I'm very delighted with being recognized,

00:59especially in the US where it still feels so novel and amazing. But my one gripe is people

01:02always say, I've got a text to me, which is the one thing I don't say. That's what the

01:07Islanders say. I've never, I've never received a text from Love Island other than like, you're

01:11late for work or whatever. So yeah, I've got a text is like the most popular thing, but it's

01:16not my, it's not my thing. Someone screamed yee-ha at me yesterday.

01:20So Ace has decided to crack the whip. How the stables have turned, cowboy. Yee-ha!

01:27That was a good one. That was my little catchphrase this season. So yeah.

01:31You're here in New York for your standup show, Ian Sterling Live. What, what can fans expect

01:35to see this week? How would you describe your standup to any Love Island fans who, who may

01:40have purchased tickets and don't know what to expect? It's like, um, like fun observational

01:46stuff, relationships, family life, just a bit of storytelling. I don't, I don't do a lot

01:54of stuff about Love Island in my standup, but since I've come over here, a few sort of mad

01:59things have happened. And I feel like I am aware of the fact that a majority of the people

02:03that come to see me are sort of Love Island fans. So there's a little bit of Love Island

02:06stuff at the beginning. I might, I forgot to do it in LA, but in New York, I might ask

02:11if anyone wants, if anyone's got any questions at the end, maybe do a little Q and A at the

02:15end, just to pad out the time. But no, I think a little bit of Love Island at the beginning

02:21and then just like fun. Scotland, we're like sort of the Irish and the Scots were sort of

02:26famed for our like storytelling and like spinning our yarns. There's a lot of that.

02:30Well, when you are joking about Love Island, is it like the people, the Islanders? Is it

02:35just the experience as a whole? Because, you know, I'm curious about who would probably

02:38be the easiest to make jokes about in the franchise?

02:42Well, I mean, I've been making fun. I've been making jokes about them all for like eight

02:46weeks. So I've had plenty of practice. They're all sort of quite, they're all quite easy to

02:50make fun of because they're sort of like lovely, attractive people. And I feel like that,

02:55and they're easy to make fun of because you're sort of not, you're not punching down,

02:59so to speak. They are very much above me in the echelons of sort of like social lying

03:04and whatnot. So yeah, also just the way Americans act around me. I had someone ask me yesterday

03:09if I, they just came up to me, a girl out of nowhere in a bar, she had a few drinks and

03:14she just came up to me and she said, have you seen Huda? That's all she asked me. Not

03:18met, seen. So that's all she wanted to know. I thought she was going to ask me like what

03:23does her hair feel like or something like really creepy. But I have seen Huda, but only on the

03:27television, sadly. Yes. But it's that sort of a, I think they're all fine to have a go

03:31at. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, no, for sure. They're professionally good looking. You

03:35can slag them off a bit. Exactly. Humble them. Humble. They need humble. They're probably

03:40rich now. They're rich now. They are. They're with, you know, Rihanna, Kylie. I've not met

03:46anyone. Rihanna hasn't responded to a single one of my DMs. It's ridiculous. I know you're

03:53also one of the writers on the Love Island shows. Yes. Some of my favorite, you know,

03:57we kind of talked about this before. Some of my favorite jokes are when you're poking

04:00fun at kind of the fan base and what everybody's saying on the internet. I know last season there

04:06was one thing you said, you were like, oh, Jeremiah's the waiter. He's coming back when

04:09everybody. This joke has been the bane of my life. America, Nick and Alandria are off on a date

04:16and you won't believe this, but their waiter for the evening is Jeremiah. Okay, I'm joking

04:24about that last bit, but still, Nick and Alandria, eh? The one thing I will say, I am in the UK

04:30and I am working like 12 hours a day and I am literally in a room by myself. So I am sort

04:36of cut off from, and I try not to go online too much because you don't want to do that thing. If

04:42you see someone's posted something funny, you copy the joke and the joke's been done. So I didn't

04:48get the mood of America. I thought it would be a little bit of fun to say, oh, Jeremiah's the waiter.

04:56I thought it was a throwaway thing. People showed me clips after the show of like people were losing

05:01their minds. They were so excited that Jeremiah was back. And yeah, my, my, my DMs for a few days

05:06were, were wild. I really like things like that. I like, I like jokes when we say like,

05:11I don't know where they've got the money from, but it's clearly from the costume budget. Things

05:15like that. It's such an honor to be able to make fun of a TV program because to make fun

05:19of something, it's got to be good and well made because if you watch bad television and

05:24call it bad, that's not jokes. That's just facts. Do you know what I mean? So the, I think

05:30my job, if Love Island ever did get bad, then I couldn't do those jokes because it would stop

05:34being jokes and just be a truth. So it's a real honor to work on a show that's so good

05:39that you can make fun of it. And to the fact that the producers have allowed me to do that.

05:44You know, last season, there were two people that did end up leaving, which we found out

05:47later on was because of offensive stuff. How did you work that into your script? Was it like

05:52they came to you and they were like, just kind of say this quick little line and hopefully

05:55people won't notice. I think basically, thankfully, I'm not involved in any of this sort

06:00of like editorial production level stuff. But I always know when it's something obviously

06:05that quite serious has happened because they trust me, but they also know that I'm an idiot.

06:10So they wouldn't give me something important like that. So when it is something that is

06:15quite an important and delicate situation, they will say to me, say that and nothing else.

06:21In terms of me getting involved in that through comical voiceover, I think there's a time and

06:25a place. And I am not either of those things. I'm not the time nor the place.

06:30Well, is there anything else from this past season that surprised you? I know we still

06:34have some couples that are still together. We've got Nicolandria, we've got Ace and Shelley,

06:37Taylor and Clark. I know Huda's also got this massive following. What surprised you the

06:42most that kind of stuck with the audience from last season?

06:45Well, not so much surprised me, but I am getting, because I've been doing this for a long time,

06:48I did remember when Huda was on the sort of the other side of popularity when she was first

06:54in the show. I did say from the get go, even at her lowest ebb, I was like, Huda's going

07:00to be an absolute superstar of the show because she just goes on a journey. And I would say

07:04that in relationships, we've all done a Huda.

07:07Yeah.

07:08We have all done a Huda.

07:09We have.

07:10Huda's done a Huda. We've all done a Huda.

07:12I watch Huda and I just see, I genuinely see myself and I just, from the get go, I was like,

07:17that girl is going to be an absolute superstar. And look, she's just gone on to do like such

07:21amazing things. So yeah, that was my one little, like, I gave myself a little pat on the back.

07:25Like I knew that I knew.

07:26Well, you know, I have to say it's, it's probably very interesting for you to go from

07:30you're narrating this show, you have comedy shows, stand up, and then you're hosting this

07:35true crime podcast.

07:36Yeah.

07:37So very stark contrast.

07:38Yeah.

07:38Can you tell me a little bit about how that came to be?

07:41Yeah. So me and my wife, who's a presenter, she hosted the UK Love Island for a bit,

07:46as well as countless other things, Laura Whitmore. We basically, I don't know if you

07:51had, I'm sure you must have had, in the UK there was this like explosion of like couple

07:55podcasts. We like to try and keep working private life sort of as separate as we can.

08:01It's obviously difficult in the social media age and all that sort of stuff. And the reason

08:04it was true crime initially was because it's sort of completely away from our private life.

08:09We don't have to discuss what we get up to. And like then, and we love true crime in the

08:15sense that when we sit down to watch something, it's basically a film with Dwayne The Rock

08:20Johnson. So that, or a true crime doc, one of those like re-imagination, like drama series,

08:28whatever. That's what we watch. So we were like, oh, this is great. So we started doing

08:32it and we just fell in love with it. And like, we're both quite busy. So like it sort of became

08:36a one a week. The podcast works at each, we alternate each week reading a true crime

08:41case to the other person. So it became sort of like a day afternoon. Like we just have

08:46a day in our diary every week that we just talk about like a, a dual heist or like a gunslinger

08:52from like Midwest America in the, in the past. You have to clarify that nowadays. And we just

08:58loved it and we just carried on doing it. And the BBC got involved, who obviously big deal

09:03in the UK and they backed us and we, we made these shows now. And we're like, yeah, we're,

09:07we're loving doing it. Murder, They Wrote, It's Called, available on all good podcasting

09:12platforms and some bad ones.

09:14Are there any other projects you have in the works that you can tease or anything

09:17you want to check off your bucket list?

09:20I'd love to do like, I'd love to do like some stuff like in America. Like it just, it all

09:26just seems so fun. Like a show in America, like even coming down here today and like around

09:30the Rockefeller Center and all that sort of stuff. You're like, you know, and I was like,

09:34you know, I was in LA and you're, you know, you're driving past like Jimmy Kimmel's filmed

09:39and all that stuff. And I'm not saying I'm going to get to that level, but definitely having

09:43like a show. Even like the other day, like I was just watching like, Is It Cake with my

09:48daughter. I was like, I'd happily be a panelist on that. It was so much fun.

09:51Yeah.

09:52I was guessing if it's cake, my daughter would watch it and she'd be like, wow, because she

09:56doesn't get to watch Love Island. Obviously she's too little. So yeah, a load more American

10:02projects. I'd love to do more gigs at the minute. I just do LA in New York because that's

10:06just where the infrastructure is.

10:08I think we also need to get you, I mean, this isn't America, but on Traders.

10:12I would freaking love that.

10:14That would be awesome.

10:15Do you know what? They just did a Traders in the UK and it was, it was massive and it

10:20was brilliant. And then I've not got, because we can't get, I can't, ironically, I can't

10:25get Peacock in the UK unless I used an illegal VPN, which I would never do. Certainly not

10:32to watch football at an affordable cost. That would be the, that would be the, I don't

10:37recommend doing that. Don't you dare do that. We call them dodgy boxes in the UK. I've been

10:42told.

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