Jon Stewart covers this week’s issue of Parade. He’s promoting Rosewater, his feature film directorial debut. Rosewater is the true story of journalist Maziar Bahari, who was imprisoned in Iran for months for simply reporting on the Iranian presidential election. Much like Angelina Jolie, Jon Stewart has taken on the bulk of promotional duties for his film. I don’t believe Jon thinks that Rosewater is going to be some huge awards-season bid or anything, I think he’s just promoting Rosewater so much because he passionately believes in the subject matter and he wants to do right by his friend Maziar. You can read the full Parade piece here. Some highlights:

Whether he was ever discussing replacing David Gregory on Meet the Press: “I don’t think I turned it down. There was a small conversation where they were trying to figure out what the hell to do and they talked to me for a minute. It isn’t like they offered it to me or anything…I think just being able to have a few minutes to say why it’s a terrible idea disabused them of any notion of it.”

On the moments of humor in Rosewater: “One of the things that really appealed to me about Maziar’s memoir was his ability as a journalist and individual to retain his sense of humor and his sense of absurdity of what was happening. You will be surprised if you watch the movie, because there are big laughs in it in some very tough moments.”

Whether he thinks he’s courageous: “It doesn’t take any courage to make a movie. There are those in parts of the world where that type of expression you can’t take for granted—there are a lot of countries where making a film like this would take courage. It just so happens that we’re fortunate enough to be in a place where that isn’t an issue. I try to keep that in perspective.”

Satire & journalism: “Journalism and satire aren’t necessarily dealing with separate subjects or intentions. We use a different set of tools than they do, and the tools we use wouldn’t necessarily meet with journalistic approval. Satire uses hyperbole, Photoshop, exaggeration, puns, the scatological. The language of satire is a very different animal than the language of journalism.”

Being funny at a young age: “Humor is a tool of last resort. If you don’t have power, you might as well make jokes. It is used as an emotional leveler to some extent. I felt overmatched. That’s probably a better word than underdog. I am sure there are people who grew up with a tremendous amount of confidence—I was not one of them.”

[From Parade]

Parade also got Jon to do a “top five” list of his favorite interviews ever. Bahari was #2!! Jon’s favorite interview was Malala Yousafzai. Which makes sense, because Malala was incredibly moving on The Daily Show, so much so that Jon asked if he could adopt her. After Malala and Bahari, Jon lists: Ishmael Beah (a Sierra Leonean activist and author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier), Muhammad Yunus (he won the Nobel for micro-financing) and Bassem Youssef, widely considered “the Egyptian Jon Stewart.” Jon actually went to Egypt and appeared on Youssef’s show and if you ever want a good cry, you should look up the interview. In between laughs, Jon talks about traveling to refugee camps and meeting incredibly kind and generous people with nothing and realizing that he still had a lot of growth to do as a human being.

Photos courtesy of WENN, cover courtesy of Parade.