Ever Wondered If James Corden Is Really Driving During Carpool Karaoke? Here’s The Deal

Elton John, One Direction, Adele, Stevie Wonder… James Corden has driven a whole host of musical legends around LA and New York as part of his Carpool Karaoke series, but how does it really work?

What started as a once-off sketch as part of The Late Show last year has since spawned into a viral series that has almost outgrown the show itself. While we adore James’s in-car antics, we did have a few questions that had yet to be answered.

Was it all rehearsed? Is the car just driving round in circles? And – most importantly – is James even really driving, or is it all some sort of special effects/green screen magic?

Happily for us, recent Carpool Karaoke participant Jane Krakowski dished on her experience to Yahoo Style earlier this week, and she says it’s all as natural as it looks.

Jane took to the backseat of James’s car as part of a Broadway Carpool Karaoke special, which also featured Lin-Manuel Miranda, Audra McDonald and Modern Family‘s Jesse Tyler Ferguson.

“Everything you see us saying and doing in the car, none of that’s rehearsed,” she said of the recording, which took around 90 minutes.

“We did know what songs we would sing, for the most part, but we hadn’t actually sung them together until we were  James Corden’s car.”

Nice! And what about the driving itself?

“We drove around a few block in midtown Manhattan, over and over again,” Jane recalls.

“James Corden is really driving – he’s a very good driver! – and we’re all strapped in. He’s very strict about that. If you want to be in Carpool Karaoke, you must wear your seatbelt at all times.”

As for the cameras, Jane says it’s more like an episode of Big Brother than a normal car journey.

“They put cameras all over the car, and all over the periphery of the windows,” she explains.

“You can’t not be looking at a camera, to be honest.”

Sounds creepy! But we’re still dying to give it a go, obvz.

• carpool karaoke
• james corden
• jane krawkowski