Colbert says new gig is 'everything I want'
Nation, are you ready for the real Stephen Colbert?
The actor, comedian and – since 2005 — faux bloviator of Comedy Central’s TheColbert Report — on Tuesday begins his dream job, replacing David Letterman as the host of CBS’s Late Show (11:35 p.m. ET/PT).
“It gives me everything I want,” he says in an interview. “I like meeting the guests, I like the grind, I like a live audience, I love to hear the laughter. It’s the only job I could imagine that was a promotion. I was very proud of the show we had done, we’d had some success with it. (But) if I was going to do another live show in front of an audience, taking over for Dave was the only thing that had a laurel wreath on it.”
He even spent time with Letterman at the Ed Sullivan Theater, where Dave showed him how to use a freight elevator to get from the show’s offices to the stage.
Unlike retired Daily Show host Jon Stewart, who called interviews “filler” around his carefully crafted segments, Colbert enjoys them.
“I was never a standup, I’m an improviser, and so for me the joy is, what’s going to happen between the two of us for the next six or eight minutes? That’s the reason to continue to do a talk show for me, is the talk. Jon didn’t like it.”
Colbert plans an eclectic mix of “scientists, newsmakers, politicians, intellectuals, musicians that I love” and the usual assortment of movie and TV stars promoting projects.
Colbert steps into his real character
George Clooney and Jeb Bush are booked for Tuesday’s extended opener; other guests due this week and next range from Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to the CEOs of Uber and Tesla to actors Scarlett Johansson, Jake Gyllenhaal and Lupita Nyong’o.
He’s coy about exactly what you’ll see, but at a rehearsal last week, he opened with a seated monologue, graphic screen behind him, and bantered with bandleader Jon Batiste from a desk on the left side of the stage. “I don’t see any need to strap dynamite to the wheel and blow it up and reinvent it. It’s an hour, there are six commercial breaks. There’s a live audience.” And: “I will tell topical jokes every night about things in the news, and if that’s a monologue then that’s a monologue, but I don’t think you’ll see it quite the same way.” And despite those test shows, he’s not sure exactly how things will roll: “I don’t know how to surf the wave until I’m on the board.”