Stars Say Farewell to Stephen Colbert

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Vulture recently enlisted a variety of celebrities, musicians, filmmakers, authors and media personalities who have been guests on or are fans of ‘The Colbert Report’ to recount their memories of and experiences with one of the greatest television characters of all time.

Ben Affleck
He and Jon Stewart literally created a form of entertainment that didn’t exist before, and that’s a really rare thing in entertainment. Usually — like we did [with] Good Will Hunting, it was part Searching for Bobby Fischer and part Little Man Tate — you borrow from movies. These guys actually invented something, which was a comedy show that still took the news seriously and still was really provocative. That in itself is extraordinary. And what was even better is that they were great entertainers, had great writers. Colbert will be very, very successful.

Jon Stewart
I view us as kind of a block, as one entity. But the good news for me is I still get to be friends with him.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
I appeared about 13 times on The Colbert Report — I think more than any other guest. Living just three miles from the studio, at some level, I was surely just an easy date. It was far and away my hardest interview in any genre. There’s nothing like it on television or anywhere else. It took prodigious brilliance to pull it off. Stephen Colbert has it. And he did it.

J.J. Abrams
I was abjectly terrified [to be on the show]. In my first appearance, we had pretaped a bit in which we both had to interact with a Romulan Stephen Colbert (whose name was St’eE’pha’n Kh’olber’T). As if I didn’t love him enough already. He is obviously such a different personality in actual life — but you can’t approach him that way on camera. The key for me was to remember that he is brilliantly funny — and that the last thing I needed to worry about was being funny. Stephen does all the heavy lifting. Its point of view [was what made it special]. The show had its rules, but they would bend and break them all the time. Knowing that Stephen usually felt the opposite of what he was saying — through some of the best writing ever on TV — was an added pleasure.

Ken Burns
I certainly remember my very first time: I actually came in and was watching a rehearsal of something he does frequently on the show, where he holds opposing points of view and has essentially an argument with himself, and just switches from one camera to another, and the camera changes the Chroma so his shirt looks a different color, his tie looks like a different stripe. And you realize when you watch TV, a cut is a cut, but when you’re there live, you realize the extraordinary gifts of this comedian. He’s obviously one of the greatest intellectual geniuses because he’s playing everything opposite himself, and he’s so quick, but I think we don’t appreciate that he’s such a great physical comedian in the sense that Buster Keaton was a great physical comedian. I was just stunned watching this. Then I went on. In my segment — the very first time I was on — he started suddenly drifting away. He pays really close attention when you’re there, and he’s nodding and waiting to ambush you and waiting to put you in an uncomfortable situation; all [of a] sudden, he started drifting away. I sort of ground to a halt. And he said, “While we’ve been talking, I’ve made a documentary film.” And then he cued it, and apparently the booth had captured sepia images of the two of us talking, and he made a spoof of The Civil War, with narration and first-person voices. I’ll never forget for as long as I live, “While we were talking, I made a documentary film.” It just cracked me up.

And that’s the thing about him. He’s a genius. So extraordinary in every way. And I think we have to appreciate it even more: He’s doing it backward. It’s like writing your name in a mirror with the opposite hand. He plays this right-wing buffoon, so everything is in the context of that, and yet he has to — at the same time — sort of challenge you, but also undercut his own arguments at every single step. It’s brilliant theatre to watch, and he does it day in and day out. I have interacted with him offstage several times. He is, unlike most people with a show like that, someone who comes to the dressing room and says, “Hello.”

I’ve also interviewed him out of character for a couple hours on the stage of the 92nd Street Y, and I’m very happy to report that he was as funny then, if not funnier, being his “real self,” and that really bodes well in the wake of this Irish Wake that resurrection is entirely possible, and he is the perfect person to take over the immense shoes of David Letterman in The Late Show. I think he’s an amazing human being. He has to be himself on late night, and that self is so extraordinary that I think people will be very, very surprised and pleased by how he does it.

Michael J. Fox
I don’t know if people really appreciate how brilliant he was. To be able to ask a question, think of an answer, and then convert that into his character and put it back out in an instant. I don’t know anyone else who can do that. So I hope he can maintain a certain aspect of that on the new show.

Neil Gaiman
[…] And also his willingness to talk to anybody on their own terms and let us hang ourselves with our own words. Whether he’s playing an idiot or not, he’s incredibly smart, incredibly fast. It’s a wild ride, you’re on it and you hold on. You try not to fall off.

Dan Savage
Stephen — the real Stephen — is a genius, first and foremost, but his character, this right-wing blowhard, was the best way to send up O’Reilly and Hannity and the rest of the right-wing blowhards. Stephen took their toxic politics and their self-regard as a starting-off point and added just a touch of cluelessness and something both of those men lack — charisma. Colbert demonstrated that agreeing with them — or pretending to agree with them — was the deadliest way to satirize them.

James Corden
I love the man. He’s been very kind to me because we’re both going to be in this weird two hours of TV. We’ll try our best, you know. We’ve had a lot of chats about how I’ll be a counterpoint to his show and et cetera. He’s amazing. He’s just the best. He’s smart, funny, bright. He’s incredibly handsome. That’s it.

Chris Matthews
[…] I think he’s one of the really good people in the business. I stop just short of loving the guy. His values come through even as he plays a benighted passenger in the right-wing clown car.

Gloria Steinem
[…] When I was on with him alone, I had the feeling that his artificial self was setting me up so I could say what his real self would have said. We were sitting close to the audience, so I could also feel how in tune they were with him and his ability to make serious points with parody. Ever since an extremist right-wing took over the machinery of the Republican Party, the country has seemed to be divided into two warring parts, even though opinion polls show a majority for progressive issues. The Colbert Report took the fear out of this dangerous division and added laughter instead.

Melinda Gates
Stephen has a way of stripping away all the preconceptions people bring to tough issues and letting you talk about them with unusual clarity.

Ben Folds
What struck me about Stephen Colbert was how intelligently considerate he was in briefing us on how his character might abuse us. He struck me as a pretty brave and resourceful human in having created a space and vehicle for himself to be so expressive and provocative. He was really kind and earnest, and I love that he’s explored this Colbert character so thoroughly and is moving on. I think the upcoming, more literal version of himself will be successful in ways nobody is quite prepared for. The other thing I walked away with was regret that he didn’t feel good about his performance of my song “Best Imitation” that we did together. He was great and just didn’t feel it should be released. I understood, but it was better than he realized.

Emily Bazelon
[…] I also remember the small dog who sometimes runs around backstage and the warm toilet seat in the bathroom. It’s like home, only better.