Stephen Colbert on What to Expect from the 'Late Show'

© Frederick M. Brown | Getty Images (via Zimbio)

With less than a month until ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ premieres, Stephen Colbert is hard at work promoting the new show and charming the pants of reporters left, right and centre. Which is exactly what he did on Monday, August 10th, 2015 at the Television Critics Association summer press tour in Los Angeles, where he spoke at length for the first time about his plans for the new ‘Late Show’ and his excitement for it to finally start.

Here is what we learned about the new ‘Late Show’ from the TCA Q&A:

• Colbert says he doesn’t want to get competitive with the other late night hosts for ratings. He just wants to have fun competing with his staff to make the best show possible. According to Colbert, “the idea of war between hosts doesn’t make sense to me. It’s not like my success takes away from anyone. And it doesn’t sound very funny. I hope everyone has success.” (via The Loop)

• Colbert will absolutely make politics a big part of his new show, saying he chose September 8 as his premiere date in part because the day after Labor Day is traditionally the kickoff for presidential elections. The comic told reporters he’s “just hoping certain people stay in the race until then,” quickly admitting that he can’t wait to begin mocking Donald Trump. “Right now, I’m just dry-Trumping,” he quipped, immediately tweeting out a version of the same joke. Later, in a smaller scrum with reporters, Colbert was asked if he thought Trump actually had a shot of winning the election. “Honestly? He could!” Colbert said. “That’s not my opinion of Donald Trump. That’s my opinion of our nation.” And is he horrified by such a notion? “You know what? There have been some great presidents, there have been some bad presidents,” Colbert said. “But having a giant, swinging set of balls isn’t the worst thing in the world, you know?” (via Vulture)

• Colbert has no interest in a new round of Late-Night Wars. “The idea of war between hosts doesn’t make sense to me,” he said. “It’s not like my success takes away from anyone. And it doesn’t sound very funny. … I hope everyone has success.” As for the battle to be first in the ratings, “I didn’t play a lot of sports as a kid,” he said. “I got picked last for dodge ball. I don’t have that competitive gene.” Instead, Colbert said he and his writers are “competing among ourselves to have fun” making the show. (via Vulture)

• There’s at least another 20 minutes of Colbert’s Michigan public-access cable interview with Eminem that ended up on the cutting room floor. “Hopefully someday you’ll see the directors’ cut,” he said. Colbert and Eminem agreed to keep the interview a secret and not send it out to regular websites. They even had the staff of the public access organization sign non-disclosure agreements. (via TV Insider)

• In order to keep up with events in the world, Colbert says his daily news diet normally begins with the email newsletter the Skimm (“Look it up,” he advised). He then checks out the politics page on Reddit, the Drudge Report, the Huffington Post, and the New York Times. (via Vulture)

• While he declined to get specific, Colbert seemed to hint he may be looking to shake up the usual joke-heavy late-night monologue. “I don’t think anything I’ve done on my last show or this show is necessarily traditional, other than what the pieces are,” he said when we asked him how he planned to approach the opening of his show. “We’re gonna try to put them together in a new way.” Later, he said he might do the monologue in different places and in different ways early on. “We’re going to find what’s right for me,” he said. “I don’t feel like I have to come out of the gate knowing everything. I’d like to have enough humility to find some things along the way.” (via Vulture)

• He’s going to interview his guests sincerely, not in character. Colbert said, “I’m very interested in my guests and I’m looking forward to being sincerely interested in what they have to say without having to translate it to an idiot’s mouth. If that leads to some serious conversations I’d be happy. We had them before on the last show and the audience came with us. I don’t see why I should stop.” (via The Loop)

• Asked about how ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ will be structured, Colbert said interviews would be an important part of the program. “My favorite thing on [The Colbert Report] became doing the interviews,” he said. “When you’re interviewing people you don’t know what’s going to happen. All I want from a guest is someone who has something to say so I can play with them.” Colbert said big stars, politicians, authors, newsmakers, intellectuals, athletes and others will all be a part of the show. (via TV Insider)

• Some of his personality on ‘The Colbert Report’ wasn’t an act and it will be evident on ‘The Late Show’. Colbert explained, “Oscar Wilde said, “you wanna see someone’s real face, give ’em a mask.’ I had the excuse that I didn’t mean it, but I meant a lot of it. I even agreed with my character sometimes. My hope is when you see me on the new show you’ll go, ‘Oh wow, a lot of that was him the whole time.’ I don’t know how much until I go do it.” (via The Loop)

• CBS has been remarkably hands-off during preparations for the show. The network, Colbert said, “has asked nothing of me, other than I fill an hour every night.” He said CBS Entertainment chief Nina Tassler’s main advice to him was to simply continue what he had been doing on The Colbert Report. “I love your last show,” she said. “Add. Don’t take away.” (via Vulture)

• Colbert is very eager to get to work, noting the eight-month hiatus since The Colbert Report ended marks his longest break from performing since he was 24. “I’m … twitching,” he said. “I don’t like comedy in theory. That’s theology. I want to get to the religion.” That said, he admits to at least a bit of nerves. “If you’re not a little nervous, you’re not trying hard enough,” he said. (via Vulture)

• Letterman has been more involved in guiding Colbert’s transition than had been known. Before Letterman’s Late Show wrapped, Colbert visited with Dave at the Ed Sullivan Theater, spending about 90 minutes discussing various aspects of hosting and comedy. At one point Colbert asked Letterman if there was anything he’d change about his tenure, and he replied, “Eh, I would’ve really liked to have had the desk on the other side.” The next day, Colbert called his set designer and asked that the position of his desk be reversed. And while Letterman didn’t leave behind any sort of memento for Colbert — or, if he did, Colbert wasn’t talking — “Dave did something better than that,” Colbert revealed. “Dave used to get down to the theater in an old brass-handled, manual freight elevator, which he asked them not to change [when the Ed Sullivan theater was remodeled in the 1990s]. And I said the same thing: ‘Don’t change that.’ So after we talked … I said, ‘One last thing. Would you show me how to run the elevator?’ And he goes, ‘Oh, it’s the best thing in the building!’ And he shows me how to run it and showed me how to open the door so the elevator would be right there. And then he said, ‘There. Now it’s waiting for you.’ That felt like a guy teaching you how to use the tool before he leaves. It was really lovely. He couldn’t have been more gracious. He left me with the keys, you might say.” (via Vulture)

• The Sullivan Theater has been “completely gutted” since Letterman exited and will now be free of lots of TV studio equipment used in the old show. “You couldn’t tell it was in a theater before,” Colbert said. But “technology has advanced enough since 1993” that much of the bulky devices once needed to make a TV-ready show are no longer required. As a result, “I find it a very intimate space now.” (via Vulture)