'The Colbert Report' Featured in EW's 'Best of 2013'

In the first of this years ‘Best of’ lists, ‘The Colbert Report’ has been featured in Entertainment Weekly’s ‘Best of 2013 (Behind the Scenes)’. Stephen Colbert talks exclusively to EW about the ‘series of extremely happy accidents’ that led to the ‘Daft Punk’ Dance Video, and one of the years best viral hits.

The video itself came about starting three weeks before the show. We had already booked Daft Punk to come on the show, and we were pretty excited because they don’t do TV and they don’t talk. We thought “Oh great, they’ll come on and talk into a [fog] and this’ll be a real coup.” And then they said, “Well, they don’t wanna talk.” So I said, “Oh I can get around them not talking. We can figure out something.” And then the next week they called and said, “Oh, and they also don’t wanna do the song.” [Laughs]

I thought, “So wait, we’re flying them from Paris and they’re not gonna sing and they’re not gonna talk? What are we doin’?” And they said, “Do you want us to cancel?” “No, no, no, this is actually a really interesting challenge.” What could we do that’s interesting, where they don’t do anything, and yet it’s still a Daft Punk appearance? And I looked up at my board, and we don’t do a lot of actors or performers on the show, but for whatever reason, we had more than our normal raft of people. Like that night I had Jeff Bridges, and next week I had Matt Damon, and the next week I had Hugh Laurie, and I thought, “Oh, we got some people up here we can talk to.” And so I said, “What if tonight I just dance with Jeff Bridges?” Because I had the image immediately of Lebowski dancing on the big steps in the dream sequence from [The] Big Lebowski. I said, “Oh, what if we played their song, and it’s me trying to convince Daft Punk that their song is so catchy? Like maybe they forgot just what a deep hook that song has?” That’s the first thing we shot.

And then I said, “I’ll just dance out of the studio, and I’ll end up dancing with other people all over, like, New York and Washington.” And that night was Jeff Bridges and he goes, “Far out. Yeah, I’ll do that, man. I like those guys.” So he danced with us on the steps outside. We shot it in like five minutes. And uh, that’s why the lighting’s so poor on that one shot.

I said, “There are two things: People can either dance with me, or I can dance through their reality.” Like I can dance through whatever they’re doing, and I’ll just dance in and dance out. And we also knew that [Breaking Bad’s] Bryan Cranston was coming on, and we loved his scene from Malcolm in the Middle where he roller skates, and I thought, “Oh, [I] wonder if Bryan Cranston would roller skate with me to Daft Punk?” And at the same time, Charlie Rose had said, “Yes, you can dance through my show.” And we said, “By the way… Who’s your guest? I wanna know whom I’m interrupting.” And they said, “Well, it’s gonna be the cast of Breaking Bad.” And I said, “Well, that’s perfect.” So I danced on and took Bryan Cranston with me, and that’s why the piece is in that order.

I wanted some people who were appropriate — who were performers — and I wanted some people who were completely inappropriate, like Henry Kissinger. And I just wanted some places I could interrupt and sort of borrow status from other people’s worlds. It was just so great… Probably the first person who said “Yes” was Jeff [Bridges] that night, and [Jimmy] Fallon said, “Yes,” and then the Rockettes, and then America’s Got Talent, and it just kind of piled up… And then Daft Punk couldn’t show and we said, “Well, okay, we’ll change the meaning of it now. We’ll use the video.”

Full Article: Entertainment Weekly.