- 14 hours ago
GQ sits in on a tête-à-tête between Men of the Year cover star Stephen Colbert and GQ editor Zach Baron at the Chateau Marmont. Colbert opens up on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert being axed: from how he found out, to his plans on closing out a near decade-long tenure at the top of late-night TV.Credits:Director: Nick CollettDirector of Photography: AJ YoungEditor: Daniel PolarTalent: Stephen ColbertHost: Zach BaronProducer: Cara MarceanteCoordinating Producer: Sam DennisLine Producer: Jen SantosProduction Manager: James PipitoneProduction Coordinator: Elizabeth HymesTalent Booker: Dana MathewsCamera Operator: Shay Eberle-GunstGaffer: Lucas VilicichSound Mixer: Mike RobertsonProduction Assistant: Fernando Barajas; Hollie OrtizMake-up Artist: Hee Soo Kwon (for Zach Baron)Post Production Supervisor: Jess DunnPost Production CoordinatorStella ShortinoSupervising Editor: Rob LombardiAdditional Editor: Sam DiVitoAssistant Editor: Billy WardSpecial Thanks: Chateau Marmont
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00We should say that you and I actually met for the first time about 30 minutes ago.
00:04Right.
00:04You were wearing a bathrobe, swimming trunks, and you were smoking what I believe to be a
00:10I was holding what you believe to be a
00:12You cannot prove that I was smoking.
00:15Unless you want to do a blood test right now.
00:17Okay, can we...
00:18No, no, no, I'm just...
00:19You get a warrant, is what I'll say.
00:21Okay, right, yeah, so starting this interview off...
00:24Are you a cop?
00:25Are you a cop?
00:26You have to tell them if you're a cop.
00:27I'm not a cop!
00:28Or this entire interview is in trap.
00:29I'm not a cop!
00:30Okay.
00:39My life's an open book.
00:41Is it?
00:41I think so.
00:42I believe that.
00:42Good.
00:44Then I've...
00:45Then I've fooled you already.
00:47What's going on over here?
00:49Are those our people?
00:50Can we stop whatever that's going on?
00:52Hey!
00:53Lock it down!
00:55Everybody wants to be in show business.
00:57How are you?
00:57How's it work?
00:58Super normal?
00:59Yeah, it actually is.
01:00Strangely, everything is normal.
01:03Because the show is never normal.
01:05The show changes every day.
01:06And it's ending in May.
01:09I've been informed.
01:12But I got nine months of shows to do.
01:16You know, I can't be thinking about it ending in May.
01:18I got to think about the show on Monday.
01:20So when you say, how's the show?
01:21Perfectly normal?
01:23Well, yeah.
01:23I mean, it wasn't that normal when I had to tell everybody that the show was ending.
01:30But then, you know, the next Monday, I had to do a show.
01:33Yeah.
01:34Does nine months feel like a long time or a short time right now?
01:38The end has a discernible shape, but it still seems like a long way away.
01:42Can you describe that shape?
01:44The image I have is a man walking toward me in the dusk.
01:49And he's got something in his hand.
01:51And I don't know whether if it's a knife or an ice cream cone.
01:56But he's asking me if I'd like a lick.
01:59I can't tell if this is a bit or this is real if you're haunted by a bit.
02:01What are you talking about?
02:03Why would this be a bit?
02:04And by the way, it is hard to tell whether things are real or a bit sometimes.
02:09To me.
02:10Yes.
02:11Yes.
02:11You're in an interesting business for that.
02:13Yeah.
02:14Every day you have to come up with a bit about something that was real.
02:16You've been attaching your mouth to the exhaust pipe of news for, I don't know.
02:21That sounds vaguely suicidal.
02:22Yeah.
02:23You've been running your car in the closed garage of media.
02:28Yeah.
02:28I mean, listen, it's possible that George Cheeks saved my life.
02:30So I'll get a little oxygen back into my brain.
02:34Do you know what I mean?
02:35It really does.
02:35It feels like I really feel like you can only talk every night.
02:40Do jokes every night.
02:41With your friends, obviously.
02:42But do the jokes every night.
02:44Year after year.
02:45For 20 years.
02:47If you give a damn at all about what you're talking about.
02:50And I do.
02:53But there is a sense of relief that I might not have to put on the snarkle
02:59and get into the sewer every day.
03:02Do you have any coping mechanisms when you kind of have to interact with this so relentlessly?
03:06Yeah, the show itself.
03:07I think the commonality between the shows since they began,
03:11even though tonally they've changed,
03:13is that it is in some way reflective of the national conversation.
03:16And then you have your part of that conversation that night at the audience
03:20or sometimes with a guest.
03:21So you have to be well-versed in it.
03:23So you have to have a lot of information.
03:25But also then you get to go say how you feel about it every night with an audience.
03:29And, you know, what do we most want to be?
03:33Not alone.
03:34And I'm not alone when I'm with the audience.
03:37They, you know, the great thing about comedy,
03:40not to take anything away from drama,
03:42but the great thing about comedy is that you know when it works.
03:45The audience makes this noise with their mouth.
03:48And that can't really be faked.
03:51When it's really working well, you walk off stage with more energy
03:54than when you walked on stage.
03:56I have never been sick on stage.
03:58I've never, I've been very sick.
04:01I did a show last year where I had a burst appendix.
04:06And I did a double show.
04:07I didn't know my appendix was burst.
04:09I didn't know what was wrong with me.
04:10But I was like sweating and thought I might pass out.
04:13And I was in so much pain that I was crying in commercial breaks.
04:16But doing the show, I could just get, I just could just get through it.
04:21I did two shows.
04:21I did a double show that night.
04:23And then afterwards, my wife made sure that my driver
04:25took me straight to the hospital.
04:27And I got there and they said,
04:28Oh, you have a burst appendix.
04:29We have to take the salemander.
04:30You know, laughter is the best medicine.
04:32And boy, the only better medicine than that is making other people laugh.
04:35And yet the show is ending.
04:36I mean.
04:37And yet the show is ending.
04:39Really early on in the old Colbert Report,
04:41we liked the idea that the character didn't know he was on Comedy Channel.
04:46Because he was, he took himself on Comedy Channel.
04:49And he was really, he really was changing the course of human history
04:53with the tractor beam of his own justice.
04:56And, and so of course there was other news shows on Comedy Central.
05:01And we were the last show on.
05:03And so we would toss the way John would toss to me from the Daily Show.
05:07We would toss to the morning show on Comedy Central,
05:10which we called YAD, which stood for Yet Another Day.
05:16And, and I love the desperation of that of having to go on and do Yet Another Day.
05:21So, and yet, and yet, however, how much I enjoy it,
05:26or the audience might enjoy it, yes, the show is ending.
05:28Have you wrapped your head around it?
05:30No, no, no, not at all.
05:32What did you feel when you found out?
05:35I was surprised.
05:36I was, I was surprised.
05:38Why?
05:39Listen, I, every show's got to end,
05:41but I think we're the first number one show to ever get canceled.
05:44Thinking about that.
05:45Yeah.
05:45You guys have been number one since 2016.
05:47Exactly.
05:47And I said, I, I, I called a friend of mine who's also in Late Night.
05:53And I said, you got any thoughts on this?
05:54And he goes, no, no one's going to have any thoughts on this.
05:56No one's ever been the number one show for like nine years in a row.
05:59And then be canceled.
06:00We had a strangers with candy, which is a show I did 25 years ago.
06:04They wouldn't tell us that we were canceled, but at the upfronts,
06:07we weren't announced because we were still shooting through the summer at the
06:11upfronts.
06:11They wouldn't tell us they didn't announce our show and they announced the
06:15schedule of the show.
06:15And we were nowhere on the schedule.
06:17And our slot on Sunday nights had a show called strip mall in it.
06:20And we said, what is going on?
06:22Are you canceling our show?
06:23And they said, no decisions have been made.
06:25And so we said, fuck that.
06:28We're definitely canceled.
06:29And we wanted to end, we wanted to end by our own light.
06:31And so the, our, the school that flat point high, the school that we were in
06:36slowly it's revealed that has, the school board has sold it and it's being
06:42turned into a strip mall.
06:44And so like the history class is now a sticky button and the science class is
06:48now a dry cleaners, but no, but they keep on saying no decisions been made.
06:52And at the end of it, we, we blew up the school.
06:55And, uh, murdered the school board.
06:57But, um, so I had that plan.
06:59And then when I, when I knew my last, when I, when I, when I signed my 2012
07:03contract for the Colbert report, I went to my assistant and I said, Hey, what's
07:09our last show of, uh, 2014?
07:11She goes, uh, it looks like a December 18th.
07:14I said, Oh, good to know.
07:15And I started writing that last show myself, but I had a plan of how to end it.
07:19I knew, I knew the songs were going to sing.
07:21I knew the jokes were going to do.
07:22I knew how I wanted shot everything.
07:25This is not my choice.
07:28I don't, I don't know.
07:29I don't know what we're going to do with the last nine months.
07:32Uh, because everything we do on a nightly basis takes everything we know how to do.
07:36So, you know, people have asked me, well, what do you think you're going to do next?
07:41The honest answer is, I just want to land this plane gracefully in a way that I find satisfying.
07:45Given how much effort we've put into it for the last 10 years, when they called you and
07:51told you, I say, they didn't call me and tell me.
07:54Oh, they didn't.
07:56What happened?
07:57Uh, my manager told me.
08:00My manager told me.
08:01Okay.
08:02So no one called you?
08:03Uh, no.
08:04No.
08:05When they called your manager.
08:05They told him, they told him and he told me and he, he, he, he said, Hey, do you have
08:1115 minutes?
08:12I'm going to stop by.
08:14Do you have, do you have 15 minutes?
08:15And, uh, I said, sure.
08:17So I got off and I said to my assistant, I said, so baby doll wants, because James baby
08:22doll dicks, baby doll, baby doll wants 15 minutes in person means usually like five minutes
08:27on the phone is an hour with him.
08:29So when 15 minutes comes by, she just, my assistant sex.
08:32And I said, it's going to be a bit, cause that's when he'd already, I was actually little.
08:37I was so tired.
08:37I was lying down on my couch, like with like a pillow over my eyes gone.
08:41Hey James, what's going on?
08:43What's going on?
08:43And so you were in the perfect position position.
08:46I was, I was, I was prone.
08:48He told me, he sort of that.
08:50Yeah.
08:50They're going to, this is going to be the last season.
08:51So I sat up, I was like, Oh, okay.
08:53Well that's interesting.
08:54That's interesting.
08:55I did not expect that.
08:56And then we talked for hours.
08:59We just talked for hours.
09:01And then I went home and my wife who was expecting me home in 15 minutes.
09:08Uh, and because you know, this is in the city and she said, uh,
09:12that was two and a half hours.
09:15She goes, what happened?
09:16Did you get canceled?
09:17And I said, yep.
09:19And she went, no.
09:20I said, yeah, no, we did.
09:26And so, so we sat down and she got me a drink and we sat and talked about like, okay, what,
09:32what do you want to do next?
09:33That was it.
09:34Really?
09:34Yeah.
09:35Yeah.
09:35Listen, she's a breathtakingly level headed girl.
09:40And she could tell I was upset.
09:42And she said, I want you to let go of that upset.
09:45And, and understand.
09:46Were you able to?
09:47I'll do anything she says.
09:49And she's much smarter than I, she's way smarter.
09:51The people think I'm smart.
09:52I'm not really smart.
09:53I have a good memory.
09:54I know a lot of people smarter than I am.
09:56Like my old writing partner, Paul Danella, who's my producers, John Stewart's more smarter than I am.
10:01My wife is smarter than I am.
10:02And they almost always give me the same advice.
10:04And hers was, I want you to let go of how angry you are.
10:08And I want you to, I want you to think about what a gift the show has been and to work with these people.
10:14Did the explanation provided to your manager, not you, make sense to you?
10:20What was it?
10:21They're getting out of the late night space altogether because it's no longer profitable for the network.
10:28And, and I said, well, if we can't be, then no, no one can be.
10:33Look, they run the business and I run the show.
10:37And far be it for me to tell them how to run their business.
10:40But I'll stick with, I found it very surprising.
10:44Did you find what they said plausible?
10:46Do you believe it?
10:48Television's in huge trouble.
10:50Maybe David Ellison will fix everything.
10:52No, no, seriously, maybe he will, but it's clear that television is in a lot of transitions.
10:59It's been going on for a long time, but that's not my end of the business.
11:04My end of the business is the jokes.
11:06Tell me if I have the sequence of events correct, but CBS pays Donald Trump, President Donald Trump, a settlement, $60 million, which you call the bribe on air.
11:15Please, you know, don't get me a lawsuit here.
11:17I said, I believe that there is a name for that and it would be a big fat bribe.
11:21And shortly after that, show's canceled.
11:25And so.
11:25Two days later.
11:26Yes.
11:27Politicians come out like Elizabeth Warren, Adam Schiff, and say, you know, if this is politically motivated, the American people deserve to know.
11:33By the way, everything you're telling me right now, you have to tell me right now because I don't read about myself.
11:39Really?
11:39Yeah.
11:40Who'd you say?
11:41Adam Schiff.
11:42Adam Schiff.
11:42Elizabeth Warren.
11:43Elizabeth Warren.
11:43Well, good for them.
11:46I mean, that's not my job.
11:48That's not my reaction to it.
11:50My reaction as a professional and show business is to go.
11:53That is the network's decision.
11:55I can understand why people would have that reaction because CBS or the parent corporation, I'm not going to say who made that decision.
12:06I don't know.
12:07No one's ever going to tell us.
12:08It's decided to cut a check for $16 million to the president of the United States over a lawsuit that their own lawyers, Paramount's own lawyers said is completely without merit.
12:18And there is, it is self-evident that that is damaging to the reputation of the network corporation and the news division.
12:29So, it is unclear to me why anyone would do that other than to curry favor with a single individual.
12:36And so, if people have theories that associate me with that, it's a reasonable thing to think because CBS, or again, or the corporation clearly did it once.
12:51But my side of the street is clean, and I have no interest in picking up a broom or adding to refuse on the other side of the street.
13:00Not my problem.
13:02So, people can have their theories.
13:05I have my feelings about not doing the show anymore.
13:08But you'd have to show me why that's a fruitful relationship for me to have with my network for the next nine months for me to engage in that speculation.
13:16Because I have had great relationship with CBS.
13:18It's one of the reasons why this was so surprising and so shocking, that there was no preamble to this.
13:24But I meant what I said the next night after I found out.
13:29They've been great partners.
13:31The Tiffany Network, yeah.
13:33Yeah, they really have.
13:35They've been very supportive.
13:36Like, it took us six to nine months to find our legs.
13:39Even before people watched the show, we didn't quite figure out what we wanted to do.
13:42It didn't come fully assembled out of the box the way the Colbert Report did.
13:45But they stood by us, and they were very supportive, and they gave us what we needed.
13:50And we found it, and we delivered for them what we wanted.
13:53I mean, you're number one.
13:54Why do you want to be number one?
13:56To brag?
13:57No.
13:57I was going to ask if you're competitive.
13:59Well, yeah, of course you're competitive.
14:01But I really like the other guys.
14:03We're all friends.
14:03I didn't want to be number one to like, let me show you.
14:06The best reason to be number one is that the network does not fuck with you.
14:11That is the best reason to be number one.
14:13And we enjoyed nine unfucked years.
14:20Really?
14:21There is, you alluded to it.
14:22There's kind of like a macro conversation about, does the late night format even make sense anymore?
14:27You know?
14:28Well, they said it.
14:30Right.
14:30I'm just telling you what they said.
14:32Right.
14:32It might be.
14:34I don't know.
14:35You can't really do a show in the Ed Sullivan Theater at 1135 on CBS with a band and sketches and field shoots and stuff like that for the cost of a podcast.
14:50And if you look and say, oh, this is what a podcast makes.
14:52This is what these shows make.
14:53Then you're keeping these shows on because you love the form or because you love that it's one of the oldest forms in television, which through radio is connected to vaudeville.
15:01Like there's this great tradition of what we do.
15:04So to me, it seems indispensable as part of some Americans experience or daily experience.
15:10But I can understand from a business point of view that they go, well, that is meaningless to me as someone who has to answer to our board of directors and investors.
15:19I'm curious what you feel like the great affirmative case is for a show like yours.
15:23Why should shows like mine continue to exist or like Kimmel or Jimmy or whatever?
15:27And I said everyone plays a great affection, which is why I'm saying it.
15:29Why?
15:30Oh, we're like your friend who at the end of the day paid attention to the news more than you did.
15:36And you're aware of it.
15:38You just didn't do the detail work that we did.
15:40And then we curate that back to you at the end of the day.
15:45But it's really more about how we feel about her.
15:48I as the person who met who like is the vehicle for that.
15:51How we felt about today, all those things that might have made you confused or angry or anxious or happy or surprised or something like that.
16:02I feel that way at the camera or to the audience, really.
16:06I'm really performing for the audience and the camera captures it as opposed to the Colbert report, which is I played for the camera and the audience got to witness it.
16:13I share that those feelings with the audience and they laugh or they don't laugh and that there's a sense of community there.
16:19And, you know, the demographics of these shows are interesting, too.
16:22It's about a third, third, third.
16:24It's about a third Republicans, third Democrats, third independents.
16:26You think, you know, old, you know, people perceive me as this sort of lefty figure.
16:31I think I'm more conservative than people think.
16:33I just happen to be talking about a a government in extremis.
16:40Yeah.
16:40And so what I'm giving you is my reaction video to the day.
16:45And and my reaction video is like, you know, is like the scream.
16:49Yeah.
16:50In a way, but with jokes.
16:52With jokes.
16:53And so that makes me perceives me as more left necessarily than I than I than I am, because I'm not sure of what other reaction would be an honest one.
17:02It's hard to have a balanced reaction to the idea of troops on street of a city that actually is not an undergoing an invasion.
17:10Is any other reaction honest other than than to.
17:14Hard.
17:14Yeah.
17:14Yeah.
17:15And so but jokes about the horror, not the horror.
17:19Right.
17:19Do you know what I mean?
17:19Right.
17:20I don't like one.
17:21And so those two things together or those three things together is the beginning of a case of why these shows should exist.
17:29So prior to this show, you played a character for a long time previously on Stephen Colbert.
17:34Right.
17:34And then.
17:36So how has it been spending the last 10 years, more or less, as like, would you call the guy who hosts your show yourself?
17:44Yeah, it's pretty close.
17:44I mean, it's a performance persona.
17:46Yeah.
17:46I mean, there are times when it's very close to me, especially if there's something that cannot receive a joke.
17:52I choose not to talk about tragedy on my show because I think that's sacred, but there are things that are unavoidable that are happening in our country.
17:59And because I talk about what's happening in America today, I mean, just the other night with the tragic shooting of Charlie Kirk, that required me to, at the very top of the show, just to say, listen, I just want to tell you, we created everything for you tonight.
18:15And that was you.
18:15That's that's that's me.
18:17I mean, I'm me isn't always sad, horrified guy, but it's it's me.
18:23I don't generally say or do things that I don't mean on the show unless I'm in character, like in a sketch, whereas at the Colbert Report, it was almost nothing.
18:32Basically, it was Catholic and Lord of the Rings were the only two things that we had in common.
18:35How do you look back on that character now?
18:37Fondly.
18:38A lot of people thought you couldn't sustain it.
18:40And I always thought I could because a mask is such a gift for me, at least, as a performer, because I start I'm really all my training in my entire career until I did the show was as an actor.
18:55And the Colbert Report was a almost 10 year scene.
19:02Yeah.
19:03That I did.
19:04And we had a Bible for the character.
19:06We kept like a running Bible.
19:07What does it believe?
19:08What does it not believe?
19:08What's back history?
19:09What's the relationship with other people?
19:10Why was he a friend of Pinochet Ugarte?
19:13All those kind of things.
19:14There was a moment when it really felt like people thought, I think in retrospect, I forgot about this energy, but it was there that you and John Stewart were going to like save the Republic somehow.
19:23You know, I promise you, we did not share that feeling.
19:28That was going to be my question.
19:30I said to John, you know, writers were coming to the end, especially when reflecting back on the rally to restore sanity slash march to keep fear alive.
19:38He was doing the rally to restore sanity and I was doing the march to keep fear alive.
19:41And I like to remind him that I won, that we kept fear alive.
19:46But one of the things that I said to John toward the end of the, when we were doing those shows together, I said, you know, what's funny to me is everybody thought that we wanted to be players.
19:57Like when we did that, people were like, they're trying to actuate the youth vote.
20:00Nothing, no part of it.
20:02And we saw that was a new context.
20:05People were doing their own big outside rallies and it had nothing to do with us trying to be political players.
20:11You know, there's a great moment in the Lord of the Rings when Gandalf says, one of our great hopes here is that it is not entered into Sauron's darkest dreams that we would ever want to destroy the ring.
20:24And so I always felt that John was Frodo and I was Sam.
20:29And all I wanted to do was help him.
20:32Like we wanted to throw the ring in the fire.
20:35Now, what is the ring?
20:35I guess it's power for the sake of power as opposed to power for the sake of service.
20:42Do you know?
20:43Do you feel like that came with you to the Tonight Show?
20:46Excuse me, the late, the late.
20:47That's all right.
20:47That's all right.
20:48You can call it the Tonight Show.
20:49The Tonight Show.
20:50I took over for Cabot.
20:52Yeah, the Johnny Carson Show.
20:54The Johnny Carson Show.
20:55Purposefully not at first, actually.
20:58We tried to avoid politics, actually, at first because we'd done 10 years of it.
21:01I really wanted to find a way to lay down that sword and shield down by the riverside because it doesn't mean no good.
21:07I'm not a warrior.
21:09I'm a comedian.
21:09You don't want to be the guy in front of the parade with a banner.
21:11And it wasn't until the political campaign of 2016 really started cooking that I realized, again, that you cannot do these shows unless you're talking about something you really care about that's in the daily conversation.
21:26And then it wasn't so much, oh, I cared about what at the time seemed like a dangerous thing to clothe someone like Donald Trump, to clothe him in the power and dignity of the office.
21:42Because then people only see the clothing of the dignity and the power of that office.
21:49Then it provides dignity and status to everything the person does.
21:53Did you then or do you now enjoy having to react to Donald Trump every night?
21:57No.
21:58No, I don't.
21:59I don't.
21:59I'm grateful to be able to react because, again, it's a selfish endeavor.
22:07I get a lot out of going out there and doing jokes about what happened today, no matter what happened today.
22:11But especially if I see something that's detrimental to the American people and to the reputation of a country that is irreplaceable.
22:24There will never be another America.
22:26But it doesn't mean it's invincible.
22:31Well, that weighs on your heart just as an American to see that, depending on the point of view.
22:36And I'm grateful to go do the jokes.
22:38But your question was, did you enjoy reacting to Donald Trump?
22:41Do I enjoy?
22:42Yeah.
22:43Do I enjoy?
22:43Oh, I enjoy going and doing the jokes with the audience.
22:47When he wasn't in office, I think we went three years without saying his name.
22:53Really?
22:54Yeah.
22:54And if he made news, we would just come up with some nickname.
22:56Matter of fact, we invited the audience to give me new nicknames so I wouldn't run out.
23:01You know, so you're not just doing like Cheeto Man or whatever, something like that.
23:05And we would credit people.
23:06If I said the name, we would put their name up on the screen with their, you know, with their Twitter handle or something like that.
23:12I love not talking about him.
23:13When he was reelected, was there a part of you, not the citizen part, but the professional part that was like, I can't believe we have to do this again?
23:21I mean, that would be all parts of me then.
23:23Like, I mean, I mean, I know how to titrate poison.
23:28Do you know what I mean?
23:29Better than most, I think.
23:30Well, you titrate poison with your own jokes and your own editorial stance on it and how you push back on what you think is the lie that is telling you this is vitamins.
23:41But there's no doubt that it's poisonous.
23:44Is there a part of you, I kind of asked this earlier, but like, it's like, I'm going to be free soon.
23:48I'm not going to have to think about this.
23:50Well, I mean, I'm an American.
23:51I'm not going to be free, but I'm still going to care.
23:55I'll miss the ability to go out there and make jokes on it.
23:58You'll miss it.
23:58I will miss every aspect of my job other than wearing makeup.
24:03Do you feel like it's become intrinsic to your identity somehow to be the host of the show?
24:08No, I know who I am without this.
24:10I didn't do any of this until I was 41.
24:13I mean, I was given one of these jobs old.
24:15You have talked about being younger and struggling with anxiety and depression and finding the solution in work and performing, writing, creating.
24:25I've had sort of recreational anxiety for a lot of my life, starting in my teens.
24:30I had different answers then.
24:32That was checking out was basically back then, just never doing my schoolwork, only reading the books I want, eventually smoking a lot of weed, stuff like that, which I passed through and moved on.
24:41But when I was 30, I had a nervous breakdown and I newly married, didn't know what I was going to do.
24:49Suddenly I was panicked that I had chosen something to do with my life that wouldn't give me the life I wanted.
24:54And I don't mean that I wouldn't be successful, but that somehow the life I had chosen would not allow me to be a husband and a father in the way that I wanted to be because of the demands of how hard it is to.
25:07Well, the sacrifices you have to make, you know, there's no art without discipline and there's no discipline without sacrifice.
25:14I believe that's Antonio Jadis, the Spanish flamenco dancer.
25:20And so I was worried that I had set myself to do the kind of work I would do that I wouldn't be actually be able to live the kind of life I wanted.
25:27And I had a nervous breakdown and I tried Xanax and stuff like that, but I could still feel the gears smoking.
25:32You know what I mean?
25:33I couldn't hear him anymore, but I could smell him smoking.
25:35And so I stopped and I just raw dogged it.
25:38And I woke up one morning and my skin wasn't on fire.
25:42And I'm like, what was different?
25:44Oh, it was the first day of rehearsal for the new show.
25:47So that's what I'm asking is.
25:49And that's what I'm answering.
25:50It's a long answer.
25:52It's that it's not like, you know, comedy keeps me sane.
25:56No, making things, making anything.
25:59I probably could do it if I was going to build a boat.
26:01If I'm making something, there's something about that act of creating that gives me great solidity.
26:07It puts my feet on the ground.
26:08I love process.
26:10And I suddenly I woke up one day and I thought, oh, my God, I get to go work.
26:15And then I thought, oh, no, now I can never stop working.
26:19And because, yes, it I used to think that now I actually think that a lot of those things that caused me great anxiety, I have already passed through the fire of that trial in that stage of my life.
26:31And I'm not a young man full of doubt anymore.
26:33And and I think that if I stop work, if I chose to, like, next May, I'm done and I get a, you know, catamaran and and just sail.
26:44I don't think that would come back.
26:46I really feel like that's that's no longer who I am.
26:49Is there a part of you that's tempted to get a catamaran and just sail when May comes around?
26:56Yeah, yeah, there is.
27:00Do you fantasize about walking away from showbiz?
27:03No, no, because I love creating things and I love the I love I mean, I still want to work with the people I work with.
27:09I don't know how you work with 200 people.
27:10They're all we're all I brought them all out for the Emmys so we could all celebrate together because, you know, oh, I want to work with 200 people.
27:16I want to I love them, you know, and I don't mistake work for family.
27:20Family's your family.
27:21Your work's your work.
27:22But my affection and my appreciation for them is is genuine and and and deep.
27:28And they have profoundly changed my life and made my life better and taught me how to be.
27:32They've taught me how to be a leader by being leaders themselves.
27:35I just love making things.
27:37And so you're not like, oh, we'll see.
27:39You're like, no, we're going to keep going.
27:40We're going to make something else.
27:42Yeah.
27:43Yeah.
27:44Why not?
27:46Stephen Colbert, thank you for your time.
27:47Oh, a pleasure.
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