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Ahead of the end of 'The Late Show,' host Stephen Colbert sat down to answer questions from his fellow current and former late-night hosts, including Jay Leno, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, Conan O'Brien, James Corden and Trevor Noah on set of his The Hollywood Reporter cover shoot. During the interview, Colbert reflected on his favorite musical guests, most memorable interview moments and much more.
Transcript
00:00From Jay Leno, no f***ing way. You got a question from Jay Leno?
00:05I'll tell you, when I got this gig, Jay Leno called me right away.
00:08And Jay goes, yeah, you got the, uh, you got the Pope job.
00:12Yeah, you got the job until you did.
00:14You were wrong on that one, Jay.
00:26Hi, I'm Stephen Colbert, and I have been handed a stack of questions, I have been told, are from my
00:31fellow hosts.
00:33Can I just roll into these?
00:34Here we go.
00:35All right, from Jay Leno.
00:36As a road comic, I've always enjoyed live audiences.
00:39Have you ever thought about a road version of your best jokes for a live audience?
00:44Still waiting for the best jokes, Jay.
00:46Yeah, I think that's a great idea, Jay.
00:48Please send me a list of what my best jokes have been.
00:51And, and let's hit the road together.
00:54You drive.
00:58From James Corden.
00:59How are things at CBS?
01:01Should I come back?
01:02100%, James.
01:04100%.
01:05Hold on, let me see what Corden actually asked.
01:07What have you been doing to mentally and emotionally prepare for your daily life after the show?
01:11Trevor and I can send a Zoom link if you need.
01:14Good question.
01:15I don't know about you guys, but there's no, I don't think there's any prepping for it.
01:18Look, I try not to make eye contact with the people in the building too much.
01:22I've always discouraged it, but now I'm really being hard ass about it.
01:26Don't look me in the eye, because I'm a weeper.
01:29And I like the show a lot, but I love the people I work with.
01:33And that's going to be hard.
01:34And they're all so physically attractive.
01:49From Trevor Noah.
01:50Is there anything you were never able to do because you had a late night show?
01:55And do you see yourself doing it now?
01:58Exercising.
01:59That's what I would like to do.
02:00I think my wife has waited long enough.
02:02It's time for abs.
02:04Okay, honey?
02:05I don't want to be swole.
02:06You're not even going to recognize me.
02:07I'm going to be ripped.
02:09You're going to be able to bounce a quarter off my ass and get back two dimes and a nickel.
02:13Alright?
02:14Brace yourself.
02:15It's finally happening.
02:16Okay, from Conan O'Brien.
02:18Just who the hell do you think you are?
02:21Sometimes I wish I was Conan O'Brien.
02:24Because I've never been able to dunk.
02:26I think I'm Conan O'Brien's friend.
02:28That's what I think.
02:30It's hard to tell from this question, but I think I'm Conan O'Brien's friend.
02:32I think I'm Conan O'Brien's best friend, actually.
02:35Is that possible?
02:37That I'm his best friend?
02:47Jon Stewart, how do you know when the fudge is done?
02:49Okay, this is very important.
02:51If you are making what I consider fudge.
02:53Not that stuff that's kind of like a thick tar you buy like down on the shore.
02:57You know, I don't know why fudge is the first day of vacation.
02:58My mom could not cook really because it's awful, but she could make fudge.
03:02I don't know if she wanted to do that.
03:04You know when the fudge is done, you have a candy thermometer.
03:08I would say, how much butter do you put it?
03:10It's about the size of a medium cake.
03:12It's a firm ball.
03:13And obviously, what's the difference between a softball and a firm ball?
03:15It's a firm ball.
03:16You learn this clearly in the book.
03:18And that's fudge.
03:22That's fudge.
03:22From Jimmy Kimmel,
03:24Is it true that hospitals are sometimes forced to send patients who are too obese
03:28for their MRI CT machines to be scanned at the zoo?
03:33Okay, sometimes, once, it happened once.
03:36But then after that, I got the shot.
03:39And I don't have to go to the zoo for my CT scan anymore.
03:49From Jimmy Fallon,
03:51You've had the best seats in the house for over 10 years.
03:54What's the one musical performance on your show that you and the crew still talk about?
03:58I mean, we just recently had Hosier and Lake Street Dive do Joe Cocker's Woodstock version of
04:06With A Little Help From My Friends.
04:07That's pretty fantastic.
04:09God, Moses Sumney was amazing.
04:11Anderson Paak wasn't happening yet.
04:13We had him on, I think we might have been the first show he was on.
04:15He was incredible.
04:17Roger Waters did a medley from The Wall back when it was still cool to have Roger Waters on.
04:23And it was cool, man.
04:24Joe Walsh, just like, hey man, I want to come on.
04:28Like, Joe Fantastic Walsh.
04:29Joe Walsh doing Rocky Mountain Way burned this theater to the ground.
04:34The damn Doobie Brothers.
04:36Absolutely.
04:37Just structural damage to this building.
04:39From Seth Meyers.
04:42What's an answer a guest gave that will stay with you the longest?
04:45Oh, there have been so many.
04:47We do the thing called The Colbert Questionnaire.
04:49And that came about because I interviewed Keanu Reeves one night.
04:53And out of nowhere, I don't know why, I just asked him, what do you think happens when
04:57we die?
04:58And he paused.
04:59In that way only Keanu can.
05:01And he said something beautiful, actually.
05:04He said, I know that the ones who love us will miss us.
05:18Deceptively simple.
05:19Because it blew up.
05:21I mean, it was one of the most watched clips we've ever had on YouTube.
05:25And we went, oh wait, let's ask that question of everybody.
05:28And then we built the Colbert Questionnaire around it.
05:30So that would be one.
05:31Another one is I interviewed Ambassador Andrew Young.
05:35In 1969, my father had just begun running a hospital in South Carolina, the Medical University
05:41of South Carolina.
05:42And there was a strike.
05:44The hospital workers went on a strike.
05:46And there was this young guy who was working with Ralph Abernathy who had come down.
05:51This was a year after Dr. King had been killed.
05:53And Ralph Abernathy came to Charleston with Coretta Scott King.
05:57And they had this young guy who was working with him named Andrew Young.
06:00And the president of the university was from South Africa and just would not talk to any
06:04of the black strikers.
06:06And my father was down.
06:07He'd worked with, I think it was 1199, the hospital workers union up here at Bellevue.
06:12And my father said, I can talk.
06:13I can talk to the unions.
06:15And so Andrew Young and my father settled that strike.
06:19And when the strike came in 2007 and 2008, I was, I didn't know what to do.
06:24It was my first experience with that.
06:26It was a bad situation.
06:27And my brother Ed said, well, why don't you call Andrew Young?
06:29So I had Andrew Young on.
06:32And he said to me things about my father I didn't know because he died when I was 10.
06:37And he said, your father understood to always keep talking.
06:40Because if you're talking, there's hope.
06:43I'll never forget that.
06:45And then the last night of the Colbert Report, Andrew Young was invited to be with 70 guests.
06:51He was one of the guests.
06:51And he walked in with his cane and his booming voice.
06:54And he walked in and he says, I am here representing Stephen's father.
06:59Isn't that lovely?
07:00And I said, somebody should.
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