INTERVIEW: Stephen Colbert Discusses His Love Of Interviewing, Biggest Influences
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Stephen Colbert debuts as the host of The Late Show after the CBS13 News at 10. In a recent interview, he said his show will be different than the other late shows in one obvious way, the interviews.
Before he landed at Comedy Central and after he graduated from Northwestern University in 1986, Colbert was a member of the cast at Second City Theater in Chicago.
SAM SHANE: So you love to write, you've written a couple of children's books.
STEPHEN COLBERT: I do, yeah.
SHANE: And you do comedy.
COLBERT: I do, yeah.
SHANE: Which do you like more, the writing or the performing?
COLBERT: Well, listen, I started to be a writer because I had to write for myself cuz no one would cast me in anything. (laughter) I was a Chicago actor for eleven years and couldn't get arrested. And I was really an improviser, it's all discovery, it's like you respond to people on stage. But I learned to write through improvisation. You would improvise and you would take your scene and write it as if you'd done it. So I really like the process of writing and editing, which is really a form of writing. But I think I like interviewing more than anything else because once you've written the script and you can play the music of your script in your head I'm always worried before the show starts that I'm not gonna play it on camera as well as I hear the music in my head. I'll hit a sour note or something. But when you're interviewing somebody, it's always discovery. You don't have to worry about not getting it right cuz there is no right, there's only having a conversation in the moment, like right now, we don't what's gonna happen.
SHANE: Best interviewer ever?
COLBERT: Best interviewer ever?
SHANE: In your mind?
COLBERT: Dave [Letterman], an amazing interviewer. [Johnny] Carson, an amazing interviewer. Cavett, Dick Cavett, in a different way, very slow, um, but very honest interviewer. I think the best interviewers are those who let their own honest interests in the guests come out.
SHANE: Charlie Rose?
COLBERT: Charlie Rose is great, I'm thinking of late night.
SHANE: I know where you're going with that.
COLBERT: Yeah, Charlie is amazing. Terry Gross, probably my favorite interviewer.
SHANE: Is it hard to do, interviewing?
COLBERT: You tell me.
SHANE: Well, hard to interview you? No, not at all. You're very easy to interview. But I think there are people who are hard to interview, don't you?
COLBERT: Yeah, there are people, I think musicians can be hard to interview because they have a way for expressing themselves through their music, it's not natural for them to use their words. Actors can be hard because they're very expressive but usually with other people's words
