You started doing comedy professionally as part of Chicago’s Second City and later on the sketch show Exit 57, then The Dana Carvey Show, then a stint on Good Morning America, of all places. How did that happen — and how did that lead you to The Daily Show?
"Somebody from ABC calls me and says “Hey, somebody from Good Morning America is going from the entertainment division to the news division,” because GMA had been entertainment. They said, “As we were metaphorically sort of handing over the keys, before we locked the door between the two divisions, somebody from news said, ‘Hey, is there anybody in entertainment who kind of looks straight, but could probably look like a reporter that we send out to do comedy pieces?’ And somebody said, ‘Stephen Colbert!’” I went over there, and they didn’t want me to be funny. They didn’t really want me to be funny. I did two pieces, and then they shot down 25 pitches in a row. But they had to pay me, so I was very grateful because I could make rent.
While I was doing that, I got a call from my agent saying, “Do you want to go meet with The Daily Show? People are looking for correspondents.” I was like, “This is my career now? Now I’m a reporter?” I didn’t know anything about The Daily Show. This was before the first anniversary with Craig Kilborn. I watched it the night before I went. I didn’t like it. But I went over there and said I just loved it. I thought it was fantastic. The people there said, “Hey, so, you were a member of the Second City?” Yeah. “And you like, wrote and produced a TV show, a sketch show?” Yeah. “You were on The Dana Carvey Show?” Yeah. “And you’ve written for Saturday Night Live?” Yeah. “And now you’re a reporter for ABC News?” I go, “Yeah.” They were like, “You’re genetically engineered to do this job!” So I get the gig and I did that for a while, off and on. They weren’t thrilled with me."
Indecision 2000 — was that the first introduction of the character Stephen Colbert?
"In the ’90s, but specifically after 9/11, in the early aughts, punditry became this tremendous cash cow, because the nation’s whipped up into an emotional froth as it well should be, and punditry harvests emotion for profit. The folks at The Daily Show — I remember [co-creator] Madeleine Smithberg saying to me, like, “We want to do something that’s pundit-based and we think it should be you.” And so we started doing a commercial called “The Colbert Report” within The Daily Show. It was just an ad for a show that didn’t exist, called The Colbert Report, and I was “Stephen Colbert.” “Some people give you the truth, some people give you opinion, well, he’ll give you neither!” I forgot it was, something like, “It’s the no-fact zone!” That was when we first came up with the “no-fact zone,” and “Colbert: It’s French… bitch.”"
And Bill O’Reilly was your primary model for the character?
"Oh yeah, well he’s the king! If you’re going to model punditry, there were other people, like Aaron Brown; in a way, Anderson Cooper, bright as a shiny new penny; Aaron Brown, who would kind of like mull over the news and just have his moment of somewhat Ed Murrow-esque reflection on the day, but a little bit also adjunct professor of poetry; but there was no denying O’Reilly. The number of words that could come out of that man’s mouth, and with seeming sincerity — I’ve never been able to figure out if O’Reilly meant what he said — over the years I have different levels of belief."
You and Jon, separately and together, as much as you guys often like to downplay it, really became a primary source for a lot of people who maybe don’t consume traditional news media. When along the line did you realize that was the relationship a lot of people had with you and did it add a sense of responsibility on top of being funny?
"I don’t want to speak for Jon, but I never heard him downplay, or I wouldn’t want to downplay, if people said they were informed by the work that I did. I think what I would say — and I think I’ve heard Jon say the same thing — is that we’re not downplaying where people got their information, but that’s not our intention. The information is there so that we can do the jokes on this information that’s very interesting to us. You can’t do these kinds of shows — The Late Show or the shows that I did before — without caring. Without giving a damn what you’re talking about. I mean, you can, but boy, that’ll get to pretty grinding work if you don’t have some emotional attachment to it. We’re running our jokes off of something that people care about and that is given a status of importance because it’s in the news. If people say that we influence them, that’s fine. I can’t dictate how people feel and what people get from the work that I did. I would only say that’s not the intention. Our intention or my intention and my responsibility always remains the same. It’s to tell jokes."
Last year, you were not an Emmy nominee; this year you’re an Emmy nominee, your primary competition has flipped and people can’t seem to get enough of it. How are you different?
"I’ll tell you, there’s a lot of things that have changed. I have an even deeper respect for Kimmel and Fallon and Conan and the people who came before us. I always respected their comedy, but I really respect them professionally. I didn’t know what they were doing until I got here. I’m in awe of a guy like Dave, doing 32 years, or Kimmel — what is Kimmel, now, 17 years? 15 years. Like that. I’ve always been friends with those guys. In late night now, people get disappointed that there isn’t a feud, but now I actually have a deeper respect for all of them than I did before. I’ve learned to trust my staff, because, being a control freak is mild form of distrust, if you know what I mean. Doing the live shows — we’ve done 17 or so over the past year — made me trust the staff and goddamnit, they’ve just killed it. They’ve done a fantastic job. I so admire what they’ve achieved and how the show now is far more bottom up, how they bring the ideas. I’m so grateful for the work that they’ve done. I’ve allowed myself to become sort of a pure performer now. I don’t try to produce the show in my head. People ask me, what’s going to happen today? I say, I just work here. I’ve been able to let go of the reins of control to — I don’t know if I can say to a large degree, that’s for someone else to say — but for me, it feels like an enormous degree. I walk into a meeting and Chris might say to me, “You’re not part of this meeting.” I go, “OK, I’ll leave,” which I think was a shock to people, because there was no meeting I was not in before. For years, for a decade. Letting go and just enjoying being on stage with the audience. That’s kind of where I realized why I took this job. I wanted to change as a performer. I wanted to change what my responsibilities were on a daily basis. I just wanted to go out there and do jokes for people. They might be about things, like I said, people think aren’t significant, but I want to go out there and do jokes for people. I want to go out there and be interested in my guest. The last two years has allowed me to do that. I could not do that for that first year. Chris gave us the space to do it, and then me trusting my staff allowed me to let go and just be the guy on stage. That’s the only way I could reveal myself, I could be myself for the audience."
Read the full interview at The Hollywood Reporter.
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