We’re just over a month away from the final episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and the last episode of The Late Show at all, for that matter. Colbert has said he hasn’t really had a chance to think about what he’ll do next, but he does know what he’s going to miss when it’s all over.
Oprah Winfrey was a guest on The Late Show recently, but she couldn’t help but start asking questions of the host. She began asking Colbert about his thoughts as the show is wrapping up, so the host actually switched seats with Winfrey so she could better interview him. The legendary journalist asked if there was anything he wanted to “release” as the show was wrapping up, but Colbert said his feelings were quite the opposite of that. He said…
I still have a white-knuckle grip on all these people that I love, that I’ve worked with all these years. I see those people right over there and all the cameramen that are out here. It’s not just the band. It’s the crew, it’s sound, it’s light. And the audience, obviously.
The one thing that Colbert has been pretty open about through the entire cancellation fiasco has been the simple fact that he doesn’t want to go. He clearly enjoys the show, and if it were up to him, he would continue to do it. He’s clearly frustrated by the entire situation.
While Colbert says he misses the audience the most, this isn’t a play for applause, because applause actually has nothing to do with why the audience is so important. Colbert and Oprah discuss the way that the audience helps make the show better, and it’s actually quite interesting. Colbert said…
When you and I are talking to each other, there’s a third person in the conversation, and it's the audience right there. And they are actually doing their job better than you and I can. Because they know what their job is and they’re very committed to their job, which is to listen to what’s going on and having a reaction to it.
Colbert admits that, as an interviewer, he may not be paying 100% attention to what his guest is saying, because he’s also focused on making sure he asks all his questions (as somebody who occasionally conducts interviews, I feel this so hard it hurts). The audience then acts as a barometer, allowing him to know where the interview is going.
Colbert and Winfrey have more in common than just a history of interviewing people. Colbert recently made a voice cameo on Hulu's The Testaments, a franchise Winfrey has also vocally appeared on. Check out the full exchange between Oprah Winfrey and Stephen Colbert below.
If this exchange between Stephen Colbert and Oprah Winfrey is an example of what is to come during the final weeks of The Late Show, we are in for some incredible moments.
