5 Biggest Revelations From Stephen Colbert’s GQ Cover: Why He Retired Alter Ego, Surviving Deaths of Father, 2 Brothers

“The thing I’ve been thinking about the most since my time with Colbert is loss,” writer Joel Lovell writes of the new CBS Late Show host

Stephen Colbert is raw and out of character like you’ve never seen him before in the new GQ cover.

The soon-to-be CBS “Late Show” host touched on everything from what viewers should expect from his version of late night comedy to dealing with the death of his two brothers and father in a plane crash.

Here are the 5 revelations from GQ’s Colbert exclusive.

1. Stephen Wants to “Scratch An Itch”
The soon-to-be “Late Show” host is eager to “scratch an itch” through the “Late Show.”

“I just want to do things that scratch an itch for me,” he told GQ. “That itch is often something that feels wrong. It’s wrong because it breaks convention or is unexpected or at times uncomfortable. I like that feeling.”

One of his favorite shows is the cooking program “Chopped,” which to Colbert, highlights the importance of process:

“This show,” he said, meaning The Late Show, “is Chopped. Late-night shows are Chopped. Who are your guests tonight? Your guests tonight are veal tongue, coffee grounds, and gummy bears. There, make a show…. Make an appetizer that appeals to millions of people. That’s what I like. How could you possibly do it? Oh, you bring in your own flavors. Your own house band is another flavor. You have your own flavor. The audience itself is a base dish, like a rice pilaf or something. And then together it’s ‘Oh shit, that’s an actual meal.’ And that’s what every day is like at one of these shows. Something is one thing in the morning, and then by the end of the day it’s a totally different thing. It’s all process.”

2. Colbert Was Ready to Wrap “Colbert Report” Before CBS Offered “Late Show”
The infamous character Colbert played spoofing conservative personalities like Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh began to wear on the comedian even before CBS came calling.

It was tough “to have to pull everything through the keyhole of his worldview,” he said.

“I no longer felt that that model served to address the national mood,” he said.  “We’re in a different place now. We can stop freaking out that the guy’s middle name is Hussein. What else? Our response to the horror in South Carolina is to take the flag down. That is something I didn’t think was ever going to happen.”

3. Finding Joy From Loss
GQ journalist Joel Lovell noted what took him by surprise in in-depth conversations with the notoriously unserious Colbert: “The thing I’ve been thinking about the most since my time with Colbert is loss,” he wrote, referencing the death of Colbert’s two brothers and father in a plane crash when he was 10-years-old. Colbert spoke about turning unimaginable tragedy into a source of joy.

“Boy, did I have a bomb when I was 10. That was quite an explosion. And I learned to love it. So that’s why. Maybe, I don’t know. That might be why you don’t see me as someone angry and working out my demons onstage. It’s that I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.”

And the single source who helped him turn loss into life: “MY. MOTHER.”

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4. Colbert-The Perfectionist Energizer Bunny
A day with Colbert at CBS is like a 26-mile production marathon.

“The look on Colbert’s face as he edits is pure focus and elation,” Lovell wrote. He moves his lips along with the lines, he mimics the changing expression of his face in the scene. His notes are hyper-detailed.

Cut this line. It’s gotta be faster from here to here. Let’s make the screen go warbly-staticky every time I hit the desk. No, still too clean, more static. Do we know yet what actually happened with the stock exchange? Someone mentions there was a tweet by a member of Anonymous yesterday, warning of something to come. Okay, let’s get a standard Getty image of a Guy Fawkes mask and insert it, just a flicker, during one of the warbles. Just one. Subtle. It needs to warble like everything else in the picture. Let’s look at the news clips for the top. Okay, let’s do these five in this order. No, still too long. It’s gotta go: United, China, cyber-failure, Wall Street, poodle. I want a static cut between each of the clips, then longer static after the poodle, and that transitions into me.

5. Colbert Feeds Into the Fear
While many run away from fear, Colbert runs toward it.

“He said he trained himself, not just onstage but every day in life, even in his dream states, to steer toward fear rather than away from it,” Lovell wrote.

“I like to do things that are publicly embarrassing,” Colbert said, “to feel the embarrassment touch me and sink into me and then be gone. I like getting on elevators and singing too loudly in that small space. The feeling you feel is almost like a vapor. The discomfort and the wishing that it would end that comes around you. I would do things like that and just breathe it in.” He stopped and took in a deep yogic breath, then slowly shook his head. “Nope, can’t kill me. This thing can’t kill me.”

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