Stephen Colbert during a special filming of The Colbert Report at George Washington University in December.Rex Features/AP
The curtain comes down on The Colbert Report Thursday night after a spectacular nine-year run on Comedy Central. But a big question remains: How on Earth did Colbert stay in character for so long?
“Stephen Colbert,” the character, is indisputably a brilliant creation. I watched every week because “Stephen Colbert” attacked right-wing media by embodying its most outlandish traits; the more sincere he was, the more searing and audacious the satire. He was sophisticated and simple at the same time. He gave viewers an amazing gift: temporary relief from the political divide by skewering idiocy at its source. (My colleague Inae Oh has compiled some of his best segments today).
It was a wildly impressive formula, in part for the stamina it required from Stephen Colbert, the comic. As fellow performer Jimmy Fallon told the New York Times this week: “I was one of those who said, ‘He’ll do it for six months and then he’ll move on.’…It’s gets old. But not this. He’s a genius.”
That’s what makes the above podcast, Working, With David Plotz, so fascinating: It’s Colbert, in his own words, out of character, describing his daily routine of getting into character; a real craftsman. It also reveals the vulnerable human performer within; a real artist.
Broadcaster and media critic Brooke Gladstone said back in April that Colbert “seems to be a modest man, too modest perhaps, to see that by lightly shedding the cap of his creation, he’s depriving us all of a national treasure.”
Long live Colbert.
