Stephen Colbert shocks fans by admitting he’s “more conservative” than his audience ever imagined.NH
Stephen Colbert contended he is “more conservative than people think” in a new interview with GQ.
“People perceive me as this sort of lefty figure,” he explained. “I just happen to be talking about a government in extremis. And so what I’m giving you is my reaction video to the day. And my reaction video is like [Edvard Munch’s painting] The Scream, in a way, but with jokes. So that makes me perceived as more left necessarily than I am because I’m not sure what other reaction would be an honest one.”
Colbert has always centered his Catholic faith, which has had a profound influence on his worldview. But even if he’s more conservative than people might expect, it’s more of a small ‘c’ conservatism, and he maintains that he’s nothing like his The Colbert Report character. On the Late Show, “I don’t generally say or do things that I don’t mean on the show unless I’m in character, like in a sketch. Whereas at the Colbert Report, it was almost nothing. Basically it was Catholic and Lord of the Rings were the only two things that we had in common.”
And while he didn’t mention anyone by name, Colbert pushed back on a narrative shared by former Tonight Show host Jay Leno that today’s late-night series “alienate” half their audience. “We broadcast to a general audience,” Colbert told GQ. “However much there might be a balkanization of how people view television, it’s a general audience. You just turn on your TV.” He added, “It’s hard to have a balanced reaction to the idea of troops on streets of a city that actually is not undergoing an invasion.”
In July, the Late Show was suddenly canceled, possibly though not definitely because of Trump’s war on comedy. But he has no plans to retire. “I love creating things and I still want to work with the people I work with,” he said. “I love them. And I want to continue to do that with them to the degree that I can. And I want to find that with other people too. I just love making things.”
