Five Minutes with Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central's The Daily Show
by Elana Berkowitz and Amy Schiller, CampusProgress.org
As
one of America’s finest voices in fake news reporting, Stephen
Colbert’s straight guy blue suit, arched eyebrows and deadpan
seriousness have become highlights of Comedy Central’s “The Daily
Show,” where he is the senior correspondent. As cable news increasingly
becomes a sad parody of itself, “The Daily Show,” an actual parody
show, remains profoundly funny and totally relevant.
CP:
When you were developing your super straight guy look and sound, which
actual media personalities did you model yourself after?
SC:
… [In] terms of who I channel, my natural inclination was Stone
Phillips, who has the greatest neck in journalism. And he’s got the
most amazingly severe head tilt at the end of tragic statements, like
“there were no…survivors.” He just tilts his head a bit on that
“survivors” as if to say “It’s true. It’s sad. There were none.”
…And then I also used Geraldo Rivera, because he’s got this great
sense of mission. He just thinks he’s gonna change the world with this
report. He’s got that early seventies hip trench coat “busting this
thing wide open” look going on. So those two guys.
CP:
You do “This Week in God.” Which is one of our favorite segments.
You’re from a South Carolinian religious family and you are a
church-goer yourself. Why did you choose to focus so heavily on
religion right now?
SC:
We used to do This Week in God only once a month, but if there was room
on the show we could do it every week! There is so much religion in
public life. It has become acceptable for court decisions to be based
on the Gospel. There’s so much religion in public life, it’s a
religious pandemic. It’s everywhere. It’s not a needle in a haystack.
We throw away stories every week. I know we’re not a secular state like
France which has it in their constitution, but boy I wish our founding
fathers had been at little clearer in that First Amendment.
CP:
How do you keep finding people to interview on “The Daily Show” who
either don’t know the interview is satirical or are willing to play
along?
SC:
Everyone knows what the show is at this point, but they don’t
understand where we’re going with the conversation. I talk to them for
hours and you’re seeing the 3-4 questions that are important to my
segment. They don’t necessarily perceive a 3 minute edit out of a 3
hour conversation. I don’t make a big deal out of being funny, and then
we do our best to bring ‘em back alive in editing.
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