Queening Out With the Divas of Late Night This Week
Let’s take a minute to honor the art of the interview. Despite what the preponderance of celeb-hosted podcasts would indicate, interviewing people is a separate skill set from delivering lines, or even writing and performing comedy. Getting the anecdote out of someone — even someone who wants to tell the dang story — can be a challenge. The best late-night show hosts make it look easy by putting the guests at ease, throwing jokes in when the famous person is feeling pressure to be witty, making room when the famous person has found the joke they want to tell, and being the audience surrogate to sell the joke landing. It’s like if the jester also had to make the court laugh at the king’s jokes. But it all has to look effortless, like this random celeb is having a kiki with a late-night Jimmy like they do every night. Jingly hats off to the jesters of late night.
5. Stephen Colbert and Brian Cox
I actually want to shout out two interviews Stephen Colbert did this week: this chat with Brian Cox and Wednesday’s talk with Anna Kendrick. In the latter, the best moment of interplay was when Colbert threw the perfect punch line on Kendrick’s story by gently reminding her that magic mushrooms are a legal gray area. In the former, Colbert flexed his Tolkien knowledge without making Cox feel weird, and he went toe-to-toe with Cox on Shakespeare: quoting the bard, complimenting Cox’s Brutus, and most importantly of all, giving Cox space to say “Larry Olivier.” Larry Olivier is right up there with Marty Scorsese and Steve Sondheim as nickname flexes. It’s always a delight to see.
4. Amber Ruffin and Alex Edelman
Who among us can’t recognize Jon Hamm by his dong? It’s iconic! Alex Edelman felt no shame putting a name to the penis in this Have I Got News for You game, which is where Amber Ruffin came in. The teasing she gave Edelman was just the right mix of mean and impressed. And everyone got a chance to dunk on Michael Ian Black for not knowing “Woo-Hah!! Got You All in Check.” We can all bond over loving Busta Rhymes. Flipmode is indeed the greatest.
3. Seth Meyers and Bernadette Peters
Seth Meyers is truly whoever you want him to be. He changes his mode to suit his guests on a goddamn dime, and it often makes his chats a highlight of the week. Bernadette Peters came in full “grande dame of the stage,” and Meyers matched her energy perfectly. You could have cast him as Vera Charles in a production of Mame. This clip has everything you want out of an interview with Bernadette Peters: monkey anecdotes, Carnegie Hall plans, and of course, calling Sondheim “Steve.” It’s so good.
2. Taylor Tomlinson and Three Friends Who Went on Vacation Together
Where the previous Late Night clip delivers everything you want out of a traditional late-night interview, this clip of After Midnight takes what you love about podcasts and puts it in the context of shiny-floor TV. Nicole Byer trying to justify her air-fryer purchase and her miniature-rotisserie purchase to Matteo Lane, Sasheer Zamata, and Taylor Tomlinson is fucking gold. They can’t stop laughing, which makes me unable to stop laughing, until we’re all fucking dead.
1. Jon Stewart and Tim Walz
These boys put the “theater” back in “political theater.” They both threaded their particular needles so brilliantly. Jon Stewart wasn’t giving softball questions — he had stuff to check the campaign on — but Walz had good responses. Were a lot of those response semi-redirects to the stuff he’s supposed to be talking about? One hundred percent. But that is literally his job right now. Stewart pushing back on the Cheneys’ endorsements felt like some classic Daily Show shit. And when Walz said the Harris-Walz administration wouldn’t take foreign-policy notes from them and Stewart whispered “… Promise?” Chef’s kiss. Stewart does a lot of hemming and hawing about not being a real journalist, but I really appreciated the downright journalistic approach he took to this interview. It felt …responsible? Heartening? But also funny. Good job, boys.