The Guest Line-up For Stephen Colbert’s First Two Weeks Hosting ‘The Late Show’ Is Insanely Good
Stephen Colbert's gone from the best job on Earth to the OTHER best job on Earth.
With The Colbert Report receding fondly into memory and that delightfully weird period of him sitting around making daggy YouTube videos coming to an end, it’s almost time for Stephen Colbert to finally park his butt in The Late Show chair and become the best late-night host out.
CBS has announced the line-up of guests for the first two weeks of Colbert’s tenure, starting on Tuesday September 8, and if those first two weeks are anything to go by The Late Show is going to become must-watch TV for the first time in a pretty long while.
The first episode’s line-up is middling — it features George Clooney, which is cool, but it also has Republican Presidential candidate and progressively sadder individual Jeb Bush, who isn’t going to be doing anything more impressive than getting a guest slot with Stephen Colbert any time soon.
But the rest of the roster features a pretty incredible breadth of people, not just the Hollywood celebrities, TV stars and hit-of-the-moment music acts Letterman was so often forced to make do with.
In his first two weeks, Colbert gets to interview Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, writer Stephen King, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, 12 Years a Slave actress Lupita Nyong’o, Abbi and Ilana from Broad City, Amy Schumer and Kevin Spacey.
And like he didn’t have the best job in the world already, that first two weeks comes complete with musical appearances from Kendrick Lamar, Run The Jewels, TV On The Radio and Willie Nelson. This weekend I’m planning a trip to the Marrickville markets and thinking about smashing some laundry, so that’s comparable I guess.
Find the full guestlist below, via Entertainment Weekly. As a soundtrack, here’s Stephen Colbert in his Colbert Show guise getting to introduce an untitled, one-off performance song by Kendrick fucking Lamar, because he was Gandhi in a past life and gets to do the coolest shit out this time round as a karma reward, apparently.
Tuesday, September 8: George Clooney, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush. Musical performance by Jon Batiste and Stay Human.
Wednesday, September 9: Scarlett Johansson, SpaceX and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk. Musical performance by Kendrick Lamar.
Thursday, September 10: Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. Musical performance by Toby Keith.
Friday, September 11: Amy Schumer, writer Stephen King. Musical performance by Troubled Waters.
Monday, September 14: Emily Blunt, Justice Stephen Breyer. Musical performance by The Dead Weather.
Tuesday, September 15: Jake Gyllenhaal. Musical performance by Run The Jewels with TV On The Radio.
Wednesday, September 16: Kevin Spacey, Carol Burnett with Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer of Broad City. Musical performance by and interview with Willie Nelson.
Thursday, September 17: Naomi Watts, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.
Friday, September 18: Lupita Nyong’o, Senator. Bernie Sanders. Performance by and interview with An American in Paris’ Christopher Wheeldon, Robert Fairchild, and Leanne Cope.