Stephen Colbert in ‘Parade’ web exclusive

Holy cow, I lack the words to convey to you how much love I have for this interview! No kidding, it’s divine. Thank goodness for Parade magazine. From their web exclusive:

Click on the picture below to see an AMAZING photo shoot!

Stephen Colbert Web Exclusive
Published: September 19, 2007

Photo By Andrew Eccles for PARADE

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James Kaplan says, “Colbert was handsomer, warmer, and more serious in person than that blustery character he plays on TV—but he was also very funny, just as himself. And as you’ll see, he refers to his character as ‘he.’”

ON THE WARM-UP FOR HIS SHOW:
I run out before the show every night and pump up my audience, and… take questions and everything. But the first thing that I do is kind of run to music, to the song, “I Want You To Want Me” by Cheap Trick, actually, which is one of the first decisions we made about the show… We decided that my character had a pre-show tradition, like a ritual, which was to sing the lyrics to “ I Want You To Want Me” by Cheap Trick into the mirror. Because, more than anything else, as much as he says he’s bringing the truth, he just wants to be liked.

I do the same thing every night. I run around the desk, and I literally jump off the little podium that the desk is on at the audience. I do a Baryshnikov, and I land, and high-five my way down. Sometimes I’ll run up in the stands. Just any kind of a celebration of me.

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ON HAVING BEEN A VERY SERIOUS YOUNG MAN:
James Kaplan: So there was a time, one hears, when you were a pretty serious fellow and pretty much determined to be a dramatic actor…

Stephen Colbert: Yes.

JK: …with the beard and the black clothes.

SC: Oh, yes. As I say, I wanted to BE him, not just play him. I was probably insufferable. [LAUGHS] My friends Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello, who knew me at that time, described me as my tie being too tight.

JK: Sedaris refers someplace to having broken you. Did…

SC: She did. I remember the night she broke me. One night [at Chicago's Second City] we were doing a scene on stage, and we were supposed to [play it] straight to set up the jokes that were coming, and I had to be sort of approaching her romantically. The lights come up and her back is to me. She turns around and smiles, and she’s got plastic teeth in — like giant, snaggletooth, picket-fence teeth in. And I burst out laughing and got so angry at the same time. I laughed and got so mad that I almost left stage. But I finished the scene, and I was so angry that I was afraid I was going to start yelling at her backstage. So I went away and hid in the bathroom, and locked myself in so I could deal with my anger, and she and Paul [Dinello] stood outside the door and mocked me. They wouldn’t calm down. They were unapologetic. Something burst that night, and I let go of the pretension of not wanting to be a fool. After that, I’ve just enjoyed being a fool; I mean, you’ve still got to be professional and get the job done. But certainly, it was medicine for me to get off my high horse.

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