PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Lastly, one of my favorite moments from 2017 was when we went to Brooklyn, New York, in February. It was a wild week. Bill got stuck in Chicago in a blizzard and had to be replaced by Snap Judgment host Glynn Washington.
SAGAL: And our Not My Job guest also couldn't make it. And the guy who agreed to fill in would only do it on one condition.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
STEPHEN COLBERT: Don't tell me who I'm replacing.
SAGAL: Well, interestingly...
COLBERT: And if you could - I don't know what your plans are 'cause it's your game - but ask me the questions you were going to ask him or her...
SAGAL: Well, yeah, not only...
COLBERT: ...And see if I can figure out who this person was.
SAGAL: Yeah, we have - actually we have - we didn't change. We have the interview questions prepared and, of course, the same game.
MO ROCCA: I'll give the same interview questions?
SAGAL: Same interview questions.
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: So he'll have to guess who - yeah.
SAGAL: That's right.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: All right, Stephen, are you ready to do this?
COLBERT: Yep.
SAGAL: All right.
Well, open bracket - Stephen - close bracket...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...You've done so much - movies, TV shows, your book. But here's the big question, what's it like being on Taylor Swift's squad?
(LAUGHTER)
COLBERT: A, it's an honor.
(LAUGHTER)
COLBERT: B, it's a challenge.
SAGAL: Sure.
COLBERT: ...'Cause you always have to be on your toes. It's me, Julie Andrews...
(LAUGHTER)
COLBERT: ...All the greats, all the greats. But you have to keep secrets.
SAGAL: Carol Channing, I think.
COLBERT: Carol Channing. You have to keep your secrets. You have to keep her secrets...
SAGAL: Yeah, of course.
COLBERT: ...Because, you know, she always wears those very high-waisted skirts...
SAGAL: Yes.
COLBERT: ...So you can't see her navel.
SAGAL: No.
COLBERT: And the secret - well, there's secrets we can't tell about that. And I can tell you guys because you aren't going tell anybody - right?
SAGAL: No.
FAITH SALIE: No.
COLBERT: No. Her navel has teeth in it - has little teeth in it.
(LAUGHTER)
PETE GROSZ: And the navel...
COLBERT: Bellybutton dentata.
(CROSSTALK)
COLBERT: Yeah, her - it has these little sharp teeth in it. And the navel actually - the bellybutton writes all the songs actually.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Now, here's the next question we had prepared. A lot of people comment about how much you appear naked...
COLBERT: Naked.
SAGAL: ...On your show. And we were wondering, you know, if...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...That's something that you feel...
COLBERT: Yes.
SAGAL: ...Is important to get some kind of message across to America?
COLBERT: I love my body.
GROSZ: Yes.
COLBERT: And I...
SALIE: Yeah, you do.
COLBERT: I love my body?
SALIE: Yeah.
COLBERT: And it's possible I wrote a book about it.
SAGAL: Did you - write a book about it?
COLBERT: Evidently not. OK.
(LAUGHTER)
COLBERT: I often appear naked on my show.
GROSZ: You do.
(LAUGHTER)
COLBERT: I often appear naked on my show.
GROSZ: Now, wait a second - we should tell Stephen, this is the one question we were going to ask him anyway...
COLBERT: Exactly.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSZ: ...Just to be fair.
SAGAL: I'm going to ask you one last question.
ROCCA: Uh-oh.
COLBERT: Only one more?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Is it weird to have all that awkward sex on-camera with Adam Driver?
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: Because I know that (unintelligible) sound that way.
COLBERT: First of all, it's not weird.
(LAUGHTER)
COLBERT: It's not - Adam's...
SAGAL: He's very professional.
COLBERT: He's a professional. He's a gentleman.
SAGAL: Yeah.
COLBERT: I will say the sex is real...
(LAUGHTER)
COLBERT: ...Because I'm all about keeping it real.
SAGAL: Yeah.
COLBERT: And that's why - I mean, as I stand here today...
SAGAL: Yeah.
COLBERT: OK. As sure as my name is Lena Dunham, what I want to say to you...
(APPLAUSE, LAUGHTER)
COLBERT: ...Is that I will continue. Any day of the week - you name the day. You name the place. I will continue to have sex with Adam Driver, whether or not the show continues.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Now that you have solved the mystery, let's talk to you about you. How are you doing these days? How are you...
COLBERT: I am so not as interesting as this game show is.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Because you were so good at being the character Stephen Colbert for so long, did it - was it difficult for you at first on CBS "Late Night" (ph) to be yourself on TV? Did you have to figure out who that was, how to do that?
COLBERT: A little bit. You know, I wasn't sure how much my character and I felt the same way about things.
SAGAL: Yeah.
COLBERT: You know, we're both, you know, huge "Lord Of The Rings" freaks.
SAGAL: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
COLBERT: And we're both light Catholics. But one thing that - my wife, as the character, was named Lorraine, and we had a terrible relationship.
SAGAL: Right.
COLBERT: But my wife in real life is named Evie, and we have a great relationship.
SAGAL: Yeah, I've met her - lovely woman.
COLBERT: So one of the ways I started on the new show, knowing I was me and not the guy was that, for the first couple of months, I would beg my wife - could you just come sit in, like, the fifth row so I can look at you every night? I go, OK, I'm the guy married to her.
SAGAL: Right.
COLBERT: And so that helped a lot.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Do you ever think about what your old character would think of our new president, what he might say?
COLBERT: (As Fictionalized Stephen Colbert) You know what I think? He's a strong president. We got to stand behind this guy is what I think.
SAGAL: Yeah.
COLBERT: (As Fictionalized Stephen Colbert) OK? All right. Get in line, all right? What part of all caps don't you understand?
(LAUGHTER)
COLBERT: Sorry. I was just...
SAGAL: That was scary...
COLBERT: I was just possessed.
GLYNN WASHINGTON: I felt it, too.
SAGAL: ...The transformation.
WASHINGTON: Possibly (unintelligible).
GROSZ: It is very possible.
SAGAL: Stephen, we know that the president watches "Saturday Night Live" 'cause he tweets about it. He doesn't like it, but he keeps watching it. You do a lot of material about the president. Do you have any indication that he's watching you?
COLBERT: I don't know. No, he hasn't said jack.
SAGAL: Right.
COLBERT: He hasn't said jack about me.
SAGAL: Do you feel bad about that? Do you wish he was watching you so you could speak directly to him, as they do on "SNL"?
COLBERT: I don't care.
SAGAL: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
ROCCA: Now that's really going to upset him...
SAGAL: Yeah.
GROSZ: I know.
ROCCA: ...If he's listening.
GROSZ: He's going to start watching now.
COLBERT: 'Cause he listens to a lot of NPR, my friends.
(LAUGHTER)
COLBERT: (Imitating Donald Trump) Shut up. Shut up. I'm listening to WAIT WAIT. Hold on.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Well, as much as we asked you the questions we had prepared for Lena Dunham, we are going to play the game we had prepared for Lena Dunham.
COLBERT: Wait - we haven't even done the game yet?
SAGAL: No, sir.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: We'll make it quick.
OK, Lena Dunham, we have invited you here to play a game we're calling...
WASHINGTON: Let's Hug It Out, Bro.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: So you created the TV show "Girls"...
COLBERT: Yes.
SAGAL: ...Which has defined, for many - at least to HBO subscribers - the essential nature of female friendship. But that service was done for men years earlier with the touching, funny and ultimately moving tribute to male friendship, "Entourage."
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: Hmm...
SAGAL: So sir, answer three of our questions about that show, you'll win our prize for one of our listeners, Carl Kasell's voice on their home answering machine.
SAGAL: Glynn, who is Stephen Colbert playing for?
WASHINGTON: He's playing for Sandra Byers of Brooklyn, New York.
SAGAL: She might even be here.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Here's your first question. Let us set the scene. GQ magazine, which knows from bros, described the show this way. Was it A, quote, "the most moving depiction of how men relate to each other since 'The Dirty Dozen'"; B, a show that is simultaneously too gay and not nearly gay enough...
(LAUGHTER)
COLBERT: Yep, that's right.
SAGAL: ...Or C, a 30-minute vehicle for boobs and product placement?
COLBERT: Oh, I wish it was B, but I think it's C.
SAGAL: You're right, Stephen. It was C.
(SOUNDBITE BELL)
COLBERT: Yeah.
SAGAL: The recent "Entourage" movie, however, GQ described as a 90-minute vehicle for boobs and product placement.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Next question - the show has done some good in the world, as in which of these - A, someone donated a new reptile wing to the San Diego Zoo under the pseudonym Ari Gold - that's Jeremy Piven's snake-like agent from the show; B, a woman announced she would subject herself to watching the horrible "Entourage" movie once for every $10,000 donated to charity - she had to see it three times; or C, the Boston Police Department reported 10 percent fewer fistfights during the run of the show just because filming it kept Mark Wahlberg occupied?
(LAUGHTER)
COLBERT: I'm going to go B.
SAGAL: You're right again.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: The woman...
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: The woman raised $30,000. She says the two things I hate most in the world are cancer and the show "Entourage."
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Last question - one of the highlights of the show was this superagent Ari Gold played by Jeremy Piven. Piven says he created the character by doing what - A, imagining himself as a 10-year-old boy in a custom suit; B, disguising himself and working at the agency CAA for two months in the mailroom; or C, he based the character in the ancient Italian theater techniques of commedia dell'arte?
(LAUGHTER)
COLBERT: The second one was he worked at C-A - I want to go B, CIA.
SAGAL: You want to go with B? He worked at the CAA?
COLBERT: CAA, yeah?
SALIE: Oh, no.
SAGAL: No, it was actually C.
SALIE: Yeah.
COLBERT: Wow.
WASHINGTON: (Laughter) It's OK. I'm the scorekeeper. You get that one.
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Sadly, we granted him absolute power, unwisely.
WASHINGTON: That's right. Thank you, Peter.
ROCCA: Fire that judge.
COLBERT: His decisions are unreviewable.
WASHINGTON: Yes.
SAGAL: It's true.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: How did Lena Dunham/Stephen Colbert do on our quiz, Glynn?
WASHINGTON: He got them all right.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Stephen Colbert, thank you so much for joining us on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
(APPLAUSE)
COLBERT: Thank you so much.
SAGAL: Bravo. Thank you.
SAGAL: Support for NPR comes from this station and from the Herbert Simon Family Foundation supporting NPR and member station WFI in Indianapolis, working together to cover stories and issues that inform listeners in Indiana and beyond by providing critical information about the factors influencing education; the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, celebrating 20 years of grant-making to jazz artists and the organizations that support them. Learn more and ddcf.org; and the Kendeda Fund, supporting individual dignity and sustainable communities through investments in transformative leaders and ideas. Learn more at kendedafund.org.
WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME is a production of NPR and WBEZ Chicago in association with Urgent Haircut Productions - Doug Berman, benevolent overlord. Philipp Goedicke writes our limericks. Our interns are Katie O'Reilly and Gianna Capadona. Our web guru is Beth Novey. BJ Leiderman composed our theme. Our program is produced by Jennifer Mills and Miles Doornbos. Technical direction is from Lorna White. Our CFO is Colin Miller. Our public address announcer - that's Paul Friedman. Our production coordinator is Robert Neuhaus. Our senior producer is Ian Chillag. And the executive producer of WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME is Michael Danforth. Thanks to everybody you heard today on our show, including, of course, Bill Kurtis, all our panelists, all our fantastic guests, the amazing Carl Kasell always - and of course you for listening. I am Peter Sagal, and we'll see you next week.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: This is NPR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.