Stephen Colbert

I mean, the release, the privilege it is to do a show about what just happened in the last 24 hours or the last hour or the last half hour, given the speed of the news cycle right now, in front of a live studio audience, which feels so happy to be there with people that you love working with, who are all pulling on the same rope, is a drug, right?

And as hard as it is, I get that great release at the end of the day to be in front of the audience.

And to know that I can continue that with my friends was the greatest draw.

And I also couldn't think of anything after the Colbert Report that would seem like a promotion other than taking over for Dave.

And so I said, what a fool I would be to not – to accept this incredible –

Because I can act till the day I die if I want to, but I can only do this now.

I don't think so.

I knew that it would be a little bit of a public discovery.

It's somebody else's joke, but life is like learning to play the violin in public.

You don't know what you're doing until you do it.

And I knew that there'd be a learning curve that had to happen in public on air.

I would say that what I didn't anticipate was...

how much I would overcorrect for not doing the character.

I think, well, because I was not talking about

I wasn't doing a monologue on the day's events when we first started.

I mean, I would still talk about what was happening, but it wasn't highly focused.

It did not have intention.

And I wasn't speaking all that honestly because I was attempting to do something different than I had done before.

And the overcorrect I would say is that not realizing that through the character – I was actually speaking very honestly and you were hearing my voice a lot of the time.

I felt that way as a viewer.