Not My Job: We Ask Stephen Colbert 3 Questions Meant For Lena Dunham
Not My Job: We Ask Stephen Colbert 3 Questions Meant For Lena Dunham
This is not a photo of Stephen Colbert answering the questions we planned to ask Lena Dunham, but rather, testifying before the House Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law subcommittee in September 2010. His face kind of looked the same, though. Alex Brandon/AP hide caption
This is not a photo of Stephen Colbert answering the questions we planned to ask Lena Dunham, but rather, testifying before the House Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law subcommittee in September 2010. His face kind of looked the same, though.
Alex Brandon/APWe planned to have Lena Dunham, creator and star of HBO's Girls, as our Not My Job guest this week, but a snowstorm kept her from joining us at the last minute, so we quickly had to find someone without Thursday evening plans.
Late Show host Stephen Colbert very graciously jumped in to play our game, but we didn't have time to write new questions for him, so we'll just ask him all the questions we planned to ask Dunham.
He'll take a quiz called "Let's hug it out, bro!" Three questions about the male-bonding show Entourage for the creator of Girls ... no wait ... for comedian Stephen Colbert ... whatever. Click the audio link above to see how he does.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
And now the game where we invite on interesting people and they cancel on us, so we invite on other interesting people to take their place. It's called Not My Job.
So we first got to know Stephen Colbert as the character Stephen Colbert on "The Colbert Report." Now Stephen Colbert is just Stephen Colbert, unless he's playing another character named Stephen Colbert but more subtly.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: He is the host of "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert." Whoever you are, welcome to WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yeah.
STEPHEN COLBERT: So happy to be here. So excited to be here.
SAGAL: We're very excited to have you.
COLBERT: You know, I've never missed a show. I've never missed a show. I've gone back on the old podcast thing, and I've listened to, like, even the ones where you didn't have an audience...
SAGAL: Yeah, yeah.
COLBERT: ...Back in the day...
FAITH SALIE: Wow.
COLBERT: ...Which were terrible.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Oh, yeah.
Now, as Stephen knows - we talked to him about them - he was incredibly gracious to jump in at the last minute when our prior guest had to cancel at the last minute. And Stephen has asked us to just ask him the questions that we had prepared for our prior guest without telling him who that was. So that's what we're going to do. So these are the questions that our researchers and myself have prepared.
COLBERT: And then, at the end of the thing, I guess who it is.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
SAGAL: Yes. Your job is to guess who it is.
COLBERT: OK, great. OK.
SAGAL: He's very excited. So here we go.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: So here we go - well, 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, sure, 'cause you always have to be on your toes. It's me, Julie Andrews...
(LAUGHTER)
COLBERT: ...All the greats, all the greats. You have to keep secrets.
SAGAL: Carol Channing, I think.
COLBERT: Carol Channing. You have to keep your secrets.
SAGAL: Yeah, of course.
COLBERT: You have to keep your secrets 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.
SALIE: No.
COLBERT: No. Her navel has teeth in it - has little teeth in it.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: 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.
PETER 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.
SAGAL: Now, wait a second - we should tell Stephen, this is the one question we were going to ask him anyway...
COLBERT: Exactly.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...Just to be fair.
I'm going to ask you one last question.
MO 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 (unintelligible).
(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 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 was - 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, like, 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 old show of really - on the new show - 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. And other than that, it was - I wasn't sure how much...
(APPLAUSE)
COLBERT: You realize I said that because Valentine's Day is on Tuesday?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: I understand that.
Do you ever think about what your old character would think of our new president and 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.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Possibly (unintelligible).
GROSZ: It's very possible.
SAGAL: Stephen, we know that the president watches "Saturday Night Live" because 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.
A fan of "Entourage"?
COLBERT: I am in huge trouble.
SAGAL: Yeah? OK.
(LAUGHTER)
COLBERT: If the answer isn't Jeremy Piven, I'm in huge trouble.
SAGAL: All right.
GROSZ: Yeah, we'll help you out.
SAGAL: Glynn, who is Stephen Colbert playing for?
WASHINGTON: He's playing for Sandra Byers of Brooklyn, New York.
GROSZ: She might even be here.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: All right. 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)
GROSZ: 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: (Unintelligible) 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.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Guy steps in as a substitute...
WASHINGTON: Power.
SAGAL: ...He thinks he runs the place. But 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)
WASHINGTON: ...Three out of three, just fabulous.
COLBERT: There you go. Stephen Colbert.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Stephen Colbert, it has been such a delight to have you with us. The final season of "Girls" premieres...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...February 12 on HBO. Stephen Colbert, thank you so much for joining us on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SHAKE IT OFF")
TAYLOR SWIFT: (Singing) I stay out too late, got nothing in my brain...
SAGAL: In just a minute, when D.I.Y. meets P.U. - it's our Listener Limerick Challenge. Call 1-888-WAITWAIT to join us on the air. We'll be back in a minute with more of WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME from NPR.
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