James Corden Takes Over The Late Late Show and Why His Unknown Status Became an Advantage

James Corden Gordon right when do you take over the showdowns we will start on March 23rd yes oh unlucky we are very excited this morning for the next step in the evolution of late night comedy James Corden takes a stage on Monday he's a new host of The Late Show right here on CBS I saw some announcement that a guy named James Gordon was going to be taking over The Late Show and so I Googled James Gordon the news I got now that like they had picked a new host and it was James Corden and it was like I literally it's like there you know who everyone is and I had never

heard of James Corden I was puzzled like everyone else because he had no talk show background and then I saw that he was like an accomplished guy who had done a lot of stuff in the UK and had won a Tony on Broadway and it's kind of subversive because we all get to learn about him uh here in the States on the stage believe me however shocked you are that I am doing this job you will never be as shocked as I am it was puzzling but it was also kind of exciting because it was he was somebody who didn't come with any baggage or background or a team nobody knew what to expect I think that James being unknown helped us because I think that for Americans he was a new discovery and when it gets to be your new discovery you sort of root for him

and so I think that he became a lot of people's new discovery James Corden went into CBS to pitch an idea for a sitcom well instead he walked out with a late night talk show James calls me I was like how did the meeting go to CBS he said well I don't think we're going to do the sitcom there but they did offer me the Late Night show and I was like what are you talking about he said well Letterman's retired and you know the boss is there really liked one man two Governors the show I was in so he sort of kind of offered me The Late Show and I said I think it would be the worst thing you could ever do for your career and Ben said stick to your guns don't do it doesn't matter what they offer

I was like you want to be a guest on a late night show why would you go as essentially an unknown to America and host your own late night show you're not Graham Norton like what are you doing and I said to him what if we just see it as an opportunity to be creative every day and he said but imagine if every day we had a blank piece of paper to create an hour of entertainment for whatever we wanted to do blank piece of paper on the number one network in America every single night and as we talked more he started to come around to the idea of it and I could see the wheels just starting to turn in his head because I suddenly realized well if you don't look at it as a late night show if you didn't

look at it as an interview program if you didn't look at it as talk and you looked at it as a variety entertainment show suddenly James Corden made more sense then we were doing it I think like two weeks after that it leaked and a trending topic on Twitter was who the is James Corden the first thing you'll have to learn to do is throw to a commercial break okay all right you ready don't even making my chest very tight I didn't know anything about what this show was going to be I didn't know how it was going to feel I didn't even know if it was a good idea I didn't know very much about American television so we

were very aware James and I that we needed to find an executive producer to join us on this sort of Journey because so much we didn't know leaving The Tonight Show to come start a brand new show on CBS at 12 30 with a host no one in America for the most part I'd heard of was an enormous leap of faith I think that we all came out here and rented cars and rented houses and rented Furniture because we thought they'd be back in London I'd be back in New York in about six months or so I've fully understand that this show probably won't go on for more than a year I could see no path to success there is a Litany of people who've come from Britain to do a show in America it hasn't worked there's

no shame in it and you go back home and that's that's just what happens we had nothing to lose we were like well if we fail then we go back home and at least we've had an amazing experience in Los Angeles and we've met a few famous people but if we succeed then there was our oyster and with that mentality there was no there was nothing conservative about our approach hello I'm James our first days we sort of got blasted out of a cannon in the sense that we got here in January and the show was going on television in March and we are starting with an empty studio and no staff and we had a lot of work to do and it was very stressful it was literally like five of us we needed to employ 70 80 people we

needed to work out what the bits were we needed to build a set we needed to get a band together we needed to decide the logo we needed inside our theme music we needed to decide how we got an audience every night we were under it all we really had was a shared emotional language about the show we knew what we wanted to feel like we wanted to be joyful we wanted to be sort of a bright end of the day we had to come at it roaring we had to kind of fighting we had to come at guns blazing this wasn't a quiet show that was just gonna creep onto your television once you were falling asleep this had to be a party every night and following a talk show we couldn't just be a talk show we had to be a variety entertainment show that was

loud and brashed and exciting and gripped people uh scenes seen Steelers take one Mr Reggie Watts Reggie has become an absolute essential element of the quirkiness of fun and joy and entertainment value of this show he is both musically brilliant and Incredibly funny honestly one of the one of the greatest things that could have ever happened to the show he's such a charismatic unifying source of joy and energy the type of danger factor that he brings to the show and you can ask a question and you really don't know what he's gonna say all right how much attention he's paying yeah that's you Reggie yeah that's yeah you're Reggie or what song he's

going to do or what he's going to sing about and especially as kind as he is and as much comedy cred as he brought to a show like this you were given a choice to remove your pancreas permanently or to develop a new line of railroad products which would you choose to seemed like a really exciting different flavor that you bring to that aspect of the show can you tell us what's coming up in the next few weeks yes so special I mean they came together in a way as if they had been playing together for 30 years I wanted to put together a band that was diverse and very different than any of the other bands that were on late night or I wanted it to be a muppet band we replaced ourselves with oscillating inflatable tube people we definitely of

all of The Late Show bands I think achieved the highest percentage of Muppet energy possible I didn't want the band to rehearse so I wanted it to mainly improvise a lot of the songs that happened you may never hear him again because that was just that night's music I think it's one of the greatest bands in television history I can't say enough great things about the band I remember just saying to Ben like just build me a playground build me somewhere where I can play every day what does everybody think of the sets often reflect the personality of the host and James and I at the time had talked about it being a show that was much more welcoming than other shows normally when you do talk shows you sort

of you camera audience and we were like I wonder if we could put audience between the camera and our set is like no other set our set was always designed to be shot 360. so everywhere you look you can shoot and we have shot every corner and every nook and cranny of the set the idea that you could be anywhere in this studio and you could shoot anywhere and it's going to look good it's not anything that I'd experienced before the only way talk show with a bar in our sets what could possibly go wrong can we designed the set the desk and couch had to be decided those are some of the biggest late night Staples is what is your couch and what does your desk look like there's sort of like a timeline tradition of the desk

being on the far right the desk was originally set up like a traditional talk show but the move to change it and flop it was made from necessity we didn't want to break any rules I didn't even know we were breaking rules we got there and we walked the chairman of entertainment through the show and he was like wow that's very different you're going to have the host on facing this side rather than that side and I was like different to what they were like well all late night shows it's always been that direction I was like what does that matter it's better this way like I didn't understand anyway I might say I'm a bit thrown by it I'm by this I'm thrown by it's on the other side where you know we're used to having

them in America one of the things that we thought about was well maybe bring the guests out at the same time which was something obviously we were aware of because it happens on a lot of English talk shows and so that created the need for a couch that could accommodate three people so I have like really Vivid memories of sitting outside on the loading dock with like a couch designer we sort of figured out the exact curve and then built the couch that's been there for eight years should we meet our first ever guests on our new not only did I not know who James cord is but literally nobody else did either so challenge number one was like telling people and like showing people who he

was so we would call and we would try and beg people to come on the show but they'd always say the same thing they'd say let's see how the show goes call us back three weeks into the show and we'll let you know but what I also realized was we didn't have time to wait and see if we would be a hit because if we didn't get big stars on the show then we weren't going to be a hit and we would be off air by the third week that they were offering their guests to come on it was a challenge it was a challenge you'd call people and say you know James Gordon Tony award-winning actor from England you know tried to put him in context I think it was far tougher than I even though I think a lot of stuff was

hidden from me because I think if I'd have known how few guests were committing to the show I'd have probably had some kind of breakdown it was a really stressful time once we did a few shows and publicists were here and word got out that it was a great place to come it made our jobs easier there was like an element of like late night talk show that was always like the little off-putting a little deprecating and James was so the opposite of that like he was so warm and he wanted you to feel so good about yourself thank you for being my first guest you don't want to stand the safety of the desk no I want to be here with you when you ever have a chat with people when you'd

be stuck behind there it's not my vibe we are indebted to Tom Hanks and Mila Kunis to be on having been on that first show Mr Tom Hanks it was James's idea once we knew we had Tom Hanks where like what can we do and he's like well let's recreate his entire film career basically I was like yeah I can do that he came in a day early and rehearsed it and it just clicked like it was just amazing to see them together you see that whole sketch performed live in front of an audience it was Unreal Tom hanks's roll call was like the biggest thing on the internet uh the following day it basically laid out the groundwork for like every roll call

we've done since then so I wake up this morning I'm very nervous you know it's a big day for me we realized very early that if we didn't have an impactful first week we weren't gonna have a first month the first night I mean I think we all had a lot of nerves we had a really ambitious day of what we wanted to put in that show we have one night to get it right and that first episode was everything and everything about that first episode was crafted and curated within a tea of itself so they spent every single second that they possibly could and delivered as late as they possibly could to make it look right to their credit not for sure looked really good if that 42 minutes hadn't been as

crafted as it was none of this exists today well I guess we can't put it off any longer let's do this I'm James Corden and this is The Late Show roll the title at the weirdest I got an email from Bono and he said hey man it's my wife's birthday on Monday night we're having just a small dinner up in Malibu we'd love you to come I was like okay so the show was going out La time at like 9 30 and I just made a decision not to look at anything not to read anything not to not to engage with anything at all to finish the show and pick up jewels and we drive up to Malibu and go into this like private dining room this sushi restaurant and Bono's there and Charlize Theron's there Sean Penn I think was there

and Colin Farrell was definitely there at about 10 past 10 I needed the bathroom just wanted to take out my phone and there was just a message from Ben that said I know you're not going to go and look at Twitter or anything and but if you wanted to you could people are absolutely loving this show and I just put my phone back in my pocket walked back to the restaurant and I was like of life is really changing at a rate that's just making me uncomfortable and I remember Bono said he was like how's the show has the show gone out I was like yeah just think he just finished he was like well and I was like I don't know but I think it's going okay we've sat outside like stars in the oceans there and he put his arm around me and he said uh

he said you know it gets a bad rap this place there are more creative people per square foot in this city than anywhere on Earth and he said in this moment in your life it is absolutely where you should be and he said you've got to soak it all up you're going to grab every single bit of it he said you're in for a wild ride and I was like thanks Bono I always look back at that night as like a real defining moment in all of our lives really because that night I knew we were going to be okay I knew that people had appreciated James for the talent he was I knew that people were responding well to the new style of stuff that we were trying to make with this modern late night show and I also knew that now the first episode had gone

well that set us up to do well for the rest of the series Reggie take you home I think right from the beginning of the show everybody was excited about how it felt how it looked James is a performer Ben and then Rob as producers the type of Comedy that we were doing everything felt exciting so what do you think am I ready you're more than ready thank you Jay thank you so much truly knock them out the second day of work episode one had gone out the night before and I've come into the office and I parked my car and there is this unbelievably gorgeous sports car parked right next to me and I'm thinking oh I know whose car that is I get to my office and my assistant's trying to tell me something but I just walk straight I go oh you know follow me

in you know talk with me and I realized as I walked in my office she was trying to tell me that Jay Leno was sitting on my couch and Jay Leno had just turned up uninvited and he just had bought a bottle of champagne he said hey man great Premiere really enjoyed it he did a terrific job great show and he left and I remember he came in and he sat down and he said you're gonna be fine he said you're going to be absolutely fine I think he said something like only 3 000 more to go or something I remember being like wait we've got to do it again today in three months this show will be mine the show had its foot on the gas from day one and it has never let up on it we wanted our first couple weeks of shows

to be very ambitious and then we sort of got addicted to that pace a lot of the big elements that we have were invented in that first week Roku show one still a bit that we do today carpool show two still a bit that we do today crossword the musical still a bit we do today and usually in late night you try to have one thing like a top ten or you try to have a thank you notes or something like that we were out in the first week with three major things that the show has carried on for the last eight years in the next week we shot a bit with Beckham that went viral and then we did the house show which is probably one of if not the biggest risk we've taken it flew out the track so quickly it was

brilliant it was brilliant and we saw that week one but it aired week two and that's probably the moment where I was like whatever else we're gonna do if we do things like this if this is in the DNA of the show from the beginning we're gonna have so much fun I remember thinking that week this show is this show has ideas and has a drive that is going to just change late night