Stephen Colbert didn’t wait until his “Late Show” series finale to start flipping through his rolodex.
The late-night host’s second-to-last show on Wednesday, May 20, featured surprise cameos by more than 10 major stars, all taking the stage one after another.
The cameos came as Colbert finally took his own “Colbert Questionert,” a series of mostly lighthearted questions he has used in interviews with guests. During the segment, which took up much of the show, the stars came in to ask Colbert a single question before handing things off to the next person, with the host sitting on the guest chair.
Billy Crystal, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Josh Brolin, Martha Stewart, Mark Hamill, Jim Gaffigan, Jeff Daniels, Tiffany Haddish, Amy Sedaris, Ben Stiller, Aubrey Plaza, James Taylor and Robert De Niro all stopped by, with former “CBS Evening News” anchor John Dickerson introducing them.
Most of the celebrities snuck in quick jokes or reflections while they were out on stage with Colbert.
Crystal glanced around the stage and joked that he was “looking for something to take,” while Plaza, cradling her pregnant belly, quipped, “My water broke backstage. They said it was going to take a couple of hours, so I could still do this.” After Stewart said she was sad because “maybe I won’t be here again,” Colbert deadpanned, “You will not.”
Brolin also gave Colbert a gift: a ship in a bottle, which said, “May you always glide through life’s sometimes tumultuous waters.”
In response to his own questions, Colbert declared that the best sandwich is pastrami on rye for most of the year, but a tomato sandwich on white bread during the summer; named “Raiders of the Lost Ark” his favorite action movie; and said that when we die, “I think there is some continuance of some kind, but it’s a dispersion of the self into some other greater being.”
In between the stars, Colbert’s wife, Evelyn McGee, came on stage and asked her husband to name his favorite smell. His answer? McGee herself, specifically the smell of the rose-scented lotion she uses while they’re getting ready to go out.
The final question, administered by Dickerson, asked Colbert to describe the rest of his life in five words. “My family, my friends, fun,” he said.
Colbert’s May 20 “Late Show” also featured a performance by Bruce Springsteen, who said he was “here in support tonight for Stephen because you’re the first guy in America who lost his show because we’ve got a president who can’t take a joke.”
The series finale of “The Late Show” is scheduled for May 21. The episode will presumably feature more A-list stars, but no guests have been officially announced.
