Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Stephen Colbert on His Rise to Fame & His Latest Project Becoming a Cookbook Author

Episode Date: October 13, 2024

Willie Geist sits down with the host of "The Late Show", Stephen Colbert, to chat about Stephen's rise to fame and the pivotal moment he knew he would be able to make a career out of comedy. Stephen talks about growing up in a large family and how he's navigated tragedy. His wife, Evie McGee-Colbert, also joins to share some of their favorite recipes from their new cookbook, ‘Does This Taste Funny.’ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another edition of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks as always for clicking and listening along. Got a fun one for you this week with the host of the late show on CBS, none other than Stephen Colbert himself. You may have seen Stephen recently hosting Kamala Harris, the vice president of the United States, who hopes to be president of the United States, sitting down on set with him, cracking a beer and talking a little bit politics. Stephen, of course, took that job on the late show in 2015 after David Letterman announced his retirement from late night. It was an elevation from the Colbert Report in which Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central was playing a character, a cable news blowhard that he first introduced on the Daily Show when he got that job in 1997. So on the late show, he said for the first time in his life, he had to actually play himself.

And that was a little scary, felt a little exposed, took him. some time to find his footing and eventually have the number one show in late night. So a great conversation coming up here with Stephen Colbert. If you don't know, he's from Charleston, South Carolina. He's got a cookbook out with his wonderful wife, Evie, that includes family recipes for food and drinks from Charleston. Stephen has a fascinating story. You probably know it by now when he was 10 years old.

He's the youngest of 11 children, by the way. His father and two of his brothers died in a commercial plane crash in 17. and that in many ways has shaped his life ever since. He's been so eloquent on the question of grief and loss, and we get into that as well, but also his rise up through the ranks of comedy, his struggles like everybody who's succeeded has had along the way. So I think you'll enjoy getting to know if you don't already.

Stephen Colbert, he's smart, he's funny, he's thoughtful, and by the way, at the end, we mix up a nice cocktail with Stephen and Evie. So sit back, relax, enjoy Stephen Colbert right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stephen, good to see you, man. Hi, Willie. I'm so happy to see you. Happy to have me on.

I am. Yes. I'm so happy for you that you have me on. I can see how you put your guests at ease just with this sort of rapport, this repartee. You don't want to start with a handshake or anything. Off the top? Yeah. Good to see you.

Good to see you, too. The one for camera. Yeah. Not the one. That was off. So when I told people I was coming to interview you today, I said, oh, that's great. Colbert, we're doing a little politics, little comedy. I said, no, it's going to be mostly deviled eggs and shrimp paste.

Hell yeah. And here we are. Tell me about the genesis of this cookbook. The need for food is the number one. I'm a carbon-based light form, and I have to feed the beast every day. Evie and I, it's me and Ev. Yes. It's me and my lovely wife Evvy there.

We were, like everybody else, stuck in a house for COVID with our children. You know, you couldn't go out to have somebody else cook your food at a restaurant. We were back in South Carolina to help take care of her folks, which were right down the street from our place in South Carolina. We were there with the people who taught us how to cook when we were younger in the ingredients in the low country of South Carolina that were the basis of all of our cooking. And we started rediscovering all these old recipes. family recipes. And then somebody asked us to write a cookbook. We said, can I do it with Evie?

Because it would be much more fun to do it with her because I could make her do all the work and still put my photo on the front. Smart. Smart. Yep. Take the credit. Yeah. And most of the cash, I would assume. Yeah. Yeah. So what is it, Stephen, about Charleston? Because for people who haven't been there, spent time there, it is a unique and wonderful, not just food town, but cultural town. What is it about Charleston that makes it so special? Charleston's something of a land that time forgot. First of all, it's like a city under glass. Have you ever been?

Oh, yeah. It's incredibly beautiful. Incredibly obsessed with his own history. Never wants anything to change. You know, like the Charleston joke about how many Charlestonians does it take to change a light bulb? Why would you change it? The old light bulb was fine.

And the other joke is, one joke, the other joke is how many Charlestonians does take to change the light bulb? Like one person to change it, one person to say the old light bulb was better at nine people to mix the drinks. That's my kind of town. Yeah, exactly. I don't know, it's a party town. It's a town that loves a good cocktail. It never misses cocktail hour.

It's got incredible food right there in the water. It's so on the water that it's kind of in the water, increasingly. Actually, sea walls notwithstanding. we both grew up catching our own fish, catching our own shrimp, catching our own crab, and then learning to cook it. It's one of the best culinary towns in the world. And when we were there, very quiet. Now it's very busy.

Now there's a lot of tourists. I can understand why. Don't stop going. I understand. It's good for the economy. But when we were kids, I mean, I grew up on a dirt road on James Island, South Carolina, with dogs sleeping in the streets. Like, it was very, Tala Mocklandberg.

And even when I was 13, we moved downtown, which is where Evie grew up, I rode my bike down the middle of the street. I rode my skateboard down the middle of the street. There was no worry that anybody was going to hit me. There was just nobody there. There was nowhere to go in all day to get there, nothing to buy and nothing to buy it with. We were too poor to paint, too proud to whitewash. Those are all things that describe the Charleston of my youth.

Sounds like a country song. So during COVID, we were all stuck at home like everybody was. And our eldest daughter, who at the time was 26, 25 or something like that, she goes, I am not living at home with you as your child. This is going to be a roommate situation, and as such, I've made a chore wheel. And so one of the things, which was smart, because then we weren't, they weren't having to, like, they weren't having to, like, resist our presence in the house. Right.

But one of the things on the chore wheel was everybody cooks a different night. And so we all had to, like, oh, we had to rack our brains for all the different things that we knew. And it was mostly local produce because you couldn't get anything. at the grocery stores. You remember? Beginning of COVID, you couldn't get a chicken leg. So we go catch fish, go get food from the produce stands and stuff like that. Evie's laughing at me as if that's all made up.

That's not made up. Evie, is he making this up? Okay, move on. You're embellishing. I'm making the story better. That's what authors do. So you caught all your own fish? Could we at least get her out?

out of my line of sight. So as I'm lying to Willie Geist, she's not fact-checking me. All right. Your own fish. Thank you. Slaughtered your own animals. Farmed your own vegetables.

100%. Cloud the field. Got it. Yeah, exactly. Shot the ducks. Everything. Harvested the Morels from the forest. Go back to the original days

of Charleston, South Carolina. Exactly. Just dove into the surf with a knife in my teeth and pulled out of so. Just slaughtered it right on the beach, started cutting it up. It had a bucket with some limes and some cilantro and salt. By the time I got back to the house, it was sabiche. That's how we lived during COVID.

Oh, my God. You don't understand. I think we got what we need here. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm super into this book, because you can tell. I've bookmarked a bunch of pages. I love shrimp paste, which I understand was part of your first date.

You made it wrong. Do you like the name shrimp paste? I like the name because I've never... It's so unappetized. It is. Shrimpaste. It's ground up shrimp until they're a paste. Enjoy.

No, it's a big thing. It's shrimp paté. That's really what it is. But the English, you know, the Charleston's so English. Like, it's so Anglophile, which I forgive them for. But it's the simplest thing you can make. It's just shrimp and mayonnaise and onion. And I managed to mess it up.

The first thing I made for her, I went and bought canned shrimp. Oh, come on. Which was the real problem. You see, you should have fish them yourself. Just snatch them out of the water. Yeah. Like a grizzly with a salmon. Like I do.

Like as manly southern men do. Do you, I know this is a really hard question because I marked a few, but do you have one or two favorites in here? Like your go-to recipes. Red rice. Red rice is the thing that I would make more than anything else in this. Because growing up in South Carolina, I went to Stiles Point Elementary,

this little public school on James Island. And everyday red rice, which the ladies there would cook up in barrels with paddles because they had to feed all these lousy kids. And that recipe reminds me of the one I had when I was a kid. And it's half stolen from Allison Roman. Okay. She has a shallot pasta recipe

where it's a lot of caramelized shallots and anchovies and red pepper. And I went to make it with her when she was. was on my show, and it's supposed to be over Bucatini pasta, which I'm morally opposed to, because Bucatini pasta is like a spaghetti that's got a hole in the middle. Yeah. So you can't suck it in. Right. Because you go to like suck in that, like you're sucking in a piece of spaghetti, and you just end up breathing through a piece of pasta, which is kind of a bait and switch.

And it's a, you can't do Lady in the Tramp with it. Right. Right. If you and I were Lady in the Tramping with Bucatini right now, we would just be breathing. each other's carbon dioxide and we'd eventually pass out. That's not romantic. So anyway, so I saw that sauce. You were more passionate about a Bucatini than most people are about anything, and I respect that. Well, there's certain foods that steer you wrong. I want to get to shrimp tails in a second. Can we talk about shrimp tails in a second? Oh, I've heard about your, I agree with you, by the way.

I saw that jam that she made with shallots and tomato paste and, you know, and anchos and everything. I said, that would be great in a rice as a red rice. And you know who disagrees with me? Allison Roman She doesn't think so Oh really? No, I'm going to have to send her some Make her literally eat her words No Bucatini

Ever Under any circumstances Friends don't let friends Eat Bucatini One of the reasons we wrote this book Is that if this does nothing If this book does nothing But spark a national conversation

About whether shrimp Should have their tails On them when they're served to you In a sauce Then I've done a job. I mean, you were driving this message hard. I've watched some of your other interviews. This is something that you believe in. You want to see change. You see a problem. You want to fix the problem. Do you not think it's a problem, Willie? I think they're totally unnecessary.

Unnecessary or destructive? Because you go, you get like a beautiful, like, let's say you get a beautiful pasta that's got a red sauce in it. It's got shrimp in there. Should there be tails on the show? No, of course not. Because why am I in the pasta with knife and fork? But you've watched that for years and never done anything about it. You've never take going to stand. You're like, that's somebody else's problem. Right. Fine. I'll have my staff take the shells off. The staff at the Today Show

remove your shells. See, that's your East Coast elitist not caring about the other people out there who don't have a deshelling staff. Now let me throw a different shrimp format at you. Shrimp cocktail serves as a little bit of a handle to get into the cocktail sauce. That's fine. If you have to, you can leave the tail on a shrimp for

shrimp cocktail. Because the illusion is you're getting less shrimp by not touching the shrimp. Right. The shrimp meat with your fingers? Yeah. But the tail is just as shrumpy as the shrimp. Yeah, it is. And then you've got that collection of fish tails on the plate.

It just looks like you've loaded up some toenail clippings around the end of the bowl. Is that what you want? Are they little trophies up there? I was supposed to mount these on a board in my den? Why do I have any part of an animal that I'm not eating on my plate? Have you too? I don't want a hoof on my burger. Willie?

Do you? No. But again, you saw the problem and did nothing. Have you seen any movement in this? You know what they said? All it is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing. And you sat idly by. Why are you blaming me for this?

Because you're the one who admitted that you knew there was a problem and said nothing. You were silent. Okay. Okay. I'm ashamed. I'm a power. I'm a power. Okay.

The maximum of the law is silence gives consent. That's what you did. Do you not understand? Look in the mirror. Have you? taken this to any chef's restaurateur? I have. I have given an earful and an eyeful to Ina Garten. I was about to say I was giving an earful to Ina garden, but her name was Ina.

So I want to give an eye full to ear in a garden. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So you got in her face about it? I got all up in her grill. I believe it's how she described it. And how did she respond?

Is she with you? She apologized. She didn't apologize. No, she would never do that. Hina would never do that. She's the best. Let's establish. Come on.

100%. She loves this book, too. And we stole a recipe from her, too. Borrowed, inspired by, or you want to just go a stole? All artists steal, genius. All artists borrowed geniuses steel. That's right. I forgot who said that.

That's right. I think I did. Just called yourself a genius, too. So that was good. I've been waiting all morning for you to do it. I was getting panicky that nobody would. No one's chanting my name in here. My name isn't on a sigh.

There's no applause. It's a little quiet, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, I'm getting panicky. No affirmation yet today. This book obviously is a lot about family, too, right? Yeah. Inspired by your wife's mother, by your family, all the traditions in your house. I'm really dedicated to my mother-in-law, Patty McGee.

It was a fantastic hostess, like a real classic Southern hostess. And always not only good at it, but always ready for it. Always up for it. Always had a plate of cheese biscuits to put out. Always ready to bring somebody in for a glass of tea or something stronger. A cheese biscuit. hers, I can imagine, are perfection. It's delicate. It's very hard to do a proper southern cheese biscuit.

It should look like you're about to have like a pecan sandy or something like that. It should be like really nice and flaky and everything like that. But savory and spicy with like a little egg wash on top. She would make thousands of them and her family would distribute them around Charleston for her at Christmas time. It's the first thing I ever had from any McGee family member was I went to pick up Evie for our first date on December. 26th, December 26th, 1990, December 26th, 1990,

Feast of St. Stephen, if anyone out there's paying attention. And Evie was late. She wasn't ready to come downstairs. And so her father said, what can I get you, son? And I said, I'll take... Well, I said, what do you have?

Smart. Okay? Because I didn't know, because this isn't a mature southern man. And I can't ask him for like, you know, I have a screaming orgasm. I have a slippery nipple. I'll have an Alabama slammer. No, because I'm a kid. You're like in my 20s. Right.

You know? And he said, I have bourbon and I have vodka. I'm like, all right. No nonsense. And I said, I knew I couldn't ask for a bourbon and ginger ale because that's kid stuff. This is a mature southern man. So I said, I have a bourbon and something.

Oh. And he goes, I have water and I have soda water. And I said, I will have soda water. And I was drinking that. and I believe your mother had brought out a tray of cheese biscuits whenever he walked in. So that you associate that with one of the great moments in your life. Pure pleasure.

So that's my favorite thing. It was a Christmas time. So for Christmas for me, it's a bourbon and soda water and cheese biscuit. That's it. When you think about your household, your family, your parents, any of the foods in here, take you back? The other end of the meal, fudge. Fudge.

My mom was... And there's a competition, right? Well, it's not a competition, it's a disagreement. My mom, you know, mother of 11 kids. Yeah. She's very gracious. But she wasn't much of a cook because she was not taught to cook by her mother, and she didn't really have an opportunity to explore more than volume cooking.

Right. You know, and she started having children in 1945 and ended in 1964. We're perfectly the baby boom generation. And this was the heyday of processed food. And I don't think my mother had a recipe that she didn't get off the baby boom. back of like a bottle of jelly sauce or like a packet of lipton soup or something like that, which is fine with us because who doesn't love the salt. And so she only had one recipe, I think, that was really her families.

Now she got it from her mother and it was a fudge recipe. And it's not like the fudge you would normally have. It's just not like vacation fudge that gets cut off a brick of that gum and stuff. Right. And I don't know why fudge is associated with vacations. I don't exactly what you meant. I don't understand. I don't understand why.

Yes. But this is crisp. This snaps. And it's super grainy. It's very specific. And you know you've got it right. When you scratch it against your teeth, like when you scrape a little bit of it, you immediately think, I should see the dentist. That literally, it just, your teeth, your feelings just transmit a message.

Right. Straight to a dental hygienic. You got to, you got to come in and do something about that. But my mom never wrote it down. And so there's a million versions. Everybody in the family has what they remember mom telling them. Like my mom, we went through so many old cookbooks to try to remember an old card catalogs to try to remember some of these old recipes. I love the old way of writing down recipes, which is things like a good amount of butter.

Yeah, yeah. Right, right. Yeah, exactly. A generous dollop of cream. What does that mean? Try writing a cookbook with the words like that. My mom's recipe with a fudge just said, How much butter?

Oh, about the size of a medium egg. Eggs come in medium? I didn't realize that. Very average chickens gave these eggs. Right. So anyways, that was it. But in my mind, I'm always thinking, I guess that's between, that's not quite a jumbo. Right.

Yeah. And yours came out the best? Is there a consensus about that in the family? There is a definitive, no, there's no consensus. There's only one recipe in the book. There's five recipes. You've just proclaimed yourself the champion. I did not proclaim myself the,

the champion of the book. Anyone who makes these recipes declares my recipe the correct one. Isn't that right? Didn't I? Yes, they're telling them I'm right. She wasn't listening. The people who work for me say I'm right.

I don't have people to take my shrimp tails off for me, Willie, but I do have people to stand around and go. You're right, Chief. That's right. That was funny. Hey, buddy with his name on the building, still got it. And look where it's gotten you.

Yep. Having people yell how great you are. To the Today Show with Willie Guys. We did it. Yep. You did it. I love working for NBC. It's good to steal you for a few minutes.

I got to tell you. Not at all. Not at all. Didn't it? They're a fan of the peacock. Yeah. It's good, right? Do good stuff over there.

It's good. We do good stuff over there. I'm a fan. I'm not being facetious. Okay. Yeah? Okay. I was waiting for that.

I thought that was the setup. Nope. No setup. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sitdown podcast. Stick around to hear more from Stephen Colbert right after the break. Welcome back now more of my conversation. with Stephen Colbert. So the title of book is Does This Taste Funny, which is very clever.

Thank you. You know, I worked for Clever Central for many years. I used to work at clever clubs. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You've thrived in the world of cleverness. There's nothing more damning you can say in a pitch. Like if your writers are pitching you jokes at the beginning of the day and someone has this elaborate

pitch, they're like, that's very clever. Meaning that had a lot of stuff. lot of pieces to it, but it never got to a joke. It was so complicated. That must have taken you so long to say that much without ever going to do a punchline. It was very clever of you to do that. So thank you. I think the title qualifies.

It's clever. Does this taste clever? Never been so insulted in my life. I can't believe I just said nice things about NBC. I know. And you come at me with that's very clever. I had to get us back to the level here. Thank you very much. So talking about family and recipes and all that. Yes. Big family.

Eleven kid. 11 kids, yes. So where does comedy come in? I've heard from a lot of kids from big families, whether it's Conan or somebody else, where it's just like, I've got to get noticed somehow. Conan claims he has a big family?

Performative. How many kids are you? Not next to you. How many kids is the family? Is it six? Something like that. About half years? That's the Brady bunch.

That's nothing. You couldn't run a farm with that many kids. You couldn't harvest potatoes back on the old sod with only six kids. A big family. A football team. Full football team. Exactly. Same thing as Bobby and Eunice.

Like Enidies. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. 11 kids. 11 kids. Yeah. So where does the comedy come in for you?

Well, what point in your life? I'm the youngest of 11. It's not just 11 brothers and sisters. I'm the youngest of 11. And my sisters, who were older than I am, my sisters said there was remarkable that I ever learned a walk because they carried them everywhere. So I always had an audience.

and, you know, comedy was, you know, was a humorocracy. Like, whoever the funniest person was in the room at the moment was the king. And as a kid, my brothers and sisters would say, like, I was very quiet because I was just watching them to see, like, what, well, I just thought they were the greatest. I thought they were the funniest. I still think they're the funniest people in the world. Evie says to this day, when I get together with brothers and sisters, I get really quiet because they just want to watch, they're just so funny to me. Right. Are you fact checking me on that one, too?

You did say that. Okay. No. But that dynamic is still there. Yeah, I just think they're incredibly funny. And I learned a lot from them. Like my brother Billy, who's no longer with us, unfortunately, though his beard brisket is in this book,

is that he, as a kid, he made me watch W.C. Fields or kept me up to watch WC. Fields and the Marks brothers. Yes. And taught me, like, you know, a guy walks into a bar kind of jokes. Yeah. Stuff like that. Yeah. So if I asked your siblings.

Who the funniest one in the family was? Well, what would they say? That's a good question, by it. I don't know. Not you? Maybe Jim. I don't know. Maybe Mary.

Maybe Margot. I don't know. Who would they say is the funniest one in the family love? Mary. Mary. My sister Mary. Yeah. Yeah.

Would they have seen your life as a comedian from what they saw of you as a kid? In other words, they go, yeah, of course. That's what Steven is. Attention, needing attention, I think. It needs those applause. Eager for validation, sure. Yeah. Yeah.

So where did you first find the stage? Where did you... I first found the stage in high school as a class clown. I went to a very kind of clicky school in South Carolina. And me and my closest friends were kind of on the outskirts

of the society of the high school. You know, out way, way past Pluto in the solar system. We were out in the orc cloud of our high school. And making people laugh was the first thing that got to be invited to parties.

It works It does It does Yeah Personality actually works It turns out Sure I made the football team laugh

Well that's what I mean I made the football team laugh Yeah And it stopped them from beating me up That helps too That was yeah Keeps you safe It slow down their punch

Just the laughing Slow down the swings It had just enough time To go out of the way Just to dodge exactly What were there actual Performance though Were you at that point

Were you in the plays No I was No, I always wanted to, but I was, I don't know why. I was a little afraid to audition for anything. It wasn't until I was a junior. I did my sister, Eileen. Maybe it was a senior in high school. I did my sister Eileen, George Kaufman said my sister Eileen.

I played a Brazilian admiral. My first line was, Gosto de New York. I like New York. But the punch line was now Gosto de Brooklyn, which is I don't like Brooklyn, which is the other, which John O'Fennel had. He got to laugh every night. It killed me.

That guy. I wanted it. Where's he now, right? I don't know. Where's Jono now? We don't know. Please don't mention this. We don't know.

He might be incarcerated. I'm not sure where Jono is. I'm sure you're doing great, John O. Yeah, no, he's good. And so I kind of got, that was fun. I had the bug doing that. But really where it changed for me is that I went to theater school. I went to Northwestern University to the theater program there

because I was going to be an actor, Willie. Yes. An actor, not just play Hamlet, but to be Hamlet. and to be actively miserable at you. Can't you see my depression? Aren't I entertaining? To be gloomy around? And then while I was being all professionally gloomy

or training to be a professional gloomy person with a beard and I wore a lot of black. Kind of like this. I wore a lot of black. I had a beard. I was a poet slash jerk. And, you know, sad at people. One of those guys.

And I wore eyeliner. And briefly, briefly, were eyeliner. What? You almost goth. A little bit. A little bit. I didn't need makeup. I was pale enough.

And a friend of mine said, hey, there's this thing downtown in Chicago called the Herald Improv. Del Cloce, Sean Halpern, the Improv Olympic. Do you want to go see it? So I went to go see these improvised one-act plays called the Harold Improv. And I fell in love immediately.

And I said, I don't know what they're doing. I have to do that. And it's not just because I was too lazy to memorize lines. I really, really wanted to get on stage. people I saw Dave Pasquoisi, one of the people who's one of the greatest improvisers in the world, he was on stage. And I just wanted to, I wanted to do that desperately. And so I started doing that on a weekly basis. I'd go down on Wednesdays and I would do a set with some friends in mind. Because it's a while you're at Northwest.

While I was at Northwesterned, you know, studying all the like, me, ma, me, ma'am, we're doing all that. She skis, he's, he's leave beneath the ceiling of stars. Martha and Margar, walked arm and arm to the Charming Park, not far from their father's house. Still got it? No, my God. My Lesac teacher will be so mad at me right now. I don't have. Have the Y buzz. But I was doing that. Then I was actually, you know, quote-unquote gigging, you know.

Right. I don't think we got paid. I think we got free beer, which was great. That's great. To go do that on Wednesday nights. And then that kind of set a hook in me. And then I never wanted to walk away from improv. And that jumps right into Second City after Northwestern?

Well, kind of like I was, second city was kind of wasn't the thing. Second City wasn't pure improv back in the day. We were kind of looked down at Second City because they got paid. They got paid. sold out every night and they were seemed to be having a good time, you know? They're going to go work on SNL. Exactly. And so, but a friend of mine was the box office manager.

And I went and traveled around for a while when I came back to Chicago, was sleeping on her friend's floor, had no money. And she said, hey, you can just work at the box office. I need somebody to cover. Jeff Garland was actually the person I replaced. Really? Jeff Garland had been the guy before me. Oh, wow.

And he was terrible. It was terrible. There would be a flashing light of like 20 people trying to get tickets because Second City was always sold out. And he would pick up the phone. and he would go, hey, look at this. And he'd go, tic-tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. And he would clear the entire board

and hang it up and watch it fill up again. That's the kind of worker he was. All captain, potato pants. And so he quit, and I took his place at Second City in the box office. And then I found out that he could take classes there for free. And so I went, well, I want to keep sharp. I want to, like, you know, I'm not in acting school anymore. I'm not certainly not getting hired by anybody.

I could not get hired by anybody, Willie. I was so gainfully unemployed for so many years. You'll never find old tape of me when I was a young actor doing something embarrassing because they wouldn't even hire me for embarrassing projects. So as a result, I had to write all my own stuff. Like me and some friends, like Dex Bullard and a couple friends of mine, we would get spaces and write our own shows and put them up and call the press and do it for like one weekend or two.

And then we would usually on somebody else's set, like they were building for something else. We would just say, we'll split the box office with you. If you just let us use the set you're building for our set, and we would make up a show that would fit on their set. Just anything to be on stage. And after I did that for a few years, working in the box office, I got invited to audition for Second City,

and here I am talking to Willie Geist. There it is, direct line. Well, 100% though, but there is a direct line. Yeah, of course. Were there time, Stephen? You said, you know, nobody would hire. You couldn't get gigs. You were writing for other people.

Things you dreamed about doing. People would stop me, and the street dogs would bark at me. Children would run from me. That stuff. I was ugly and I smelled back. And yes, that period of time, let's go back there. That period. How long can we go? Were there times along the way there when you said, oh, maybe this isn't the thing for me long term?

Or like, I should go to law school or something. Every day. No, really crisis. Right after I got married, right after I got married, I thought, oh, what have I done with my life? Like, I kind of want to have a family in some sort of normative life. Right. And I have, at the time, I have what, I think you could be. you know, charitably called a nervous breakdown. And I, like, my skin's on fire and I cannot sleep. And we're just married.

And poor Evie, she goes to work because she's working during the day like humans do. And I'm coming home about to go on stage at Second City. And I've got a great gig. I'm at the main stage of Second City. Like, people would kill to be on that stage. But I'm walking in circles around the floating couch in our living room. She come home and she goes, how is your day? I'm like, you're looking at it.

I will have walked around the couch all day thinking, oh my God, what have I done with my life? I'll never, like, be able to afford a home. I'm an improviser. Like, that is not associated with, like, the most stable life. It's hard to get a mortgage when you're an improv. Improv. How are you going to pay me?

I'll figure it out. And so that went on. That was terrible. That actually went on for a couple months of, like, just, I would just curl in a ball. I'd go to the second city. I'd curl in a ball, lie down backstage, wait for my cue line, uncurl. you know, I'd uncurl from, you know, that couch, like the alien, you know, at the end when Ripley's on the skate pod with him.

And then I would go on stage, but I felt fine when I was on stage. Yeah. And then that went on for months until one morning I woke up and I realized I felt fine. And I couldn't remember why I would be feeling fine until I realized, oh, we're starting a new show. We're going to go and start writing a new show. And I went, oh, thank God. There's a thing that makes me feel better.

But then I thought, oh, no. So this is what I'm like. when I'm not creating something new. So I've never stopped, like, creating from that moment. Because I don't think I would fall back into Slough of Despond again if I wasn't, like, creating on a daily basis. But I know that that's my Xanax is to also Xanax. That's, if anybody's got any, if anybody brought enough to share,

I don't have a prescription right now. But that's what it does for me. Actually, writing jokes with my friends is, the thing that keeps me off the antidepressants. So then what's the gig, Stephen, where you go? Okay, I'm going to be all right. This is a steady job. I think I can make a life out of comedy

and I won't have to circle the couch when I'm not creating. I mean, the time of the Colbert Report. I was 41. Yeah. The Colbert Report. Yeah. I had done it for a while.

I was like, I didn't like, this did not hit me as a child. It had not become successful. I did not, you know, burst onto the scene, you know, like Athena from Zeus's head. I did this for 20. years before I got trusted with anything big.

I mean, I certainly loved doing the Daily Show for the years that I got to do with John before I moved over. But that was still, you know, somebody else's gig, and I was kind of part-time there. It wasn't always on. As much as I loved it. And then the,

I remember when it looked like the Colbert-Poor was going to go, like it was going to last. And I was like, this might go for a few years. I remember saying to Evie one night, I can't. I can't believe how lucky I am. Not only am I doing this thing that I love, but I get to do it in the place that I love. I got to do it in New York.

I've made my career in New York, which to me was the ultimate goal, not just to have a career, but to have one in New York. And I have family in Los Angeles, and it can be a lovely place to go to. But I resisted the mothership, the pull, the tractor beam that is just the size of the industry out there. I'd resist it for many years. And the fact that I got to do what I wanted and do where I wanted it felt like. the greatest game of Go Fish ever got what I wanted. And for people watching right now going through that,

that was about 25 years since you started out that you got to a point where you said, well, by the time you were like mid-Barreport where you went, okay, I'm a little comfortable or have some stability. Yeah, I was clearly 23 or 24 years before I went, okay, yeah, I think I'm going to be okay. And you stayed with it all that time. Well, I didn't know what else to do.

No, but I didn't have nothing to do. People asked me what I would do if I didn't do this. I said, I think I'd be doing time. I have no other skills. I have nothing to offer the world, Willie, other than stupidity with a straight face. That's it. A guy who looks like he's a lawyer,

but acts like he's recently been on release. You read as someone who has other skills. And yet, you don't. That's the false lead of Stephen Colbert. He looks capable. We hired him because he looked responsible. That's actually, you know, I got a job, but I work for Joe.

GMA for a while. I know. Hello, friends. I know. GMA. Now, what were you doing there? Now, I worked for all three shows. There you go. Exactly. You were pitching pieces to them. I worked for the Dana Carvey show. So I served for Carvey. And at the time, and I don't know why, you may know why. But GMA used to be on the entertainment side of ABC, not the news. Right. And in 1996 or seven or something like that, they switched from being entertainment to news. And as they were panning over the keys and about to weld the door shut between news and entertainment, somebody goes, oh, before we totally close the store between news and entertainment, do you guys know anybody over there in entertainment on ABC who looks really straight but can be funny like in a news way? And they said, ask Stephen Colbert. I don't know why they said that because I hadn't done any of this stuff yet. But I got called in and I met with, I don't know, I think, Blue Orleans or something.

I met like the head of news over there, whoever was the head in 96 or 97. Yeah, that sounds right. And they're like, what would you do if we sent you on a field piece? and I said, I assume there'd be like some research packet. And they said, yeah, yeah. I said, I would get with my producer. Yeah, I'd get with the producer. I'd read the research packet and we'd come up with questions.

And then we'd go shoot it and I assume someone would edit it and I'd be involved in like voiceovers or something like that. And then hopefully it would be good. And they looked at each other and went, okay, I think you understand what's going on here. Do you know why they wanted me? Why? Because you guys, in NBC, at the Today Show, had added a window. Whenever you guys added a window is when they called me.

Because they literally said, that window is killing us. Because they've got a window on the world. We don't have a window on the world. We want you to be our window on the world. Oh, okay. And what they wanted me to be is funny the way a local weatherman is funny. I pitched 25 stories in a row. Nothing wrong with local weathermen.

I love you. 100% weather on the ones. But take an umbrella. Pack your patience. We got an Alberta clipper. Ooh, nice. Nice. Okay.

Yeah, we'll get a heat dome also at the same time. Yeah. Yeah, it's an inversion layer. Exactly. It was a stationary system. So they said, we want you to be the window. And so I pitched 25 pieces in a row, and they said no to 24 of them. Wow.

Yeah. So you have one on the air. got one on the air. And that was it. Yes. It was the Rube Goldberg National Competition. Yes. And were you happy with the piece? Were they happy with the piece? No one was happy. No one was happy. Hence that's, but and right after that my manager James Baby Doll Dixon said, uh, the great, the one, the only, to accept no substitutes. He said, uh, do you want to go meet these people over at the

daily show. They're looking for people. I'm like, oh, what is this show? Why do I? Oh, my God, I was just working for Dana Carvey. Now, is this cable access? Where am I going? What is this? Like, oh, you like them. You meet them. And I went over there, and they said, what are you doing right now? I said, well, I was on a Carvey show. I was the second city of the Carvey show.

I wrote for SNL for a month. And now I'm a correspondent for Good Morning America, ABC News, where more Americans get their news from any other source. Which was their motto back now, I know? I'm a company man, no matter where I am. Wherever, stick around for set. So, and I said, this is what I do. And I said, you're genetically engineered to do this job.

Like, you were grown in a lab to be the Daily Show. And I said, okay. And then my first note I got over there was that I was too jokey. Oh. That was too jokey at Comedy Central? I was too jokey Comedy Central. So I apologized and tried to joke not so much. Then I left to do strangers with candy.

And when I came back, there was a new host in this famous John Stewart. And that changed everything. It did. He got you. change the orbit of the planet. It changed the rotation of the Earth on its axis. You know how Superman goes backwards and Lois Lane is saved? That's what John did for comedy. He's the first season one who told me that. He's the first. He's humble and publicly. But in private, he goes, you know that Superman thing? That's me. Yeah. Yeah. He's not going to mind

that I told you that. Stick around for more of my conversation with Stephen Colbert right after a quick break. Welcome back now to the rest of my conversation with Stephen Colbert. No, I could talk to you all day, but you have to go do a show. So letterman steps down in 2014. They announce you as the new host. Yes. I'm out in September of 2015. Yes.

The curtain goes up. Yes. There you are at the Ed Sullivan Theater. As myself. As yourself, that was I. Who the hell is that? Right. Who the hell is that?

That's what I was going to ask. You've never played yourself until that day. I've always been acting. up until that moment. Right. Yeah. Suddenly that was me. So was that terrified?

I'm not a huge fan of me, it turns out. All I knew about me was that I was Evie's husband. And so every night we had Evie someplace I could see her in the fifth seat back on the row, on the audience left, stage right, over here. And so I could look at her and go, all right, that's who I am. I'm her husband. That helped a lot. Because you were.

Not enough, but it helped a lot. It helped eventually. About eight months later, I went, oh, yeah, I know what I want to do here. Jokes. But what were those early months like when people were not quite sure what he's... No, they're impossible. He's not the guy from the Colbert Report. Well, I didn't know either.

I didn't know either. I was sure what I wanted to do. I was determined not to do a monologue. That was one of the first things. And Johnson was like, so you want to like completely change the form? Like, why did you take this job? I'm like, I wanted to make something new. And he was like, but it's not do it your own way.

Do your own monologue. It will be new because it'll be you. Right. And I eventually believe. him. And now I wish I could do a 25-minute monologue every night. Yeah. Because that's it. That's what I love more than anything else. Right. I mean, I like talking to your world leaders, you know, talked to Trudeau last night. Janet Yellen tonight, right? No, she's got the vid. She's got the Rona. She got the Rona. She got the Rona.

Yeah. So she can't come. But that's what's great about your show. You'll do big movie star and capital official. So we moved up your Kate Winslet They're very similar Yellen and Winslet She would also not have let Jack up on the door That was a great

She'd have stats, she'd have stats She'd have reasons for it Now that you mention it Kate Winslet solved that riddle on your show She got up on my desk with me And we fit perfectly It was fine And that ended the discussion

Sure That's it Yeah it makes Rose kind of bloodthirsty You know kind of out herself. Yeah. And she was. Yeah. Yeah. Poor Leo. She holds the heart of the sea for her entire life and goes, I'm going to die. Nobody gets it. That's what she said. She had it for 90 years. But after me, Le Deluge. She didn't care.

All those people spent all that money, gave her a great story, got to see, you know, got to relive those things and she doesn't give them the heart of the ocean. So Rose, in your telling, is the villain of Titanic. Yes. Yes. This is innocent? boy who was seduced by an upper-class girl and then murdered in the open ocean. Yeah. And then you throw in the jewel. Yeah.

She came off, she got out of this great is all I know. She got married. She had a family. She has a granddaughter. She rode horses. She flew planes from what we saw from in those photos. She lives to be a ripe old age, has the jewel, the ocean the entire time, and then throws it away.

She's the hero. How is she the hero? I think you need to revisit that tonight. I don't want to tell you how to do your job. She knows how I feel. She knows how I feel. You've ran out of fun. Have you interviewed Justin Trudeau, by the way?

I have. Yeah. He's been a worried job. Unbelievable. I got to keep one eye closed and then blink this one alive. So one of my retina survives. This is good-looking man. Yesterday I interviewed Justin Hartley from Tracker.

Sure. Tracker. He'll find out when it is. I think it's Sundays. We'll drop that in later. You put a little... You put a snipe down here for Tracker? NBC will put an ad for Tracker up.

You called for it. You know, it's the number one show across all broadcast right now. More Americans watch CBS. More Americans watch Tracker than any other news sort. Which is a little bit like GMA's old tagline. Sure. Yeah.

Something like that. But anyway, I interviewed two Justin's yesterday, two sexy Justins. And that's the privilege of these shows. I got Justin Hartley, who plays Coulter Shaw. I don't need to tell you on Tracker. And then Justin Trudeau. because I'm a gentleman, I'm not going to say which one of sex here. Yeah, I was going to ask you, but I know you're a gentleman.

An answer. Also company man. So how are you looking now at the next, what are we, 40-some days going up to election day? I consider you. One day at a time. Knowing you as a little bit as an optimist, a hopeful guy, how are you feeling about where the country is and where it may be headed? This is the greatest country the world has ever seen, Willie. That's how I feel about the country.

the way I feel it's headed is I think the American people aren't always making the best choices for themselves, but they are also easily bored. And one of these things is not like the others. And one of them is kind of worn and boring, and one is new and fresh. And maybe that'll be the thing that decides it. It might just be, in terms of entertainment, one of them is more interesting than the other one is now. Because we know everything about one of the candidates. And you've made up your mind about one of the candidates.

And the other one, well, there's a possibility for change. That's what could be interesting to people who haven't made up their mind yet. So I'm not in the prediction business, but I think that's one aspect of it that has nothing to do with policy, is that even people who aren't necessarily informed or that engaged with the elections might find it interesting to have a new choice and a new possibility. It's interesting. Our NBC poll the other day had Kamala Harris by 10 points as the change candidate. She's the sitting vice president over Donald Trump. Yeah, sitting vice president, though.

Right. Sitting vice president doesn't do, no offense to vice presidents. But I'm a huge fan of many vice presidents, but they don't really do that much. But as a representative of the current administration. This is true. This is true. That she's the change. This is true.

Fascinating. I love the polls you just had. You said what people approve of. Capitalism by 26% positive. Then Tim Walz is number two at 7%. That's a big drop. There's nothing between capitalism and Tim Walls. And then I think Kamala Harris is like 3% or something like that.

And then the bottom three were fantastic. It was JD Vance at like negative 13 or something like that. Socialism at negative 37 and Project 2025 at negative 53. 4% of people approved of Project 2025. I don't think 4% of people, that's such incredibly low. I think 20% of people will prove of cockroaches. Like Americans, 20% of Americans will approve of anything. Yes.

Yeah. I know the polls can provide a little bit of whiplash as well, which is like, today, okay, if you support Trump, it's a good day. Next day is a bad day. Right. It's like this wave we ride that we try not to get mired in the polls, but just let election day come. Can't come fast enough, right? You know what I only watch the betting odds now. By the way, you joke, but follow the money.

I don't joke. I'm serious. What about this looks like a joke to you? Do I look like I'm joking, lollie guys? It's actually not. No, but I do. Not only are their betting odds, but now they're betting odd averages. Just like there's like a 538, but there's a 538 for betting, too.

Follow the money. You just said that. You just pull that out as if it means anything. In this case, literally follow the money. But follow the money originally meant follow who benefits from this. Correct. But follow this money. Follow the money.

Okay. Follow the Albuquerode. Also has following it. All right. I'm just saying mine is just as good as yours. Because of the loss of your dad and your brothers, you have become a very powerful voice for a lot of people around the world about grief and loss. I'm thinking about your interview with Anderson Cooper, which I watched again this morning and

brought me to tears again this morning. The one on his show or the podcast? On his show. Okay. Where he asked you about, you know, the punishment of God and how you could feel lucky in some way. And you explained it so beautifully. Are you happy to be that person in some ways in the culture where you can give voice to that feeling that so many people have?

I wouldn't say I'm happy, you know, to be associated with grief. but I am grateful, A. and Anderson for his projects that he's done addressing this, because it's a resource that people desperately need. We don't talk about grief in our culture. We don't have the tools anymore to talk much about it. We don't have, you know, we don't have formalized modes of expressing our grief that lets everybody know what we're going through,

even if they don't know the circumstances. You used to know someone wearing black for a year or something, or avail, they were in a state of grief. So I really admire what he's doing as a gift to people who don't know where to go for examples of surviving grief. I'm grateful if what my experience has been is useful to other people. When people say that to me, like they saw the interview with Anderson or any other times I've spoken about it with some of my guests,

is that when they say that they're grateful, I always say, I'm sorry that you needed it. but I'm glad that my experience in some ways meaningful to you and gives you some hope that there is a spiritual nourishment that can come from accepting your grief and the circumstances of your life. And it can give you a way to look at it that doesn't undermine you but gives you a foundation on which to build. that acceptance, that seeing the world for all its cruel and radiant beauty. And that combination of both the cruelty of loss, but the radiant beauty of the world in the face, in spite of that loss, is this extraordinary, ecstatic tension that I think can, A, is very moving to experience,

but also can sustain you through any dark days ahead, to know that someone else has gone through it and that you've used that wisdom to survive your own crises. So as I said to Anderson, I wish more than anything else that the most tragic events of my life had not happened, as anyone would. But I have found the only healthy response to that.

I learned, I realized that my healthy response to that, given to me by my mother, who, through her faith, accepted the reality of her situation and still loved God, that there is a way to learn and grow and love other people, especially in their suffering because of that experience. So that's where the gratitude comes from. How long did it take you to get to that place, that wisdom?

I mean, you're a little boy. I was 10 when my father and my brothers died in that plane crash in September 11th, 1974. So I was at least 36. I might have been between 36 and 40. Yeah. Because before I started the Colbert Rapor, I'd already sort of come to grips with that or had a realization that there is some value that I had not realized that informed my view of the world that had to do with that.

And so I can both wish that it didn't happen and also be grateful for the connection it gave me to other people because it happened. So 26, 27, 28 years. As I said to Anderson, I'm kind of hesitant to tell this story more than once because it sounds like I'm saying like, oh, it's going to be fine. Just 30 years, just 30 years of suffering and you're going to be fine. You know, everybody can do it at their own speed. But it took me that long to come to that realization. But I do think you were talking about this and that conversation in particular opened people's minds to another way of thinking about it. It did for me, actually.

Well, that's right. I've enjoyed some form of community with people I otherwise wouldn't. not have and maybe been able to help them in some way as they've helped me. And perceived in other people the truth that they carry with them all the time but don't express because they think that there is no one who understands it, no audience who wants to hear it. Some people think the grief itself is contagious so they don't want to hear it or even address it when in fact talking about it is the opposite of you don't go deeper necessarily into your grief when you talk about it.

It turns what is a cave into a tunnel. you can actually see light at the other end. If you can talk about it, it brings you back out of the darkness. It doesn't shroud you in it. It's sort of paradoxical how addressing it doesn't make it darker. It actually opens the light. Well said.

Thanks, man. Thank you. So good to talk to you. Nice to talk to you too. I really enjoyed it. After our conversation, Stephen and I moved over to the bar where we were joined by his wonderful wife Evie, showing off their mixology skills,

flipping me a nice old-fashioned. All right, I mean, welcome to the party. Thank you so much. Have a little old fashion for you. Let's start off with a drink, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is basically my family drink. Okay.

This is what everybody in the family loves. My mom drank old-fashioned. Would you actually start off, honey, by putting some Luxardo-Marichino cherry syrup in there. I use this instead of sugar cube. Okay. Because you get the nice cherry taste. especially good for like

fall and winter. Now where do I get that? You can get that. A lot of grocery stores have Luxardo. It's also online. You can get it online. Yeah, you can get it. Yeah, if you can't get a brick and mortar.

I think that's enough. Yeah. There you go. Mississippi 1, Mississippi 2, Mississippi 3. You have a heavy board. He does have a heavy board. I just noticed. I do Mississippi 6.

It's the trickle. You got to get the right trickle right there. I don't need some professional. Do you have a favorite? Urban, Willie? Makers is my every day. It's your everyday. And if we go fancy, you know, you can kind of go up the ladder a little bit.

What was the time? My dad loved makers, right? And then there was a time... Your dad liked Evan Williams. He came over, though, and he got into some very fancy... Somebody had given me a bottle of Pappy. Yeah. A Pappy 20.

And it wasn't open. Pappy 20. And it was below my bar. And dad was like, I'm going to go into your bar and just make a drink. Uh-oh. It was at Thanksgiving. And my brother, Ed, Ed, was there too. And I came home from work the day before Thanksgiving.

And Ed opens the door before my hand gets on the knob, and he goes, I want you to know it wasn't me. And I said, it wasn't me what. The sad thing is my dad poured it with soda water. It would have been fine with any old bourbon. He was just like, I just was looking for bourbon, and I found that. And there was a perfectly lovely bottle of Knob Creek right there, but it didn't look like a bourbon bottle because it's that thing.

But he saw the papine. He goes, this is Kentucky bourbon. There you go. Did you ever tell him the street value of that bottle? I never did. Good. Good. I don't think I'd go. Not even able to understand that.

Too much. It really couldn't have computed that. Give me two good shots of that. All right. Let's go. One. A little bitters. That was like four.

One. Two. One. There it is. This is Angostura bitters, which is like the classic. Yep. I go with Fee Brothers bitters usually because my mother was on her mother's side was a fee. You're right for the ice.

Of the Fee brothers. If you look at a Fee Brothers bottle, I'm talking to Fee brothers here. The Fee brothers bottle, the second guy from the left, John. fee. That's my great-grandfather. Come on. Really? I wouldn't lie about that. I can't lie. I can't lie on the today show. We don't get our big sweat with it, unfortunately. There we go. Hold on. Can I stir this? There you go. And would you fish me out a merichino to go in here? It looks like a nice mix. There you go. Yeah. Ready?

All right. And so is this the drink of choice at home or do you mix it up? In the fall in the wintertime. This time of years when I switch over. That's right. Right. Right. All right. And then Give me cube. Cube me. I love these big cubes. You know what is the fancy thing with like a lighter where you set it on fire? Do you have, anybody have a match? Anybody got a lighter? It's too dangerous.

It's got to be. Baby dough, you got a lighter? Yeah, come on. There we go. So you know what I'm talking about. Oh, my God, the ice is stuck. This thing. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Hold on. Hold on. This is not fun? Live a little dangerously, folks. There you go. Hey, how we go? Hey.

Oh, no, look. Oops. I can't separate the ice. What you do? There is. Melt these two ice cubes apart. Double. What could possibly go wrong?

This is all in the recipe, too. It's right in the book. There's put one. One more, one more. Let's get this right. Here we go. This one's stuck too. Look.

Oh. What did you just do? Wow. Opa. I don't know what I just did. Oh, my goodness. All right. All right.

Thank you. All right. Who gets that one? You do. I'll take the big one. Now, are you guys Big Cube or? Love the Big Cube. Matter of fact, I have John Dickerson, CBS News, John Dickerson, and his wife, Ann, gave us the cube tray that gives you clear cubes, you know what I'm talking about?

It's a lot of work. But it's definitely worth it. Cheers. Cheers. Thank you, Willie. Thank you, Colbert. Thank you, Willie. Congratulations on the book.

Thank you so much. What you think? I can't get it to lick me. I mean, it's perfect. It was on purpose. It's perfect. There is. A little side door.

You did this because I have a show tonight. Yeah. Keep the man away from the alcohol. How much fun doing this book with your husband? So much fun, actually. Yeah, yeah. I wasn't too bossy? No, because I figured out how to just, you know, skirt that issue.

Sure. Yeah. What was really interesting is we do this whole dialogue in the book. So one of us does things on time. One of us doesn't. So I'd get mine all written and then I'd be like, come on. You've got to write your side of it. Come on. Yeah.

What? No, that was me. That was me saying that to you. There is. I do a show. I have a show I do every day. I got to the book when I could. We discovered along the way.

I feel vaguely attacked. It was therapy. It was therapy. There you go. But a lot of these come from your side of the family. They do. A lot of food, right? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. A lot. And there are old recipes, actually. My grandmother's recipes, which some of them I didn't even remember because it's been a long time. But my family's been in South Carolina and Charleston for generations. So lots of old Southern recipes. Your family has been South Carolina for centuries. Oh, wow.

Literally. Yeah. For centuries. Like for three centuries. You're real Charleston. You're a binner. I'm a company. I already told Willie about that.

Yeah, I love that. Exactly. My people are from all. Yeah, yeah. So what do you say is special about Charleston? I asked even that a little while ago, what makes it so unique? because it really is unlike anywhere else in the country. Yeah.

I mean, I think, well, obviously the location, right, on the water and the climate and all of those things are beautiful. But there's just a kind of undeniable uniqueness in terms of the architecture and the way you can live amongst beautiful homes that are centuries old. And yet, it's still a vibrant town. It's not a museum town. People are living and working there, raising their families there. Yeah, it's not Williamsburg. It's not Williamsburg. But there's history around.

everywhere. And interesting history, some of it, not good, some of it very good. And stories. You know, every family's got generations of stories. That's kind of fun. And then the other thing is, like, a lot of small towns, you know everybody, right? Right. So, you know, it's that's like, who's your parents?

Yeah, yeah. That kind of thing. And a great food town. Now especially. Amazing. Which owes so much of its history to West Africa. Yeah. To the enslaved people who came over, like the okra and the red rice.

and the sesame and the peanuts and all these basic ingredients that are in so much of the coastal food, the low country. All goes back to West Africa. Do you have a favorite recipe in the book, Abby? Well, I love the cheese biscuits, which were my mother's recipe. But I also love the shrimp in Hominy, because for me, it was like, we just grew up with that, my family. We'd have Homney every morning.

No, explain with Hominy. Well, that's grits. But, you know. But Charles Stoney would say homie. We're a little pretentious. Because they have to be a little bit. We're different Southerners. That's a big thing about Charles Stoney's.

We're the South. but we're the real south. Right. Yes, all roads lead north from Charleston. It was also inexpensive, right? So it was rice and grits were what people ate for generations, right? We have easy. So Hombie is everywhere.

Again, Grits are everywhere. We have a recipe in the book called Homney Surprise. And my take on that is that surprise, it's more hominy. They bake it with cheese and egg and make it a little casserole situation. I'll tell you one of the things that may try. Charleston, interesting about Charleston, is that it was this incredibly wealthy, vibrant town before the Civil War because it benefited from the sort of the oppressive slave trade. But after the war, they didn't have money to change anything.

Like, Charleston exists in this present state because it wasn't burned. Sherman decided not to burn Charleston, who was going to. He was going to burn, so he burned Columbia instead. And it was there, but there wasn't a stick of furniture in any of the houses. because they sent all that to Columbia for safekeeping because they knew they were going to burn Charleston. So there wasn't a stick of furniture in the houses. Nobody had any money, but nobody left their houses.

And so it maintained that architecture because there just wasn't enough money to rebuild in a different way. Columbia's a totally different town than it was back then. Richmond's a totally different town. But, you know, it was also actively, they actively worked to preserve it. There was a very strong preservation movement. Eventually.

Which your folks were a big part of. Yeah. And my dad was very, very important. involved with it. But it's still very much a part of Charleston. You know, the restrictions. You can't just come along and tear a house building down. You in a certain height restrictions. I mean, literally if you want to paint your house a certain color. If you want to change the roof, they may not let you. But that's why it's still so unique and actually still so authentic, you know. It's the rare town that pulls off the old and the new well. It doesn't feel forced. I think that's

exactly right. And there's a lot of new there, but it doesn't feel jarring. And it's all incorporated. And, you know, I think Charleston had a wonderful mayor for a very long time. Joe Riley, who was mayor for like 40 years. And he mastered that ability of sort of progress without losing what made Charleston so special. Well, cheers to Charleston, guys, and cheers to the book. Congratulations. Thank you, Willie. Thank you so much. So much fun to be with you.

Cheers. Good to be a good show tonight. All right. That is delicious. That's awfully strong. My big thanks again to Stephen and Evie for, for a great conversation. You can get their cookbook,

Does This Taste Funny, Recipes Our Family Loves, wherever you buy your books. And my thanks to all of you for listening again this week. If you want to hear more of my conversations with our guests every week, be sure to click follow so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC

to see these interviews in vivid, peacock color, your own two eyes. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week. on the Sunday Sit Down Podcast.