Well here it is, folks: The Colbeard. Behold its glory, its beauty, and its respect for the late night host tradition of growing beards. Stephen Colbert recently caught up with The Daily Beast to talk about his Late Show debut later this year, but he was upstaged by his brand new salt-and-pepper beard: “I have not allowed this to happen to my face since college because I’ve been working professionally pretty constantly since then,” he told The Daily Beast. “I have like nine months where nobody has to see me so I said, ‘I wonder what I look like?’ No one should ever mistake me for a newsman and I’m glad now that they don’t have to.” He added: “In a pre-industrial stainless steel razor’s edge society, this is what I would have looked like all the time.” Good point.
Colbert also confirmed that his Colbert Report persona will not take part in his new Late Show gig, though he’s extremely excited to get to work: “I’m looking forward to telling jokes on a nightly basis. That’s what I got into this game for, the laughs,” he said. “As a performer I’m jonesing. I haven’t been onstage in two months. My show ended two months ago and technically, for the record, I’m not in character. This is me. It turns out the real Stephen Colbert had a beard the whole time, I was just so deeply in character for 10 years you didn’t notice. That’s how good of an actor I am.” Late Show with Stephen Colbert is set to premiere on CBS on Tuesday, September 8th.
