Hi everyone and thank you for tuning in to episode 170 of Awards Chatter, the Hollywood Reporters Awards podcast.

I'm the host Scott Feinberg and my guest today is one of the most significant figures

in comedy and politics of the past 20 years.

A correspondent on Comedy Central's The Daily Show for of the from 2005 through 2014 and the host of CBS's The Late Show with Stephen Colbert ever

since September 8, 2015, the one and only Stephen Colbert.

Colbert, who is 53, was born in Washington, D.C. and raised in South Carolina, the youngest of 11 kids.

His life was rocked at the age of 10 when his father and his two brothers closest and aged himself were killed in the

crash of Eastern Airlines flight 212. By that time his other siblings were all

older and out of the home meaning that Colbert and his mother largely were left to take care of each other.

And it was out of a desire to brighten her spirits that he gravitated towards comedy, with which

he became increasingly obsessed with

when she had wished to pursue when she was younger.

After two years at Hampton Sydney College in Virginia,

he transferred to Northwestern University in Chicago,

where he became a theater major,

and after meeting the legendary Del Close, also began

waiting into improvisational comedy, ultimately at Fabled Second City.

There he understudied Steve Correll, who he would later recommend for a job at the daily show,

and became particularly close with Paul Denello and Amy Sedaris, with whom he would later co-create

with Mitch Rouse, the Comedy Central Comedy Series Strangers with Candy. with Exit 57 and where he remained for a short but memorable stint writing for ABC's The Dana Carvey Show,

where he and Correll also played Aes and Gary respectively in Robert Smygles the Ambiguously Gay Duo cartoons, which they reprised on Saturday Night Live.

Subsequently, a brief tenure filming humorous segments for ABC's Good Morning America led to a gig on the Daily Show, which still was hosted by Craig Kilbourn, but two years later

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