Stephen Colbert says he feels more intimately connected to his viewers doing A Late Show without an audience

Vanity Fair

“And that intimacy was something I didn’t realize I missed, until I got it back,” Colbert tells Vanity Fair. “It’s less intimate to be in front of 450 people who are all laughing and you’ve got a band and there’s this beautiful space and you’re standing and the camera is 25 feet away from you, not four feet away from you. I mean, literally, the camera is as close as you are right now.” Colbert also remembers doing his show from home in the early months of the pandemic. “It felt much like the 19th century,” says Colbert. “Daddy’s got a woodshop, and the kids are going to come in and help me cut the pine today.”