'It's All Just Me': Stephen Colbert Looks Forward To Being Himself On 'The Late Show'

DENVER (CBS4) - The Late Show with Stephen Colbert debuts Tuesday night. Recently CBS4's Karen Leigh caught up with the new host, who's pretty excited for his new venture.

Colbert hosted The Colbert Report on Comedy Central from 2005 to 2014. The show won two Peabody Awards and four Emmy Awards, for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program. But The Colbert Report was satire and Colbert played a character.

"How's it going to look? Now you get to be you, truly you, so what does 'you' look like?" Leigh asked.

"It's all just me!" Colbert joked. "But obviously not egotistical in any way."

He says while The Late Show will be different, the goal is still the same.

"I've done so many things," Colbert said. "So many people I've worked with on The Colbert Report, almost everybody, is coming over to the new show. It's all the same creative team. Our philosophy was if it made us laugh, then we showed it to the people at night. Instead of 80 hours a year we're going to do 200 hours a year. More of the same, please."

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A big part of the new show, of course, will be the interviews.

"I started off as an improviser and interviews are improvisation. You don't know what's going to happen, and if you open yourself to that, it can be a real adventure just sitting across from somebody," he said.

The show's first guest is actor George Clooney. And while he's a real superstar, future Late Show guests won't be limited to movie and rock stars.

LINK: colbertlateshow.com

"The Pope would be fun. He seems like a nice guy. The thing about the show, the last show that I did, I found that often it was the people who I didn't expect. It was an author I never met or a scientist."

Colbert is the youngest of 11 children, so he's basically had a lifetime of preparation for this new role.

"When you come from a big family you learn that not everything can be perfect, like chaos is the norm. And that really helps with a nightly show because if you're doing a show every night 200 times a year, and we just did 1,500 shows, you have to really enjoy … surf(ing) the chaos."

Laura Phillips produces CBS4 News at 10 and various special projects. She has been producing news in Denver since 2006. Follow her on Twitter @LA_Phillips.