The Late Show with Stephen Colbert won’t sign off the air until next year, but one key member of the show is calling it quits early, it seems.
As announced on the Sept. 11 taping of The Late Show, director Jim Hoskinson has announced he will officially be exiting the show bringing an end to a 20-year partnership with Colbert. Hoskinson has worked as director of The Late Show since Colbert took over the show in 2015, but their history goes all the way back to The Colbert Report. In total, Hoskinson directed 1,446 episodes of The Colbert Report and 1,600 episodes of The Late Show during his time working with Colbert across the two hit series.
“We’ve worked together for 20 years and I’ll always certainly think of you as my director,” Colbert said as he welcomed Hoskinson as a guest. He continued, “I wanted to thank you for your confidence, leadership, calmness under pressure, and willingness to try very difficult things at the very last minute. We’ve done hundreds of live shows, and I’ve never worried for a moment that it wouldn’t be right when I got on stage. I could not have done it without you.”
Reflecting on his time working alongside Colbert, Hoskinson admitted that while there were some hairy moments, he was grateful to have a job “where we come in and laugh,” and gushed about the pride he found in being a part of both shows.
“We’re very proud that we’re able to do the show that you have in mind because it is really challenging. I can’t think of another show that uses as many elements, tapes, clips, graphics, and to be able to do that because you want to be able to tell the story with documentation, we’re able to do that and we’re very proud.”
Hoskinson’s retirement from The Late Show comes only days after he won the Emmy for Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series at the Creative Arts Emmys. The award was the first Emmy The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has taken home during the show’s 10-year run.
While the show will go on without Hoskinson, it will indeed go one for several more months to come. With Colbert’s longtime director exiting the show months ahead of The Late Show’s final episode, it has been announced that associate director Yvonne De Mare will take over for the show’s final eight months.
It’s unclear why Hoskinson chose to exit the show ahead of the end of its run, but fans shouldn’t expect a change to the show’s format. While Hoskinson’s exit was announced Sept. 11, it seems that De Mare has been running the show for the last several weeks leading up to the announcement. We're excited to see De Mare steer the ship in these final months and fans can look forward to eight more months of incredible episodes of The Late Show.