Michelle Williams Distracted Colbert Across 11 Late Show Seasons
Stephen Colbert said michelle williams was the guest who left him most distracted across 11 Late Show seasons, telling a Wednesday episode of the Strike Force Five podcast that he could not keep his eyes steady during her first appearance. The remark lands as his run on The Late Show winds down, with the final episode set for May 21.
Colbert said he was “wildly attracted” to Williams when she first sat down with him in April 2019, and he described the interview as a struggle to look anywhere but at his own hands. “Like, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I did not know what to do with my eyeballs when Michelle Williams was on for the first time,” he said.
April 2019 on Colbert’s desk
Williams first visited The Late Show in April 2019 to promote Fosse/Verdon, and Colbert’s story about that interview now becomes part of the show’s final stretch. The podcast exchange, shared with Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and John Oliver, was made in honor of Colbert’s last Late Show episodes, turning a throwaway late-night memory into an on-the-record footnote from a host who has spent 11 seasons across from some of the industry’s biggest names.
Colbert did not stop with Williams. He said, “I used to have a Rachel Weisz problem,” and added, “When Rachel Weisz would be on, I would leave the building for fear I would say something stupid.” He also singled out Rebecca Ferguson and Andrew Garfield, calling Garfield “so attractive” and recalling a January 2017 Late Show kiss with him: “Or he kissed me.”
Andrew Garfield in January 2017
The Andrew Garfield aside gives the story its sharpest contrast. Colbert’s joke about being unable to control his reactions sits beside a real on-air moment from January 2017, when he and Garfield shared what he called an intimate kiss. That is the kind of detail late-night viewers remember because it shows how guests can shape the tone of an interview before a single question lands.
Williams returned to the show in April 2025 to discuss Dying for Sex, giving Colbert one more recent data point in a career full of high-profile bookings. For viewers tracking his final weeks, the useful takeaway is simple: his last episodes are not just closing a chapter, they are prompting him to put names on the guests who most derailed his composure, and Williams is first on that list.
