James Corden talks coming home and why Prince Harry and Meghan are off limits as he leaves Late Late Show
FROM Adele to Prince Harry, Joe Biden to Michelle Obama and Tom Cruise to Paul McCartney, James Corden’s little black book reads like a Who’s Who of Hollywood.
Not too shabby for a “chubby guy” from High Wycombe.
But after eight years in Los Angeles hosting one of America’s biggest late-night shows, the boy from Bucks is coming home.
In James’s only global interview, the star — whose face remains plastered on billboards across Tinseltown — turned down an eight-figure bonus to stay Stateside.
He said: “It was a lovely offer from my boss but staying for the money would be the wrong reason to do it. You have got to keep changing stuff up. You have to keep going and exploring and finding more stuff about yourself in the journey of it all.
“Right now, there are a lot of unknowns. It just feels very strange — knowing everything is going to change but trying to hang on to the fact that change is fundamentally a good thing.
“I really hope I haven’t taken any of the last eight years for granted — I always knew it would end at some point.
“So many people say, ‘I am going to crack America’ and it doesn’t work out for them, and sometimes that has nothing to do with talent and ability. All of your chances are half luck.
“I don’t know what I have done to deserve so many wonderful memories. Even if tonight’s show is my last day in employment anywhere, ever again, I have had an incredible run.
“I co-wrote and co-created a show [Gavin and Stacey] that is loved in my own country. I am so proud of that achievement.
“I worked on Broadway and national theatre twice. I had one summer in 2012 when I won the best actor award, I’ve been lucky enough to be in a couple of films I am very proud of, and worked with actors whose orbit I got to be in, and then I launched a late-night talk show.
“It is inconceivable to me. If you add it all up, it makes no sense.”
Tomorrow night, millions in the US will tune in to see the Bafta and Tony-winning actor, 44, front his 1,200th and last Late Late Show with James Corden. It airs in the UK on Friday at 10.15pm.
James has been credited with revolutionising late-night telly thanks to segments such as Carpool Karaoke and Crosswalk the Musical, as well as death-defying stunts alongside A-listers and his heartfelt monologues to camera.
By cleverly editing and posting brilliant clips online, he has made linear television relevant in an increasingly streaming-only age.
Framed outside his office, in the Late Late Show’s CBS studios, is a letter from YouTube’s CEO congratulating James on securing one billion views. Since then, this has risen to a record 10.1billion hits.
Such figures are both overwhelming and unprecedented.
The Late Late Show has also been nominated for 27 Emmys, winning seven.
The final episode features a Lion King cameo from Cruise, and an emotional Carpool Karaoke — which canny James owns the rights to — with Adele.
In it, the singer credits her good pal for helping her get over her divorce from Simon Konecki.
James reckons he will be a “blubbering mess” once the show airs — “but I will be really trying to keep it together though because I do not want to become a meme”.
No longer driven by fame or money, James, happily married for ten years to Julia, mother of their three children, is returning to the UK to spend more time with his family.
So a sort of well-connected house-husband, then?
“Well, right now I don’t know what I am going to do,” he clarifies.
“I think I have to spend a little bit of time letting this all go. It has been a noisy eight years, and right now I am going to try and focus on having a little bit of silence.
“The biggest thing for me at the moment is overseeing the move. We have to be there for our kids.
“I can’t be travelling and leaving them. I think there will be a sense of real displacement for them and I am very conscious of that, and of making the environment as good as possible for them. But yes, I do hope I have got another story in me to tell.
“I hope I can have one more idea that will mean a lot to people.”
At this point, we both pause and look at the TV screen in his Diptyque candle-peppered office, only to see his beloved West Ham concede a goal.
“This isn’t going to be a good interview,” he jokes (I think).
His phone then bleeps, twice, and we both stare at it. Up pops “Harry New”.
Yep, it’s his mate in Montecito, Prince Harry. Poor James has to bat my hand away as, instinctively, I try to read the messages.
“Oh God, wouldn’t you just love to see these,” he goads, snatching his iPhone away.
But he will not be drawn on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex because, he says not unreasonably, “it’s not fair”.
On the subject of fairness, or otherwise, and like many in the public eye in 2023, James can regularly get a hard time on social media.
By nature a perky soul, he is loath to be drawn on social media hostility. However, he admits to deleting Twitter two years ago. In real life, James has remained determined to stay as (relatively) normal as is possible.
But he admits the “most LA thing” he’ll be bringing back to the UK is a meditation habit.
He said: “I try and do 20 minutes of silence and breathing. I whole-heartedly recommend it.”
He also readily admits to dabbling with therapy to aid his mental health, and credits his family and best mate, producer Ben Winston for keeping his feet firmly on the ground.
So how “normal” is he really? “Of course I’m normal — it would be really, really silly for me not to be,” he insists.
“You need to make a choice — you have to remain a person. I still supermarket shop and I love a potter around on a Sunday.
“I don’t know what there is to be afraid of because people are so lovely. Every facet of my life is like a picnic. Every single inch of my last eight years has been amazing — I just feel so incredibly lucky.”
Of course, luck has little to do with it. Alongside Ruth Jones, he co-wrote the smash hit BBC series, Gavin and Stacey.
The 2019 Christmas special drew in a record 18million viewers and, to this day, people stop him in the street to ask after Smithy. But will there be a fourth series of the award-winning comedy drama?
James smiles and says: “In truth, Ruth and I met up at Christmas. And I know it will be a disappointment, but we didn’t talk about it in life-growing forms.
“It is whether we decide to get into a room together and honestly I could not tell you what the chances are of that. We both have to be ready and right.”
For now, though, he’s clearly just itching to start the next adventure — a return to his home country.
He smiles: “I am excited to be at home, excited to embrace this island I think is magnificent. You want to say to some people, ‘I wish you could see this place from a distance and what it has got to offer and how special and beautiful it is’ — a country that hits pots and pans at the same time. This country is beautiful; it is perfect, it is flawed, and of course there are complexities.
“But when I see it from a distance, it just shines out to me as the most special place you could wish to be.”
Welcome home, James.