I mentioned this in my post about Stephen Colbert yesterday, but y’all know I stan Michelle Williams so she gets a standalone post! As we discussed, Stephen welcomed his Strike Force Five cohosts as guests on the Monday night episode of The Late Show. Those cohosts are John Oliver, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Fallon, and the name dates back to the 2023 Writers Guild strike when the talk show hosts wanted to drum up solidarity and income for their striking staff writers. So the boys of Strike Force Five went straight from taping The Late Show to recording an impromptu episode of their old podcast, and a lot of the pod included everyone asking Stephen different career retrospective questions. One such question was if he’d ever had a guest who was gorgeous to the point of distraction, and Stephen’s immediate response was: Michelle Williams. She was first on the show in 2016, and apparently reduced Stephen to a veritable cartoon character in lovestruck awe. Aw!
Stephen Colbert has seen it all as a late-night talk show host — but even he couldn’t predict how beautiful Michelle Williams would be upon their first meeting.
During the Wednesday, May 13, episode of the “Strike Force Five” podcast, Colbert, 62, dished about which of his past guests on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert “was so attractive” that he “found it distracting.”
“I’ll tell you who I did not expect to be wildly attracted to. Like, I didn’t know what to do with myself,” Colbert told his podcast cohosts, fellow late night hosts, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and Oliver.
He confessed, “I did not — I like this person’s work, but I never thought of them as a bombshell — I did not know what to do with my eyeballs when Michelle Williams was on for the first time.”
Colbert recalled the Dawson’s Creek alum, 45, stopping him in his tracks when she was on stage with him.
“She sat down across from me and I went, ‘F***. What is wrong with my head? I’d better not look directly at her for this entire interview,’” he revealed. “There was something about her vibe. Her face. Everything. … She’s so beautiful.”
Colbert — who is married to wife Evelyn McGee Colbert — also pointed to Rachel Wiesz, Rebecca Ferguson and Andrew Garfield as actors who left him in awe.
“I used to have a Rachel Weisz problem,” he said. “I’ve recovered. When Rachel Weisz would be on The Dialy Show, I would leave the building for fear I would say something stupid. I was afraid I would stand in the hallway and go, ‘Hi.’”
As the group of entertainers laughed, Colbert added, “Who else is wildly attractive? Rebecca Ferguson. Because she brings game.”
He also shared, “Andrew Garfield, he is so attractive,” before noting that he kissed the Spider-Man actor on his show as well.
I love Michelle Williams getting her bombshell flowers here! I really hope she’s able to show up in some way during the last week (aka next week, sob). Entertainment Weekly at least took the bait, and helpfully chronicled all four appearances Michelle has made on The Late Show during Stephen’s tenure. As mentioned above, the first, pivotal meeting went down in 2016. Michelle was promoting her role in Blackbird on Broadway (a two-hander play with Jeff Daniels where they’re onstage for basically two hours with no intermission; I saw it and she earned every inch of her Tony nomination that year). The crazy thing about that being the encounter that gave Stephen thunderbolts is that Michelle had grown her hair out for the role, including… baby bangs, dun dun DUN! Can you imagine how gobsmackingly beautiful her face and vibe must have been to overcome the bangs and STILL mesmerize Stephen??
Full confession: I (briefly) met Michelle Williams once many many years ago. Well, “met” is a stretch; it was a screening of Wendy & Lucy and she came at the end to answer a few audience questions. No makeup, not really dressed up, still beautiful, but definitely reserved. I can’t fully explain what this means, but my gut response to seeing her in person back then was, “She’s like a pencil sketch.”
Photos credit: Darla Khazei/INSTARimages and via YouTube