>>^ Late Late Show chair. A gang of British
telly makers led by Ben Winston, an old
friend of Corden, relocated to Hollywood
with him to help him rejig and relaunch
the show. (GQ profiled this gang and their
Entourage-like ascent in Los Angeles in
March 2017.)
He had married his long-term girl-
friend, Julia Carey, in 2012. By the time of
the America move they’d had two of their
three children. They waved goodbye to
Malcolm and Margaret Corden, Julia’s family
too, and went west. Before they departed, a
childhood friend of Julia’s, Adele Laurie Blue
Adkins – only bloody Adele – had prom-
ised she would come out to help Corden’s
show if she could. About eight months into
his run, Adele made good on that promise
and flew out to film a “Carpool Karaoke”
segment with Corden that has since been
viewed 200 million times online. Elton,
Madonna, McCartney: they’ve
all followed her into the front
seat of Corden’s camera-rigged
car. “Carpool Karaoke”, conceived
as an amusing stunt when his
run on the show began, super-
charged The Late Late Show’s
popularity. Its YouTube channel
recently became the quickest ever
to reach 20m subscribers.The car pulls up outside
the Westminster
studio and, climb-
ing out, Corden says,
“You know what I’ve
realised? That table, the meta-
phorical table I always wanted
to budge my way onto, it never
existed. Life only feels like a race.
I’ve realised you can’t waste it looking left
and right, asking, ‘Am I ahead?’ Because
you’re in a race with nobody.” Another inter-
pretation of this, I humbly suggest, may
be that Corden is so far out ahead right
now that it only looks like an empty field.
He snorts. “But it’s almost proven, isn’t
it? That wealth, fame, these things do not
make people happy. And happiness has to
be the pursuit.”
We wander up the studio steps and into
Corden’s dressing room, where there’s a bright
pink waffle blanket on the sofa. Children’s
snacks. An open Calpol. Corden’s eldest son,
Max, has been hanging out backstage this
week. The four London shows are a season
finale of sorts, a goodbye run of Late Late
shows before everyone breaks for a summer
hiatus. Corden recently told his son that as
soon as this London work was through the
family were going on a fortnight’s holiday
together: the first time they’d managedanything so uninterrupted in years. “Max’s
face,” Corden says, “it was beautiful.”
Out in the empty studio, Corden’s script
for the coming show scrolls forwards and
backwards on a strategically placed monitor.
Probably a teleprompter, somewhere, is prac-
tising their flow after some stern words about
the sluggish rate of scroll during yesterday’s
rehearsal. I catch glimpses of what’s written: a
speech that Corden will deliver from his desk
about the Grenfell Tower fire of 2017, the dis-
aster itself, the lacklustre political response to
it. There are some properly rousing lines; also,
scattered through, one or two jokes.
We talk about this backstage. Corden says,
“No, no, they’re not jokes. But you’ve got to
have something” – lurches, surprises, emotional
shifts, he means – “otherwise you’re just
reading the news. Otherwise it’s just a lecture.”
Afterwards, out in the studio, he runs
through the Grenfell speech, varying pace,projection, how much of his obvious fury he
lets inflect the words. Corden is among those
public figures, Adele and Stormzy included,
who’ve stood up for Grenfell survivors. When
it comes time to film the speech in front of
an audience he gives it an angry-incredulous
quality that’s extremely powerful. The sillier
lines no longer register as jokes, rather as the
plausible way an innately irreverent man might
try to comprehend the incomprehensible.
“Was it all right, the Grenfell stuff?” he asks,
a couple of days later, when we meet again.
I’ve noticed this about Corden: stuff that
seems to bounce off him will seep in, perco-
late, reappear later. He says of his friend Harry
Styles that what makes him unusual among
famous people is that he’s both interesting and
interested. There’s some truth to this about
Corden too. The loudest voice in most circles,
the punchliner. But he’s paying attention.
This morning he’s in a stew about British poli-
tics, the helpless circularity of a British summerdominated by Tory leadership struggles and
still more Brexit. Corden wrings his hands:
what’s our way out of this? For someone of his
political persuasion (NeverBoris, NeverJeremy,
a centre- grounder pining for that missed off-
ramp with one or other Miliband brother)
these are infuriating times. When Tom Watson
visits The Late Late Show set, Corden will come
close to pleading with the Labour MP to break
from Corbyn and take a stand for the centre-
left. In his dressing room, somebody talks up
the Eton-educated Rory Stewart as “the best
of the bunch” among possible Tory leaders.
Corden doesn’t hesitate: “Best of a bunch,” he
growls, “of c***s.”
Back when GQ last caught up with Corden
it was the middle of 2016 – those last rational
days before the coming of Trump. The Late
Late Show had been under Corden’s stew-
ardship for about a year, broadcasting in a
slot right after Stephen Colbert. Colbert’s talk
show was criticised, back then, for
its tonal uncertainty. What was
its aim? What was its mission?
Corden’s show in contrast was
seen as confident and sure footed
and fun, fun, fun. Then Trump got
elected. This was the spur Colbert
had been missing. Three years into
the ugly, Colbert’s show is full of
purpose and anger. People adore it.
Where has that left Corden
and the fun, fun, fun machine?
“I don’t think anybody who
watched our show would ques-
tion where we stand politically,”
Corden says. But he concedes it
isn’t easy following Colbert, who,
in his nightly pillorying of Trump,
has few equals. Corden has always
been hesitant, as a man from High
Wycombe, about hectoring a pan-American
audience on their politics. “Only, it doesn’t
really feel like a battle of left and right any
more. It doesn’t feel like Democrats versus
Republicans. Right now, it feels like good
versus bad. Something like the Muslim ban?
It’s wrong. It’s inciting hatred. So it’s fair
game. I feel quite comfortable in saying I
don’t agree.”
Corden takes his phone from his pocket and
calls up a YouTube video of a Late Late Show
skit they wrote, rehearsed and recorded right
after Trump’s sudden ban on trans soldiers
serving in the military. I watch: a three-
minute song-and-dance number that riffs on
Nat King Cole and ends with Corden, in top hat
and tails, trilling a message of support while
twirling a rainbow umbrella. “A ban on trans
soldiers? It was abhorrent,” Corden says, “and a
mass of talk show hosts stood up at their desks
to give a take on it.” The song and dance, the
top hat, the umbrella? “That was our take.” >>James Corden in Sir Ian McKellen’s dressing room ahead of the
actor’s appearance on The Late Late Show, 19 June09-19FeatureJamesCorden.indd 144 11/07/2019 13:37
140 GQ.CO.UK SEPTEMBER 2019