Real Colbert: 'I Embody the Bullshit'

It wasn't Stephen Colbert's on-screen persona who turned up for a recent Rolling Stone interview, but the real Stephen Colbert—a man as "preppy, earnest, and gentle" as Ned Flanders. In the interview, Colbert dishes on his style of deconstructing the news: "I take the sausage backwards, and I restuff the sausage. ... We falsely construct the hypocrisy. And I embody the bullshit until hopefully you can smell it." More highlights:

• Colbert's character owes an apology to only one person—"you'd never know who it was" and he's not telling.
• No Stephen Colbert movie in the works—he's too busy and too "unambitious."
• Colbert's a devout Catholic: "I'm moved by the words of Christ, and I'll leave it at that."
• Collaboration with Jon Stewart: "I love that it's my own show, but there's still a connection with Jon, and he's a fantastic, fantastic mentor and friend."

(More Stephen Colbert stories.)