TRANSCRIPT

MICHAEL: So let me ask you. Are you the "Joe Biden" to David Letterman? Are you sitting there, in case David Letterman cannot operate due to--

CRAIG: Are you suggesting that perhaps I think I'm a heartbeat away from 11:30?

MICHAEL: Well, more important than that, does CBS think you're a heartbeat away from 11:30?

CRAIG: I don't know. I don't know, and I don't know that I... I don't know that I care.

MICHAEL: Oh, come on, please.

CRAIG: No, I swear. I swear. Now let me explain. I thought... I did for a long time. When I took the job at first, I thought, "When Dave retires, I really want to do 11:30." And I really did, and I really did, and I really did. But what happens is -- now you'll know this, because you're doing a show like this. You don't HAVE to do this. You're starting to do what you LIKE, right? Because you got a little dough now. And that's kind of how I really feel. I don't know if I want to be any more famous than I am now. There's a world of pain that comes with 11:30 that doesn't exist at 12:30.

MICHAEL: Yes, but you've had.... if you said this three years ago...

CRAIG: I'd have just said I was full of shit, yeah, but...

MICHAEL: No, no, I would say the opposite. I would say three years ago, you were just starting. That time period was in… the worst in the dog house, it had no audience, and you have a style of your own, that's nowhere else on television, beyond your own accent, so I gotta believe Les Moonves - who runs CBS – has gotta be saying: “If David ever decided to go to ABC –“ which of course, I tried to get him to do at one time...

CRAIG: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

MICHAEL: ... and completely screwed it up -- but that would be the natural place. And you'd be competitive.

CRAIG: Yeah, I think I could do it. I just don't know. I mean, I swear, it's not entirely political I'm saying it. I swear, I don't actually know if I want to do it. There are two things about it: One, is my admiration and respect for David. Like, David should decide when David wants to leave. That I absolutely agree with.

MICHAEL: Well, of course. That I agree with.

CRAIG: So if Dave wants to sit for another five years, do I want to be at 11:30-- er, 12:30 for another five years? I don't know.

MICHAEL: Do you think what you do, which sometimes is a 15-minute monologue about something that happened in your life, it may be completely off the wall, ends up being the definition of your show? People love it, that… how honest you are?

CRAIG: It's weird, yeah.

MICHAEL: Do you think they would let you do that at 11:30?

CRAIG: Well, that's a problem, yeah.

MICHAEL: Or, because it's so late, nobody watches it? At the network.

CRAIG: That, I think, is part of what happens, is that: The reason why I got able to do that monologue is because the timeslot was protected, because nobody cared. Dave owned it. And the, you know, they had put… the guy before me, he was doing whatever he was doing. And before that, it was... it was Tom. And so it was... it was kind of like a very different type of show. The time slot was protected, and nobody cared, and so I just started to ramble. If the time slot is NOT protected, I don't know how much freedom I would get. 11:30 is not a protected area. You know, you move into... it's back into the... into the capitalist world. I'm in this very kind of "government-protected" area. Subsidized.

MICHAEL: But it lets you be yourself. Your voice is completely unique from your own background. I mean, you'll come out and do 15 minutes on Britney Spears.

CRAIG: Sure.

MICHAEL: And the opposite of what everybody else did, right?

CRAIG: Yeah.

MICHAEL: You didn't attack her like everybody else did.

CRAIG: No, I didn't. There was -- there was some action that came into that. That came after that monologue. Some media reaction to it.

CLIP FROM BRITNEY SPEARS MONOLOGUE: And it looks to me a little bit that Britney Spears has a similar problem going on with alcohol. This woman has two kids. She is 25 years old. She's a baby, herself.

CRAIG: Really, what I was talking about, the -- I think the most telling part of the reaction for the monologue about Britney Spears was really… that monologue was about my own suicide attempt. That's what that monologue was about. But what became 15 minutes of I was -- you know, I was at the point of going to commit suicide in my own life, and then I talked to -- and I paralleled that with Britney Spears' troubles that week end. It became about Britney Spears' haircut and the monologue, and how I wouldn't make fun of her. And not about the fact that I was saying: “Hey, I once was at such a low point in my life that i was going to kill myself.” And so I think that's a great -- the great leveling thing about the media is, it became more about Britney Spears' haircut than it became about my mortality, which I think the media cares more about. And they're probably right to.

MICHAEL: But they also learned more about you because the public knows about you being the boss in Drew Carey for eight years.

CRAIG: Right.

MICHAEL: The public knows about a lot of things of you in a public way. They don't know what led up to you doing a monologue about a thought of suicide.

CRAIG: Right.

MICHAEL: They don't know what a difficult background you had. And this, all of a sudden, now you become a sympathetic character, not a talk show host.

CRAIG: Right. I suppose that at a certain point --

MICHAEL: Did you think that through?

CRAIG: Yeah.

MICHAEL: Did you say, “My father dies. I'm going to come back the next day on the show and I'm going to do a 15-minute –“

CRAIG: Oh, God, no.

MICHAEL: “-- Eulogy.” So it just happened?

CRAIG: It has to. The thing is, I have to do a show. When my father died, I phoned my mother up. You know, I was on the phone with my mother all the time anyway. And I said, “I've got to go to work tomorrow or maybe I should just come home.” And I had been there for my father in the hospital. I came back because we didn't know he was going to die or how long he was going to make it. So I said good-bye to my father. I came back. He died while I was on the plane coming back to America. So I phoned my mother and said, “What should I do?” And she said, “Do what your father would have done.” And my father would have gone to work, and then gone home for the funeral. So that's what I did. I went to work that morning not knowing what I was going to do. But when I went in, and everybody -- because when you are bereaved, as anyone who has been bereaved knows this, everyone is kind of -- it's kind of like you're diseased in some way. Nobody really wants to talk with you, and go near you, especially if you're in a position of authority over them.

MICHAEL: Or say something quick and run.

CRAIG: Yeah, they just want to go "uh, dadadada... babababa." And so I realized the only way I was going to get through the next couple days before I left for scotland for the funeral was to actually tell people in the office, “Look, this is how I feel. This is how—“ And then I realized, my whole… I can't go out there and do ball-score jokes or politician jokes tonight because my father has died. It's more than an elephant in the room. It's what I am.

CLIP FROM FATHER’S EULOGY MONOLOGUE: From his bed, he put his hand on my head, like that. It was amazing. It was great. He was a man of few words, my dad. I get my talking from my mother's side of the family. But I was never in any doubt about that he loved me.

MICHAEL: Didn't that kind of monologue, which you've done many, and talked about the rough life of trying to break it into the entertainment business, to come to america and deal with drugs and deal with alcohol, didn't that endear you to your... the people who may not have all those problems but some of them?

CRAIG: I think it endears you to some of the people because there is a humanity involved.

CLIP FROM MOTHER’S EULOGY MONOLOGUE: Tonight, I'm remembering -- remembering my mother. Now, like I said, I don't like to break out into vulnerability like this.

CRAIG: I think any kind of -- any kind of performance or creation of any kind of art, whether it's a monologue or a book or a movie or anything, if there is humanity in it then people will react to it. And if -- the same for me, as an audience member -- if there is no real humanity in a character… like "The Fabulous Four" movie, I don't care about. The "Ironman" movie, I was really interested in. It's not because of the effects are any better or worse. It's because I was really interested in the character that -- you know, that Jon Favreau had put together with Robert Downey Jr, and the movie they made about somebody on a journey and to think about something. I'm more concerned about human thought processes, and what it's like to be alive than I am about bling, or how famous I can get.

MICHAEL: But you've never prepared for this performance of being a late-night talk show host, did you?

CRAIG: I wasn't interested in it. Yeah. I never thought about it.

MICHAEL: But did you always have -- i think you wrote that you came to visit your uncle when you were 13.

CRAIG: 13.

MICHAEL: In Long Island.

CRAIG: Yes.

MICHAEL: So you had seen the U.S.

CRAIG: I had had seen America, yeah.

MICHAEL: Was your goal to come to America, to get back to America?

CRAIG: Always. Always. America embodied for me the opposite of what was -- would have been the natural path for me to take.

MICHAEL: Which is what?

CRAIG: A life of quiet bitterness. America embodied a flamboyant embrace of -- of energy and attempting endeavors. Where--

MICHAEL: Do you still have that?

CRAIG: Yes, yes, I do. Because America has something that I have never-- in terms of any other country -- I've been around a bit. I've shopped around, it's not like I came here went, fine, I'll take it. I mean, I had a look around. And what it seems to me that exists in America that exists nowhere else, is that failure is seen as an absolute necessary step on the way to success. Whereas failure, where I originally come from, is seen as disgrace. There is no disgrace in failure in America. It's just failure. Let's get going.

MICHAEL: That's true.

CRAIG: We failed, let's get on. The movie crashed. Well, let's make another movie. You know, that plane didn't work. We'll make another plane. It's not, “Oh, what's the point in trying?” It's, “Let's go again.” So there is an energy and a vitality about the American spirit, which sang to me from when I was a child.

MICHAEL: But then what got you, when you came here, so depressed that you contemplated suicide?

CRAIG: Oh, that was before I came here.

MICHAEL: Before you came to this country?

CRAIG: Oh, yeah. Well, I had come to this country and been kicked out-- well, not kicked out, but left before --

MICHAEL: Post-Drew Carey?

CRAIG: No, when I start on the "Drew Carey Show", I was already three years sober.

MICHAEL: Oh.

CRAIG: So all of that stuff -- the momentum of my life began in earnest on the 18th of February, 1992, when I got sober in the UK.

MICHAEL: Why is that date so important?

CRAIG: That's the last time I had a drink.

MICHAEL: Yeah, but why did you decide on that day?

CRAIG: Well, I didn't decide that was going to be the day. That just happens to be the day.

MICHAEL: Did you, like, fall down drunk and they took you to the hospital?

CRAIG: You know, you would think. That wasn't the way. I knew that there was -- it was a bank holiday weekend in Britain, and I knew this guy I used to drink with and used to take coke with, and he had kind of disappeared off the scene and become hugely successful in business. And I called him up. And I said, “Hey, I need to get out of this life.” And so he said, “I can help you.” And he drove me to a treatment center. And I'll never forget what he said as I got out of the car because I was very upset. I thought this is the worst day of my life. I'm at a home -- a show business hospital. A home for "tired celebrities." In Britain, yeah. And he said, “Don't worry, Craig.” I remember him saying this. “Don't worry, Craig, the war is over, and you lost. But Germany and Japan lost, and they're doing okay now, as well.”

MICHAEL: Wow.

CRAIG: And I thought, you know what, that was a kind of -- there was inspiration in that. It was a failure but not disgrace.

MICHAEL: So you made your own decision, which is a big thing. A lot of people have to go very further down.

CRAIG: Yeah, I was very lucky. I was very lucky.

MICHAEL: And no desire ever to go back?

CRAIG: No, that's the strange part of it: The evidence of my life is overwhelmingly in favor of me not drinking alcohol again, right? The empirical evidence of it is right there. However, if I said to you that I never thought about drinking again, I would be lying. Now, I haven't done it. Nor do I intend to do it today. But I -- every now and again, it sings to me. Which is clearly the mark of an unsettled mind.

MICHAEL: The landscape is constantly changing. I think jimmy fallon is going to be replacing conan.

CRAIG: Right.

MICHAEL: So you have a new competitor.

CRAIG: Yeah.

MICHAEL: Does that make you nervous or are you just going to do you do what you do and we'll see what happens?

CRAIG: I'll do what I do and see what happens. That's all I can do. I think everyone is saying, “Jimmy will be great,” or “Jimmy will fail,” and nobody knows. Jimmy doesn't know. Lorne Michaels doesn't know. Jeff Zucker doesn't know. Les Mooves doesn't know. I don't know. David Letterman doesn't know. You don't know. We'll see what happens.

MICHAEL: I suspect, because your show is so much on the run, that it's going to be tougher for him than they all think, because you have done the three years that he hasn't done yet.

CRAIG: Yeah.

MICHAEL: You've got your momentum.

CRAIG: Yeah. He's going to --

MICHAEL: He's funny.

CRAIG: He's a funny guy, he is personable, he's likeable, and I think he'll do okay. I think he'll do all right. Am I worried about it? Nah, because TV needs people who can talk on camera. So I'll have a job.

MICHAEL: Do I believe that you're not worried about it? I don't totally believe that 100%.

CRAIG: I don't know if I totally believe it 100%. But I mostly... I mostly am not worried about it. I think your cynicism is about the same as mine.

MICHAEL: Well enough not to really hurt you, but not so well to really give you trouble--

CRAIG: Yeah, I think that's true. I think in my best moments, I don't worry about it at all. And I think in -- you know, at 4 o'clock in the morning sometimes, yeah, maybe it bothers me, yeah.

MICHAEL: Eyes open up and say, what --

CRAIG: FALLON! He's coming!

MICHAEL: He's funny!

CRAIG: His cuteness and personability will destroy me. And then I think, what the hell.

MICHAEL: So as you're doing the show going forward, there is going to be a tremendous amount of fear out there. The economy is going to be in turmoil. What kind of guests do you then have? Do you ignore it and just have fun on the show? Do you go right into it and discuss it? Do you do monologues about it?

CRAIG: Yes is the answer to all of that. On the nights I feel like talking about it, I'll talk about it. On the nights that I feel like ignoring it, I'll ignore it. You know, I do a show -- we do a show every night. So there are opportunities to -- you know, I don't carve a manifesto for the show, I never have done. So it's not like we're never going to do that, we're never going to do this. It's like, when I said -- when I did not make fun of Britney Spears, I was very clear that night to say, A: I don't care if anyone else does. They can do that. And the other thing is, don't think this is a free pass to drunken celebrities. You know, I mean, if there is a good Mel Gibson joke, I'm doing it, you know. It's -- but it's got to be good and got to make me feel okay about doing it.

MICHAEL: And do you do this stream of consciousness when you stand up? Do you just go? Or do you prepare?

CRAIG: To a degree. I mean, I have bullet points in the teleprompter in the camera, and I work with them. I don't -- I don't have a script. And oft-times, I forget the bullet points and just go anywhere. It depends. I have a safety net, though. I don't work without a net.

MICHAEL: And you have a sense of when you have gone just about the right amount of time to move on?

CRAIG: No, I have a clock, just off camera. I think about eight-and-a-half minutes, then I go, I take a break. And so I just take a break. It's really just radio with a suit on. I mean, really, that's all it is. You just go up and you talk for a bit. Like guys are doing it all -- Howard Stern has been doing this for years. You know, I mean, guys are doing it all over the country. They go out in the morning, they do five-hour radio shows with, you know, the day's newspaper in front of them.

MICHAEL: But it's totally different than like Drew Carey where you sit around in a trailer all day, they come out and say, Craig, get over here, you do your three lines and you're back in your trailer.

CRAIG: Well, when I was working on Drew's show, I would do that, the three-line things. I was intensely frustrated by that. That was the worst part of the job for me. But In the trailer, I wrote three-- three movies I made, and, in the great tradition of the movie business, about half a dozen I got paid a fortune for that never got made. So I used my time in the trailer in industry. Industry or industrious behavior is how people of my ethnicity or my background express love. So self-love or the love for a family involves industry. If I work a lot, if I work a lot, my son will have money. You know, will have security. If I -- you know, and that’s --

MICHAEL: And you're very close to your son?

CRAIG: I'm very. Yeah. It's --

MICHAEL: How old?

CRAIG: He's 7 1/2 now.

MICHAEL: Well, your show is completely refreshing.

CRAIG: Thank you.

MICHAEL: It is completely unique in a pretty stringent format. And it's had a monumental growth. Over three years from nothing to totally competitive with the incumbent is pretty awesome.

CRAIG: I know, it's scary.

MICHAEL: So I -- well, it means that there will be a lot of opportunity in that area or any other area.

CRAIG: I hope so. That's what what I want. I mean, I think, you know, if you would have said to me ten years ago, or when I came to America 14 years ago, you can sit down and have a conversation with Michael Eisner for 45 minutes or half an hour, I would have said, well, that's pie in the sky. I won't be able to do that. And now I'm happy to do it. And the thing is, but I'm not trying to sell you a movie now, -- it's too late. You know what I mean?

MICHAEL: Let me give you the other side, is, I've sat in rooms since Dick Cavett was on the air. And Jack Paar.

CRAIG: Right.

MICHAEL: And trying to find somebody who can do what you do.

CRAIG: Yeah.

MICHAEL: Is much harder than finding somebody that can do a three-camera comedy or a movie. It is a uniqueness that is -- it's very, very hard.

CRAIG: It's an odd thing to possess and I'm aware of that. It's an odd talent to own. I don't know why I have it. But I know I have it.

MICHAEL: You clearly have it, and I thank you very much for sharing it here and explaining to us.

CRAIG: Thanks, Michael, nice to talk to you.

MICHAEL: Nice to talk to you.