Colbert on Geraldo, Stone, and “Papa Bear”

Stephen Colbert shed the Stephen Colbert persona and got serious at a New Yorker Festival panel last weekend.

The Huffington Post’s Rachel Sklar writes about the discussion with the fake newsman. Colbert reveals the basis of his character was not Bill O’Reilly, but a combo of two other tvnewsers — Stone Phillips and Geraldo Rivera. “National reporters with a real sense of mission,” described Colbert.

“Then he looked around and realized that the real bombast was coming from commentators…like Bill O’Reilly. And it went from there,” writes Sklar.

Colbert also described a “key point” in playing an O’Reilly role. “He trumpets his power while in the same breath declaring his victimhood,” he said.