James Corden has candidly opened up on his strengths and weaknesses as a presenter during an appearance at The Podcast Show festival in London. The Gavin and Stacey actor recently swapped his major hosting role on The Late Late Show in the US to front a new podcast, This Life Of Mine, on Sirius XM.
However, James admitted that despite his breadth of experience interviewing Hollywood stars, he still struggles to embrace one key aspect of being a podcaster. James divulged during a conversation at the event with SiriusXM’s President and Chief Content Office Scott Greenstein: “You’ve got to create and try and show the truest version of yourself.
“I think the idea of being an on-screen persona has changed a lot. I think people want to feel like they know you, and they can almost touch you, and engage with you, which I’m not always very good at.”
The star further explained: “I think I used to feel quite reticent to do that, because I had a show that was on every day, so I used to think, ‘God, I already do a show that’s on an hour a day on TV – and then it goes on YouTube and all those things – I don’t really want to be broadcasting from my kitchen’.
“But I completely understand that there’s a thread, almost, that goes from the listener, or the audience, to the content creator, and this show is so much about the guest. So, really, my job is just to create an environment for the guest to be free to speak – so it’s an interview show, more than what a traditional podcast is, which is people going, ‘This is how I feel about something’.
“What I try to do is give them the space and the freedom to feel safe, and talk about things that they love.”
James also addressed an issue he had with his former role hosting CBS talk show The Late Late Show, where the frequent interruptions of commercial breaks left him feeling “frustrated”.
“It was the idea that every six minutes you’ve got to go to a commercial break,” he admitted, before sharing that he much preferred filming spontaneous segments like Carpool Karaoke, which attracted influential celebrity guests including Adele, Sir Paul McCartney and Michelle Obama.
“I found this intimacy in the interviews and the conversations that felt very organic and very safe and felt like people would respond to it,” he added.
James has found more creative freedom on his new SiriusXM podcast, which aims to tell celebrities’ “never-heard before” stories.
After debuting in the US in February, the actor’s podcast has so far featured stars from Kim Kardashian and David Beckham, to Martin Scorsese and Dr Dre.
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