341 days ago, our first guest left his late night talk show and moved back to England to drive on the wrong side of the road.

He has a new podcast on Siriusxm, called this life of mine.

Please welcome James Cordon.

Good to see you how you doing.

I’m good.

How are you good?

I was just telling the audience I knew you’d come crawling back.

I knew it, I knew it all along.

Yeah, No, I know it’s hard, hard you miss this at all.

Is there anything about it that you missed?

Well, yes, it’s, it’s a, it’s an adjustment.

Yeah, cuz, I mean you.

We talk about this a lot.

We talk about this a lot.

How long do you think?

How long are you gonna?

I should.

I feel like when the day comes when you say you know I’m gonna stop hosting this show, I really feel like I’m ready to help you or any other host.

Oh really, that would be nice.

You would help me make the transition like when you get out of prison and then there’s an advocate.

It’s exactly right.

That is exactly right, because you don’t un.

You know, you don’t understand how institutionalized you are.

It’s extraordinary, but it’s like you’re in.

You’re institutionalized in a world where you get a standing ovation at the end of every day, and that is, yeah, what I’ve realized is it’s really, it’s really bad for you?

Is it really bad for you, really really bad for you?

Why is it bad for you?

Well, every day to just walk out and people just go?

It’s like it’s.

Honestly, it takes a lot of.

So you’re just telling me that you don’t get that anymore.

I’d go so far as to say I get the opposite.

What about the kids?

You don’t demand that they stand and applaud.

When you come in from nothing I get, I get eye rolls.

Uhhuh, I get.

My youngest daughter is six.

She’s, uh, she’s an, she’s an American.

Yeah right, and she for some reason talk car is holding on to her American accent, but my my, in fact my other daughter’s here, Carrie, who’s come with this, and Max, they they’re sort of their transition slightly easier.

She is like talking like Samantha from Sex in the City.

She’s like I’m not joking,

Oh my God like.

So I’ll come home and no, I don’t get a standing evation.

All I’ll get is Charlotte going.

It’s raining again.

Oh like that, except that you move them right, cuz you get acclimated to wherever you live.

And these kids are young kids and I know, and they thought we had all this money, and now I don’t have this money anymore.

This is the problem.

They thought we had all this money.

Cuz I had all this money.

And now I’m, don’t.

I’m in a play and I don’t have.

It’s like Quidd now, right, or whatever they call it.

It’s yeah.

And so this trip- actually me being back here now we’re going to tape some of the Sirus Xm show, but this is the first time because the kids get like two weeks off at home for Easter break.

So this is the first time the kids are coming back to La and it’s a risk to my wife and I. it is we’ve taken like a big.

It’s a big swing.

What are you going to do?

How are you going to handle it?

I don’t know.

It’s bad.

It’s like because you have to make sure they don’t have fun exactly, but we want them to have a nice time, but we don’t want to be like.

Why did we leave here?

Yeah, right, which, if I’m honest, even I would this been this beautiful weather.

And so me and Jules, my wife, we’re looking at the forecast like: ah, we really could do with a bit of rain.

What do you miss most about the United States?

If anything, maybe not.

Oh no, I miss loads I miss.

I miss loads of stuff I. what about going back to London?

Are they like: welcome back you they do.

They reclaim you warmly.

Yeah, I mean, people are very nice, but no one believes that I wasn’t fired.

I’ll be in a pub.

I’ll be in a pub or something and people be like I be like I like.

Yeah, no, well, my son, you know they were like.

So what’ you come back and I be like.

Well, cuz, Max, I, you know, finished sixth grade and we really wanted him to have a relationship with his grandparents, and we just really thought so they went.

People will honestly be like.

You don’t have to give me that.

That it’s fine.

M like.

Why is that fired?

You got fired, cuz, nobody thinks that you would ever leave.

What is, let’s be honest, a cushy existence.

Can you get a letter from Cbs saying that you’ve been, you were not fired, that you left your own free will?

They don’t know what Cbs is, so they’ll go.

Well, that’s not a real thing.

And then I have to tell them what the show was

And then they’ll go hang on.

It was on at 12:30 at night.

That’s a ridiculous time to put a TV show on.

It sounds like you should just come back because you’re never.

You know what you left and they don’t accept you anymore.

And that’s that.

But this play that you’re doing am now you’re going to be in front of a live audience again, which quite the pay cut.

Jimmy, let me tell you that it is quite the pay cut, but you get that Applause, you get that standing ovation, hopefully at the end.

I don’t know, because it’s I’m doing a, I’m doing a very.

It’s a play.

I’m very excited about it.

Uh, but it’s very serious.

I’ve never done a serious play before.

Oh, you haven’t Drama.

Oh yeah, it’s.

It’s actually quite dark, really, yeah.

So the play is called the constituent, which is written by a bril, a brilliant playright called Joe penal, who wrote one of my favorite plays I ever saw, called blue orange, and the play is are very political play.

It’s about a very timely uh thing that’s happening to a lot of members of parliament in the Uk and perhaps how we’re treating them.

And is there room for empathy and compassion in the world of politics anymore?

And uh, yeah, no, if anyone’s coming expecting a big comedy, they’re going to be really perplexed.

You know, I think I might have told you this one time, but I was in London years ago before you started doing the show here.

You have told me this and I think about it a lot, and I heard that you, I heard about this play.

Uh, what was it called?

One man, two Governors, one man, two.

Everybody said: oh, it’s so great, this guy, James Cordon is so great.

I was like we got to go see it.

So my wife and I, we went, we bought tickets at the thing, we sat way in the back and um, we and we’re waiting for to come out, and your understudy was on that, I know well.

But that-

And I’ve always felt bad about that, it was the first.

Would you mind doing that play for us right now?

I mean that would be.

I think I might.

Is that too much to ask?

No, I, I do,

I’m I, I do.

We do talk a lot about perhaps doing that play again.

Well, that play one man to Governor.

That play was like a big riotous comedy, a big like a romp, really, and and- and I was very fortunate in the- the character that I played would would talk a lot with the audience and actually, um, every night I would get to bring people from the audience up on stage because there was a part of the play right.

I had to get them to move some scenery for me.

So, and that I used to have great fun with that all the when we went to New York.

So the the play you know, went to the National Theater, then it went to the West End and then we went to New York.

Um, I would get to.

Every night we did that play in New York.

There would always be quite amazing people on the show, like you know, like Jean Wilder came to see it and crazy Tom Hanks, and like you know, amazing people would come and you can’t really bring them up on stage, cuz it’s could be seen as disrespectful, you know.

And one night it was raining

And you remember, you know when it rains in New York and the raindrops are like quarters.

This, like everyone, is drenched.

And Olle, who was in the play, said you know who’s in tonight

And I said who, and this was in 2012.

I said who.

He said Donald Trump’s in, and he said he’s the only person you could ever bring up stage.

Bring up on stage, because half the audience don’t really like him anyway.

So you’ll either win with the whole audience or you’ll win with half.

And I was like, ah, it’s not about.

I said, well, I’ll see how the audience are doing in the first 10 minutes, and if it feels like, oh, they’re not really getting into it as much as we’d like, maybe I’ll do it.

So anyway, sure enough, the show starts.

It’s kind of okay, it’s, but it’s lukewarm.

The response.

And I just thought, ah, you know what I’ll do, it

I’ll.

So I went out.

He was deep in the auditorium.

I’d normally take someone from like the first row, and I went out and I grabbed his arm

And I said, uh, I said you’re coming up with me, and he was like, and he like, loved it.

And I got him up

And I said, I said, this is manual labor.

This is something you’ve never done before.

You know, I fired him at one point, cuz it was when The Apprentice was really big and all stuff.

How did his hair look, with all the big wet drops on it?

Oh no, I think he doesn’t walk in the rain.

He doesn’t walk in the rain.

He doesn’t to walk in the rain.

It’s like watching succession.

There’s no, not a drop, but I’ll never forget we brought him up on stage.

I did all this stuff and and uh, and then when?

What we do?

When we brought people up, we send them into the wings and our stage managers would always say to them like: just wait here, you did great

And people would be a bit Shell Shocked because they’d just been on, you know, on a Broadway stage

And he’d say: James is going to shout for you to come back, I’ll open the door, walk back across the stage and back to your seat.

And I said to our stage manager: I said: I’ll never forget this in 2012.

I said: what was he like in the wings?

And he said: oh man, it was like he thought he was the president of the United States.

I promise you that’s true.

He said he went round to the crew, but he did that thing of like shaking their hand, but not in a genuinely like, grateful way, in a way to be like.

You want to know what’s weird.

This is a big deal for you.

He still thinks he’s president of the United States.

James Cordon is here.

His podcast is called this life of mine.

We’ll be right back.

James Gordon is with us.

His podcast, with you can hear on Siriusxm, is called this life of mine.

What does that mean, this life of mine?

Well, each week, the guests choose a place, a person, a possession, a piece of music, a movie and a memory which is significant in their life, and then a lot of homework you give the guests.

They have to come with all this.

That’s true, so they.

So then, each week, we will then talk about the guest’s life.

Uh, and you know, we’ll go really back to where they grew up and what happen with those sort of tempol.

If you like, informing where the discussion goes, it’s it’s, it’s less.

It’s kind of probably more of a show than it is a podcast, or what we’ve come to know podcast as being, and that it’s a very sort of Curative show.

What was Dr Dre’s possession that he brought?

Dr Dre’s possession was his soundboard.

He didn’t bring it.

It was his mixing board where he said he, and then he’s really started opening up and talking about the relationship he’s had with this mixing board and the songs that he’s made.

And then he starts talking about particular songs that he’s done.

And there was.

We asked him for one song that he didn’t have anything to do with and one song that he did, and I was so interested to know what his favorite song would be that he had worked on, and uh, it was in the club: 50 Cent.

Oh, that was his favorite.

Yeah,

And I was like why I never saw it coming.

I said why, and he said that’s the song that they used to.

Uh, ch the Beats headphones because it’s such a particular base, the they used that to be.

He like no, no, it needs more of this, more of that and stuff like that.

So his was amazing, you know.

Um, Martin Scorsese’s possession was like a very particular Fountain.

No, his bag that’s got a fountain pen with ink that you can only get in Japan.

Or Kim Kardashians was a letter that her father wrote her when she was 14 years old, and there a really amazing moment where Kim Kardashian’s person was her mom, Chris Jenna, and we actually then, when Chris did the show, played Chris Kim talking about her as her person, and so people really open up a lot when they’re talking about things that they love, and you really learn a lot about people.

I’m really really enjoying doing it.

It’s you’re here to do a bunch of interviews in the United States.

We’re going to do some.

Now we take the show in New York, we take it here in La. we’ did you know David Beckham and Martin Scorsese and people like that we did in London.

So I really just go and then I’ll go and like we’ll tape seven podcasts this week

And then I’ll stop in New York on the way back to do Anna winto

And then I’ll get back to L. how many total have you done so far?

We’ve recorded about 25, and I think about nine have gone out.

Okay, well, don’t ask me to be on the show.

Okay, because I think we have, if I’m.

No, you haven’t.

I think we have.

No, I promise you, I, you haven’t asked me, because I would have said yes, but now that I know I’m not in the top 25, you forget about.

You were.

No, I. if you can prove that you asked me, then I will do it.

You probably don’t even want me.

You obviously you don’t want me to do it.

This is this.

You are going to regret this so much.

You made me eat a penis on your show.

I don’t think I’m going to regret this.

Let’s call Tracy now who books the show.

Is there really a Tracy or is this your wife back?

Call Tracy.

My wife is asleep in London.

Great now.

Is Tracy going to get fired now, if, if, no, no Tracy’s Gna?

Okay, let’s see why.

Is Tracy N on your photograph?

Okay, Tracy’s not answering, which is quite annoying coincidence.

You’re calling somebody.

It’s 4:00 in the morning over there.

No Tracy’s here.

What were those rights in the Sky last night?

James Tracy’s in the Los Angeles.

We’ll straight those.

We’ll, as you people say, we’ll sort it out.

What I don’t know.

I want to know.

In England, would they allow lights to go over the town without looking into what they are?

No, no, but we look at things like this slightly differently, because we don’t really no one’s made like a closeing counter set in like reading.

Or you know Sunderland?

Do you know what I mean?

We we expect this of America.

We need bright lights over America.

Guys like laughing at us.

No, we don’t laugh, we go.

It has to happen in America.

We need it to happen in America, and that’s the best thing about America is the constant optimism in all of it.

I know what we are.

We are your Florida.

That’s what we are, James Gordon, listen to new episodes of this life of mine.

Thursdays, on serious accent.

We’ll be back with Kim Fields.