James Corden has revealed that he’s “absolutely terrified” to leave “The Late Late Show.”
The British actor-turned-broadcaster announced his impending departure from the hit CBS talk show last year.
With the final episode penciled in for April 27, Corden confessed to feeling “a huge amount” of fear and anxiety about the decision to step away from the gig.
“I haven’t felt this scared since I decided to take the show, to move here. I haven’t felt such unstable ground… [But] I have to embrace that fear,” he said at a PaleyFest event in Los Angeles on Sunday.
“I’m just aware that what I’m trying to do isn’t the road that’s often traveled.”
Corden revealed he will be shifting his focus onto theater work after feeling a sense of “urgency” to leave the CBS show and the Golden State as a whole.
“It couldn’t feel more urgent within me to leave to do that [theater],” he explained. “I will be really, really upset with myself if in the next year or year and a half or so I don’t go do another play or revisit a play I’ve already done. I would give anything to go back and do a show again, I’d give absolutely anything.”
He continued, “To go from like National Theater, writing a TV show on the BBC, Broadway, host of a late-night talk show, shooting stuff in the middle of that, stopping the late-night talk show and then going, ‘Oh, I’d like to do another play now.'”
“It just isn’t the road that’s been traveled to my knowledge, so with that comes a huge amount of fear. It’s terrifying, it’s absolutely terrifying,” said Corden, who officially took over the desk chair at Los Angeles’ Studio 56 in March 2015.
When quizzed on what he’s got lined up after he ends his hosting gig, Corden said that while he’s got “loads of things” he wants to do, he will be taking a break first.
“There are loads of things I’d love to do, but they’re very reliant on people wanting me to do them,” he explained. “I think it’s going to be really important to take a breath and take a minute.”
Despite feeling a mix of uncertain emotions, Corden believes he’s making the right decision to call time on “The Late Late Show.”
“I’m so certain it’s the right thing to do. I’m so absolutely certain that we did everything we wanted to do and I think it’s really important to have things end,” he added.
Prior to Corden’s presenting stint, actor-comedian Craig Ferguson helmed CBS’ 12:30 a.m. ET slot between 2005 and 2014, following comic Craig Kilborn’s five-year stint starting in 1999.