Tearful James Corden has revealed he is racked with “anxiety” and “uncertainty” as he quits Hollywood to move home to Britain.
Although the Gavin & Stacey star feels his decision to quit US TV show the Late Late Show after eight years is right, he said he has “never felt this scared” in his professional life.
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Wiping tears from his eyes as he opened up about his multi-Emmy winning run as the host of the chat show, James recalled some of the highs and lows during an intimate show celebration at PaleyFest in Los Angeles.
He said: “It’s everything I ever wanted the show to be. I wanted it to be joyful, big, ambitious and full of fun, love and light. So It is an immense feeling of pride.
“Yet It feels incredibly strange. It is an unnatural feeling to walk away from something you love so much.
“It is not right because you are having such a great time. I get to go to work with all of my best friends and my job is to be creative every day.
“But then, at the same time, I am certain that it is the right thing to do and so absolutely certain that we did everything we wanted.”
James will wait until the end of the school year for his three kids before immigrating back to Blighty, but is “terrified of being unemployed”.
However he will not jump into the first offer on the table, admitting he is unsure how many opportunities there are currently.
He said: “If I am sensible I will try and embrace some silence because it has been really loud for eight years, and really focus on trying to make the change to move home as smooth as I can for my children and wife.
“I don’t think we can even begin to comprehend what it will feel like. I have thought lots about what I’d like to do. Lots of those things are not my choice.
“It is going to be really important to take a breath and take a minute.
“I cannot even begin to comprehend what these eight years have done to me and how changed I am since when I started; emotionally what it will feel like to say goodbye to it and the people I work with.
“I am certain this is the most overwhelming year of my life professionally.”
The father-of-three went on: “Sometimes you feel you just want to rush into something, because you are so scared and terrified and it is just going to go like that and you are nowhere.
“My agent puts up with nothing but sh*t from me on the phone. I have never felt this scared, since I decided to take the show to move here.
“I haven’t felt on such unstable ground or haven’t known what I am going to do. So I have to embrace that feeling, because I think to be excited and scared is probably the right place to make something quite interesting.”
James feels that as a unique entertainer and his US stint could be his career pinnacle.
He admitted: “I am just aware that what I am trying to do isn’t a road often travelled.
“To go from the National Theatre, write a BBC show, Broadway, host a late night talk show, stop hosting a late night talk show and say I would like to do another play now, please.
“With that comes a huge amount of fear. It is absolutely terrifying but you have got to make peace with the idea that is the biggest it has got.”
However, the 44-year-old is not done with the US as he hopes for a Broadway return: “It couldn’t feel more urgent within me to need to do that.
“I’d be upset if in the next year or half or so I do not do another play or revisit a play I had done. I would give anything to go back and do a show again.”
James can’t help but laugh at how his US telly career has seen him laugh and lark around with A-listers.
He said: “What’s strange is when I think about the show, is that all I ever wanted at school was to not be wearing a suit and avoid sitting behind a desk.
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“That was the worst thing and if that happened then I would have completely screwed up and now that is a huge part of my day.”
He went on: “If you can be an actor or writer live, eat and have a roof over your head you have cracked it.
“Sometimes it feels like your feet do not touch the ground.”
James has just 12 shows left before he walks away after eight years, and the Cats star has recalled how his first few months setting up the show made him feel like a failure given the unknown in Hollywood circles.
He explained: “I was certain in [the show’s] failing and that is not because we are making something bad. I thought how can this work?
“When we first came I said to Ben ‘I won’t do it without you. I need you’. And we would go to these meetings where people didn’t know who they were meeting.
“All they were told was that they are meeting the host of the Late Late Show and some kind of genius producer. And we walked into the room and by anyone’s metrics we were in the wrong bodies.
“He looks like the new host of 12.30s on CBS and I look like his friend, a crazy producer.
“They’d go and look and be like ‘is it the other way around?’ – moments like that I’d say all the time this won’t work.”
James says he felt proud of a “really strong” starting week with a career retrospective of Tom Hanks, and the first Carpool Karaoke with Mariah Carey.
Doubting himself, James had an epiphany when he realised that being unknown for his skills was a benefit for the show.
He explained: “Historically these shows start on rocky ground. I had no relationship with the audience. For quite a long time you find yourself thinking, nobody knows what I have done, who I am – and then you have to change your mindset.
“Nobody knows what I have done and what I can do. Oh I have done my 10000 hours, I am ready to do this.”
James says he noticed his life changing when the CBS Studios security guards recognised him.
He said: “I realised the show was doing well when I could get into the building without my security pass. That was about six weeks after we’d been on air.”
James say it would be impossible to pick out a favourite sketch from 1,200 shows but cites his raft of fun screen adventures with Tom Cruise and the 2022 White House visit as “special”.
His best friend and show executive producer Ben Winston reflected on Tom Cruise’s support for the show, but was terrified when the Top Gun star took him flying in jet fighters.
The Smithy actor says he had to be talked around several times into accepting the offer from Cruise as his concerned family worried about something going wrong.
The 44-year-old says he was “really scared” and panicked about the outcome.
He said: “This was the genuine thought I had: ‘It’s not that Tom Cruise dies – it’s that I killed him. And then my children, maybe somewhere, someday, someone will look over and go: ‘You know who that is? Their dad killed Tom Cruise!’”
James says he’s really excited about the host of secret names he has lined up for his finishing shows.
He said: “It’s really important how things end and we go out in the manner we came in.
“We have 12 shows to go and there is a strong chance they will be our biggest we will ever do and that will be absolutely thrilling.”
PaleyFest celebrated with Corden, Winston and Rob Crabbe at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
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