{"id":790593,"date":"2026-07-10T03:53:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T03:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/790593\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T03:53:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T03:53:09","slug":"james-corden-reunites-late-late-show-team-for-world-cup-after-hours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/790593\/","title":{"rendered":"James Corden Reunites ‘Late Late Show’ Team for World Cup After Hours"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThree years after he signed off CBS\u2019 \u201cThe Late Late Show,\u201d James Corden<\/a> is having the time of his life hosting the World Cup after show for Fox, \u201cAfter Hours With James Corden.\u201d<\/a> On the latest episode of \u201cDaily Variety\u201d podcast, the multihyphenate discusses the joy of indulging in his lifelong love of football and why the call from Fox Sports was the one hosting gig that he\u2019s been offered in recent years that he couldn\u2019t turn down.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAfter Hours\u201d debuted on the first day of the tournament, June 11, and is airing nightly at 11 p.m. through the final game on July 19. Corden\u2019s set is right next to the studio for Fox Sports\u2019 World Cup<\/a> anchor team including Rebecca Lowe, Thierry Henry and Zlatan Ibrahimovi\u0107.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe \u201cAfter Hours\u201d set is decorated like a clubhouse, with all manner of soccer memorabilia \u2014 photos of star players past and present, balls, cleats, flags, pennants and of course, the many scarfs that fans don to show their loyalty to favorite clubs. Another eye-catching element is the life size wax figure of soccer great Pel\u00e9 that is on loan from Madame Tussauds in London.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Corden, the opportunity to get the \u201cLate Late Show\u201d team back together for a finite assignment revolving around a subject that he knows well was impossible to turn down, once he gave it some thought. He\u2019s working with \u201cLate Late Show\u201d executive producer Ben Winston and former head writer Ian Karmel, who mixes it up at a big table with Corden and British soccer great Rio Ferdinand.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI didn\u2019t realize how much I\u2019d missed producing an hour of live television every day,\u201d Winston told Variety. <\/p>\n

\n\tCorden notes that he and Winston produced a similar after show for the U.K.\u2019s ITV during the 2010 World Cup. The offer from Rob Wade, Fox Entertainment CEO, came to him more than a year ago. He\u2019s been offered all manner of hosting gigs since bowing out of \u201cLate Late Show\u201d that were of no interest to him. But the chance to weigh in nightly on a World Cup tournament in the U.S. \u2014 that was special.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI wasn\u2019t completely convinced and on the hook, if I\u2019m honest. I certainly wasn\u2019t in a rush to host anything. I really felt like hosting shows was something I\u2019d probably said goodbye to when I stopped \u2018The Late Late Show,\u2019 \u201d Corden told Variety. \u201cAnd then the more I thought about it and the more I thought, \u2018Man, the great thing about this is it\u2019s so definite in its time. It\u2019s not like you\u2019re going to sit and go, oh, we\u2019re going to get picked up for a second season. How\u2019s it doing? It\u2019s about something very specific that I love. And the more I thought about it, I thought, you\u2019re an idiot to even consider turning this down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tWNBA star Sophie Cunningham jokes with Ian Karmel on the July 7 episode of Fox\u2019s \u201cAfter Hours With James Corden\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe timing was dictated by the tournament, of course, but it turned out that the stars aligned for Corden to recruit the \u201cLate Late Show\u201d alumni that would allow him to work at a high level.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe thing that\u2019s made it really, really joyful is how many old faces are back just doing this for five weeks,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s been glorious.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tWith the benefit of distance, Corden reflected on his decision to wrap up \u201cLate Late Show\u201d in April 2023 after eight years behind the desk. He\u2019s proud of the show and its legacy. He has, of course, watched from afar in the U.K. all the controversy and drama envelope his former CBS schedule mate, Stephen Colbert, whose show ended amid enormous pressure exerted against CBS by the Trump administration. And now ABC\u2019s Jimmy Kimmel is in the crosshairs of Trump and the FCC. <\/p>\n

\n\tCorden said he could feel a big shift in landscape coming even in 2023. \u201cLate Late Show\u201d wrapped up barely one week before production shut down with the start of the writers strike on May 2, 2023.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI remember when I when \u2018The Late Late Show\u2019 was wrapping up, we had about a week to go and very kindly, we\u2019d been invited to talk at the Paleyfest about the show. And I was stood backstage with David Staff, who runs CBS Studios, a wonderful man who I just love and adore, and I consider him a friend still and always will. And we stood backstage and there was this clip reel running on the screen. And, and he said, \u2018It\u2019s so sad, isn\u2019t it?\u2019 And I said, \u2018I don\u2019t think it is sad, actually.\u2019 I said, \u2018If I\u2019d signed that contract that you offered me,\u2019 which took a lot of willpower to walk away from, you\u2019d have come to me and said, \u2018We need to cut $10 million from this budget,\u2019 \u201d Corden recalled.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnd as soon as you need to cut $10 million from a budget, the only way you do that is by making your team smaller. And as soon as you make your team smaller, you change the entire environment of the team that are making that show. And I said, \u2018I don\u2019t think it\u2019s sad at all.\u2019 And he went \u2018Two years? It would have been in six weeks.\u2019 That\u2019s where it was at,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel just incredibly proud of what we did and of what we accomplished when we did it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tListen to Daily Variety<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0iHeartPodcasts<\/a>,\u00a0Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Variety\u2019s\u00a0YouTube Podcast<\/a>\u00a0channel,\u00a0Amazon Music<\/a>,\u00a0Spotify<\/a>\u00a0and other podcast platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three years after he signed off CBS\u2019 \u201cThe Late Late Show,\u201d James Corden is having the time of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,90342,134,90710,427,21418],"class_list":["post-790593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daily-variety","tag-entertainment","tag-james-corden","tag-tv","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}