Rhys becomes first actor to win lead acting awards for different shows in the same night, while Hacks’ Smart is the first woman to win for every season of a show

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Matthew Rhys has become the first actor in 78 years of Emmys history to win multiple lead actor awards for performances in different shows in the same year, for Widow’s Bay and The Beast in Me.

The 51-year-old Welsh actor won outstanding lead actor in a comedy for Apple TV’s Widow’s Bay and outstanding lead actor in a limited series for his role in Netflix’s The Beast in Me at the ceremony on Monday night. With his 2018 win of outstanding lead actor in a drama for The Americans, he is the first male performer to win all three lead acting categories.

After the politically incisive late-night host said his final goodnight last week, Byron Allen’s Comics Unleashed offered a grim look at where TV is heading

The applause, dear God, the applause. It has you bracing against the headboard and groping for the remote when Comics Unleashed detonates on to the screen just before midnight. A soulless barrage of whoops, cheers and apparatchik-grade terror clapping, it hits like a jet engine at takeoff, swallowing the show’s disembodied announcer in a silo of his own manufactured zaniness.

The applause snuffs out introductions to the guests, all standup comics – a who’s who of who’s that – and upstages a modest studio audience that appears to have been rounded up from pamphlet-clutching LA tourists. It even leaves the host himself, 65-year-old Byron Allen, limply shuffling to reclaim the frame as the show’s cameras whip around him from every conceivable angle. In the reverse shots, you can already see the night’s guests parked in the makeshift waiting-room set up at stage left, apparently settled in for Allen’s monologue. But there is no monologue. Comics Unleashed has no writers, no comic sensibility, no discernible point of view – because CBS bent the knee to Donald Trump, and Allen makes Jimmy Fallon look like Eugene Debs.

Channel quietly debuts over weekend with Only in Monroe video days after Thursday’s final Late Show episode

Stephen Colbert hasn’t even been off the air for a week, but is already causing some hubbub with the launch of a new YouTube channel that has garnered more than 120,000 subscribers.

The popular late-night host, who aired his final episode of The Late Show last Thursday, quietly debuted the channel over the weekend with a single video titled: “Only In Monroe --- May 22, 2026.”

After the long-running late-night institution ended last week, Guardian readers have been sharing their fondest memories of the show and its much-loved host

• The show might go on: what happens to late-night TV without Stephen Colbert?

Stephen doesn’t know that he was my Covid buddy. I’d sent my daughter to her dad’s house in rural Scotland so he was my evening companion and kept me sane. I know he wasn’t speaking to me directly but it felt like there was another person muddling through with me. I loved his wit, charm and an American perspective. I stayed with him ever since (on YouTube). A reminder that not all Americans are represented by Maga and that there is still an intelligent and witty America out there, a candle of light in the darkening chaos. He’s charmed me, made me think and I’ll miss him more than a stranger reasonably should. Alice, London

The end of The Late Show, an American institution since 1993, leaves those still surviving within the format wondering what the future looks like

• Share your favorite memories from The Late Show With Stephen Colbert

In a way, it’s a shock every time the biggest talkshow hosts assemble into their “Strike Force Five”, the podcast-born group consisting of Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and John Oliver. No, the shock isn’t the lack of Greg Gutfeld, the highly viewed Fox News talkshow host who has nonetheless only ever been funny as a punchline unto himself, and was playfully name-checked on the final episode of Colbert’s The Late Show, after the deposed king of late-night was informed the highest-rated host was getting the boot. (“They’re canceling Gutfeld?!” he cried in fake panic.) The real repeated surprise is the realization that there are (or were) five major late-night hosts still standing.

OK, even before Colbert got the axe, it was actually four: Oliver hails from a weekly perch on HBO, which, given similar jobs held by Dennis Miller for nine years and Bill Maher for 24, seems likely to last for at least 200 seasons. But still: four big-name network talkshows? In this economy?! Strike that down to three, now that Colbert’s tenure is officially over, and his David Letterman-founded late-night franchise with it. Though Colbert is the exact wrong one to cull – the group’s best interviewer, strongest comedy bona fides, and highest-rated show to boot! – it’s hard to argue that network TV is in need of the late-night chatshows that used to be such a major status symbol and, presumably, cash cow. Though the shows are notoriously expensive (such that CBS was able to claim that their king of late-night also lost money), they must have once generated substantial revenue, given the amount of jockeying the 11pm-and-beyond slot inspired throughout the 1980s and especially 90s.

Jane Fonda, Bruce Springsteen and Joe Biden are among the names paying tribute to host of cancelled late-night show

Share your favorite memories from The Late Show With Stephen Colbert

Celebrities, politicians and New Yorkers have paid their respects to Stephen Colbert as The Late Show aired its final episode on Thursday.

The long-running chatshow, which started back in 1993, was cancelled last year by CBS, purportedly because of a financial decision. But many believed it was a result of the network’s increasing closenesss with Donald Trump, whom Colbert regularly criticised.

Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello, Bryan Cranston and Tig Notaro were among the guests to see off both host and talk show in an 80-minute finale

Series finales for late night shows are, by their nature, a little odd and also exceedingly rare; usually it’s the host’s final episode, and not the entire show’s, as franchises like The Tonight Show or Late Night continue on with someone new at the wheel. But CBS made the, ah, visionary decision to cancel the Late Show, the talkshow it created in 1993 as a new home for David Letterman after he failed to score the Tonight Show job over at NBC. In Letterman’s hands, and eventually Stephen Colbert’s, the show became an institution and the first real, sustained Tonight Show competitor in years.

Indeed, the CBS Late Show leaves the air as the No 1 show in network TV late night, with that 11.35pm real estate immediately and ignominiously rented out to Byron Allen’s longtime syndication seat-filler Comics Unleashed. It’s a stunning streaming-era abdication that will for ever be tied with US president Donald Trump, even as the network has insisted (as echoed by a dolphin in a finale gag) that the decision was purely financial, not political. (Naturally, the show has received plenty of promotion on its way out the door, as if it were just going on its merry way.) Colbert himself has had nearly a year to come to terms with the decision, and was far past using his platform to rail against the corporate dolts on his cheerful (if unavoidably bittersweet) final instalment.

Late-night hosts spoke about the end of the iconic long-running show and Trump’s latest grift

Late-night hosts discussed the end of The Late Show and Stephen Colbert’s tenure as well as the latest product from Donald Trump.

As the much-loved Late Show host says his final goodnight, a look back at his finest and funniest moments

‘He had a unique ability to be human’: late-night TV says goodbye to Stephen Colbert

This week marks the end of two distinctive eras of network television, as CBS’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert will air its final episode. The show was created in 1993 by David Letterman after his controversial exit from NBC, and he held the reins for 22 years before retiring and turning the show over to Colbert, who had risen to prominence on Comedy Central as a member of The Daily Show, and then later host of his own political talkshow, The Colbert Report.

Colbert’s run on the Late Show would last 11 years. Last July, CBS shocked everyone by announcing the show’s cancellation, with the final episode to air on 21 May. Although executives claimed the decision was purely financial – even with Late Show holding the best ratings for any late-night talkshow for nine years running – many saw it as a political gesture towards Donald Trump ahead of an $8bn merger between CBS’s parent company, Paramount, and Skydance.

Late-night hosts discussed the president’s lawsuit against his own government and his latest ballroom updates

Late-night hosts discussed Donald Trump’s controversial $1.76bn settlement and the latest on his taxpayer-funded ballroom.

The Late Show, and its much-loved host, will bid farewell this week after a controversial cancellation leaving behind a challenging TV landscape

Hugh Jackman sang a parody of Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline. Bette Midler performed a satirical rewrite of Wind Beneath My Wings. John Lithgow wrote and recited a poem entitled The Mighty Colbert. Jake Tapper hand-delivered a painting of Colbert as Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. And Jimmy Fallon offered a pointed take on Frank Sinatra’s My Way: “And now the end is near / And so you face the final curtain / But Trump, he made it clear / He wants you gone / Of that we’re certain.”

A roll call of celebrities have made pilgrimage to the Ed Sullivan Theatre in New York in recent months to join a long goodbye to CBS’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, honouring a voice that will be sorely missed from the national conversation when the lights go dark on 21 May.

Late-night hosts discussed Marco Rubio’s meeting with the pope, Trump bragging about his mental acuity and the ongoing ‘skirmish’ in Iran

Late-night hosts covered the ongoing war in Iran and how the Trump administration is refusing to focus on rising gas prices back in the US.

Late-night hosts discussed Trump’s disapproval ratings hitting a record high and the closure of Spirit Airlines

On Monday night, late-night hosts weighed in on Donald Trump’s erratic statements on Iran, rising oil prices and the shuttering of every budget-conscious traveller’s favorite low-cost airline.

Late-night hosts reacted to Trump’s plans for a triumphal arch, high gas prices and RFK Jr’s odd interest in roadkill

On Thursday night, late-night hosts weighed in on Donald Trump’s tense back and forth with the pope over the war in Iran, high gas prices and outlandish details from a new biography of Robert F Kennedy Jr.

Late-night hosts discussed Trump’s attacks on the pope as the White House tries to spin his AI-generated Jesus photo into anything other than a disaster

Late-night hosts dissected Donald Trump’s ability to anger Christians around the world with his attacks on Pope Leo XIV and the AI-generated image depicting him as Jesus.

The late-night host reacted to Trump’s prime-time address on the war and his firing of attorney general Pam Bondi

With most late-night hosts on holiday, Stephen Colbert recapped Donald Trump’s prime-time national address on the war in Iran and his firing of the US attorney general, Pam Bondi.

The Late Show host is co-writing a new JRR Tolkien adaptation to be produced by Peter Jackson

Typically, when a famous comedian ventures into writing, it’s in service of a book of humorous essays or a screenplay for a starring vehicle. Stephen Colbert, the comic actor turned beloved talkshow host, is preparing a more unusual pivot: he’ll be working on the screenplay for a new Lord of the Rings movie, to be produced by franchise impresario Peter Jackson, who directed the original trilogy of films based on the JRR Tolkien fantasy novels, as well as a trilogy based on Tolkien’s book The Hobbit. To casual viewers of his about-to-end Late Show on CBS, or those who remember his years as a contributor to Comedy Central’s irreverent The Daily Show, this might seem like an odd fit; Tolkien isn’t known for his satirical edge. Colbert, however, is known for his love of Tolkien – among other things.

Befitting his eventual gig as a political satirist, Colbert was born in Washington DC, the youngest of 11 children in a Catholic family that subsequently lived in Maryland and South Carolina. The family suffered a major loss in 1974 when two of Colbert’s brothers and their father were killed in a plane crash. Colbert was only 10 and became withdrawn after the tragedy, retreating into books – especially fantasy books like the works of Tolkien – and games like Dungeons & Dragons, which he played heavily for four years. This provided some early training in acting and improvisation without him entirely realizing it. “For somebody who eventually became an actor, it was interesting to have done that for so many years, because acting is role-playing,” he told the AV Club in 2006. “You assume a character, and you have to stay in them over years, and you create histories, and you apply your powers. It’s good improvisation with agreed rules before you go in.”

The US talkshow host’s script will focus on chapters three to eight of Tolkien’s first volume – a section Hollywood originally thought disposable but is now circling back to monetise

As I write this, there are at least five days to April Fools’ Day. Yet the news that Stephen Colbert, the American late night host, is about to write a new Lord of the Rings movie based at least in part on some (more) bits of the JRR Tolkien tome that didn’t make it into Peter Jackson’s Oscar-winning trilogy certainly feels like a prank.

We already knew we are about to get an entire film, directed by and starring Andy Serkis, titled Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, and based on a sequence that was told in brief flashback during 2001’s The Fellowship of the Ring. It’s due out next year. And there were rumours that more movies would be coming. The Scouring of the Shire, perhaps, based on the bit at the end of The Lord of the Rings when the hobbits go home and discover Saruman has set himself up as King of the Hobbits? Something centred on long forgotten segments of The Silmarillion or The Book of Lost Tales that have somehow not been covered by Amazon’s megabudget Rings of Power TV show? Perhaps an action adventure based on Farmer Giles of Ham?

Comedian and avid Tolkien fan to write the Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past, a new Peter Jackson-produced film based on unadapted chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring

Stephen Colbert has lined up his next job after finishing up as host of The Late Show in May: writing a new Lord of the Rings film tentatively titled The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past.

Film-maker Peter Jackson, who directed the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Hobbit trilogy, made the surprise announcement in a video on social media on Tuesday. Colbert is an avid, lifelong JRR Tolkien fan and even had a small cameo in Jackson’s 2013 film The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug alongside his wife and children.

Late-night hosts discussed the confirmation hearing for Trump’s new homeland security pick, the about-face by Republicans on Iran and the war’s sticker-shock for ordinary Americans

Late-night hosts recapped Markwayne Mullin’s risible confirmation hearing for homeland security secretary and Maga’s struggles to sell the war in Iran to sticker-shocked Americans.