By Steve Pond

In mid-July 2025, Yvonne De Mare got an irresistible job offer. She’d been working with Stephen Colbert for two decades, starting as an assistant director on “The Colbert Report” and following the comedian and host when he took over CBS’s “Late Show” franchise in 2015. For almost all of that time, Jim Hoskinson had directed Colbert’s shows, earning 14 Emmy nominations along the way. But Hoskinson had decided to retire, and De Mare was offered the director’s chair.

“It completely blew my mind,” said De Mare, who’d been planning to have a long-delayed knee surgery that summer. “I said, ‘Well, there goes the idea of getting my knee done in August.’”