2024 is turning out to be the year of Taylor, but we’re not talking about Taylor Swift.
Comedian Taylor Tomlinson is riding high with sold-out tours, a trio of Netflix specials and now her own late-night TV show “After Midnight,” airing immediately following “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on CBS.
“It’s like a fake game show … It’s going to be some improv and playing around and banter and that talk show aspect, of course. But for the most part, these are jokes, these are like the smartest jokes about the dumbest things on the internet that day,” Tomlinson told CBS New York.
Tomlinson, 30, said she’s excited to give other comedians an outlet to comment on current events and internet trends.
Tomlinson, who is from the Southern California city of Temecula, started doing stand-up comedy at 16. Early on, she shared with audiences that she lost her mom at age 8 and how therapy helps her.
“I grew up very sheltered, very conservative. If we were listening to stand-up in the car with my family, it was clean comedians. So we listened to a lot of Jim Gaffigan and Brian Regan. Brian Regan I think especially was huge in our house,” said Tomlinson.
We asked if she had any advice for other kids growing up in Temecula and looking up to her.
“I’d say get out of Temecula. That would be my first piece of advice,” Tomlinson said. “I think that if you want to do stand-up, you have to just write and perform as much as possible. It’s the only way to get better. As somebody who struggled with stage fright as a teenager when I was getting started, you just have to learn how to push through it because that’s the only way to get over it.”
Tomlinson will be the only woman hosting a late-night network TV talk show when “After Midnight” premiers.
“I happen to be the only one right now in this moment, but there’s been a lot of successful women in late-night, which is great for me because I have those people to look to as examples,” she said. “I think this idea that comedy is this boys club or late-night is this boys club, I think that’s going away. I really, really do.”
It’s the big time for Tomlinson, and it’s only the beginning.
“After Midnight” premieres after “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on Tuesday, Jan. 16 on CBS and Paramount+.
