11 Things You Didn't Know About Stephen Colbert
7. His First Experience With Improv Was Playing Dungeons & Dragons
Colbert may not have gotten into improvisational comedy until later in his career, but he did have one early experience with improv: playing Dungeons & Dragons.
As a child very much into fantasy and Tolkien, Colbert became obsessed with Dungeons & Dragons in the seventh grade. The role playing game doesn't involve a board or any set rules, but rather requires players to be creative and to essentially imagine an entire storyline. In that way, it served as an interesting acting experiment for him, even if he didn't realize it at the time.
"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. "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."
If you ever doubted Colbert's status as a total nerd, he got into Dungeons & Dragons in 1977, and he is obsessed with Lord of the Rings and Tolkien in general as he frequently made clear on The Colbert Report. Don't ever try to battle him on Tolkien trivia, because you will lose miserably.