Improv king Stephen Colbert commits to a bit, but Evil's Katja Herbers one-upped him by stabbing a guy

Sometimes, the prop table is a harsh, bloody mistress

By Dennis Perkins | June 29, 2021 | 10:06am

TV News Katja Herbers

Improv king Stephen Colbert commits to a bit, but Evil's Katja Herbers one-upped him by stabbing a guy

Katja Herbers, Stephen Colbert Screenshot: The Late Show

Making her first-ever U.S. late-night appearance (eat your heart out, Arjen Lubach), Evil actress Katja Herbers was (as noted in our own Saloni Gajjar’s review of the newly relocated Paramount Plus series) effortlessly charming. You know, despite confessing to onstage assault with a deadly weapon. Or, hey, maybe because of it. She is shown in a clip from the supernatural (or is it?!) series from The Good Wife/The Good Fight creators Robert and Michelle King matter-of-factly confessing to doing something terrible while talking to her character’s increasingly freaked out therapist (Kurt Fuller). But Evil’s trio of paranormal (or is it?!) heroes routinely deal with some genuinely creepy and nefarious people (like Michael Emerson’s possibly satanic nemesis), so Herbers’ forensic psychologist may have had her reasons.

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The Dutch actress told Late Show host and fellow practicer of the improvised comedy arts Stephen C0lbert how she actually stabbed one of her improv partners in what she claims was a completely accidental (if stitches-worthy) whoopsie. Luckily for Herbers, this happened in her native Holland, where, as the actress happily put it, “nobody sues anyone.” Unluckily for her scene partner, Dutch audiences are just as primed as American ones to view any onstage shenanigans as just part of the unscripted show, requiring Herbers to break character and tell the rapt crowd that, no, she did not know that that very sharp-looking sushi knife on the prop table was dangerously un-gimmicked. (If there isn’t an industry-standard improv safe word, there probably should be.)

Leaning into her stated evaluation of her native country-people as the sort of laid-back lot who’ll let a little bloodletting among coworkers slide, the stealthily acclaimed actress (with an impressive resumé on everything from The Americans to Westworld, Manhattan, and The Leftovers) noted that her victim only reminds her of the incident with a friendly, scar-showing wave every time they meet. As for Evil (not to suggest via segue that Katja Herbers is, in fact, evil for stabbing that guy), the actress urged the curious Colbert that a move from CBS to the Wild West that is streaming also frees performers up to let loose with some pent-up, network TV-prohibited profanity when the scene calls for it. Starring (alongside Luke Cage’s Mike Coulter and Colbert’s Daily Show buddy Aasif Mandvi) on Evil’s new home, Paramount Plus, Herbers assured Colbert that really letting fly with some judicious “fuck”s is good for one’s soul. Also, if they were smart, executives would set Paramount’s streaming service apart from the overcrowded field with the slogan, “Evil’s new home, Paramount Plus.”