Talk Show Guests This Week (Sept. 14-18, 2026): Tom Cruise, Stephen Colbert, Salma Hayek Pinault and LISA

The short version: Tom Cruise is on Fallon Thursday, Stephen Colbert turns up in Jimmy Kimmel's guest chair Tuesday, four months after CBS ended The Late Show, and Salma Hayek Pinault does two shows in one day Monday. LISA and Benny Blanco take Wednesday, and Kenny Chesney closes the week on The View.

One date reshapes everything. The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards run Monday night on NBC from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, with Mariska Hargitay hosting, so Kimmel is an encore Monday and The Daily Show skips the night entirely.

Who is on talk shows Monday, Sept. 14?

Daytime carries the morning. Colin Kaepernick takes the full hour on The View to talk about his book The Perilous Fight, which is the booking most likely to travel past its own timeslot.

Salma Hayek Pinault starts her day on Live with Kelly and Mark, where Hoobastank plays and the hosts open a week of viral-challenge segments they are calling Do It Again. She turns up again at 11:35 p.m. on The Tonight Show, alongside Becky G, neuroscientist Andrew Huberman and the band Angine de Poitrine.

The Drew Barrymore Show opens Season 7 the same morning. CBS has announced the season's new formats but not the premiere guest, so that line stays blank until the station feeds go out.

At night, Andy Cohen has Andrew Garfield and Jamie Bell on WWHL at 9 p.m. ET, opposite the first hour of the Emmys. Kimmel repeats his Sept. 9 hour with Mariska Hargitay and Kaia Gerber — a strange loop, since Hargitay is live on NBC at the same moment. Seth Meyers is still in repeats until Sept. 21.

Who is on Tuesday, Sept. 15?

This is the week's real headline. Stephen Colbert is Kimmel's guest, four months after CBS retired his own 11:35 hour, with Judith Hill in the music slot.

Fallon counters with Helen Mirren, Alan Cumming and Jake Shane, plus KITSCHKRIEG featuring Blumengarten. Two knights of the British stage and a TikTok podcaster on the same couch is a booking only September does.

Neil deGrasse Tyson doubles up in daytime, appearing on The View for Lost in Space: 5,000 Facts for Navigating the Universe and again on Live, where Joel McHale drops by for Animal Control. WWHL has Chelsea Frei and Jessel Taank.

The Daily Show returns to the schedule Tuesday after skipping Monday, but neither the host nor the guest has been announced. Correspondents have been rotating the chair since the summer break, and Jon Stewart does not take Mondays back until Sept. 21.

Who is on Wednesday, Sept. 16?

Fallon books LISA and Benny Blanco with Jungle performing. Public listings also put breakdancer Rachael "Raygun" Gunn on the show that night; that one comes from a single lineup source so far and is not yet on the network grid.

Kimmel goes the other direction with Bill Burr and H.E.R., and Judith Hill stays for a second night. Ke Huy Quan promotes his memoir Never Say Die on The View, while Live seats Jane Krakowski and Sharon Horgan.

Check the clock on WWHL. Bravo has Wednesday's half hour listed at 10:15 p.m. ET rather than the usual 10, with Bronwyn Newport and Jon Lovett. The other three nights hold at 9.

Who is on Thursday, Sept. 17?

Tom Cruise. That is the whole pitch for Thursday, and Fallon surrounds him with Lili Reinhart and Suki Waterhouse.

Kimmel answers with Sarah Paulson and comedian Rory Scovel. Alan Cumming crosses over from Tuesday's Tonight Show to Live, where Paula Cole performs and the show runs its Shopping Day block.

The View pairs Ethan Hawke, promoting The Weight, with a Clay Aiken performance from his album Rewind. WWHL wraps the week's Bravo hour with Carmella Garcia and Chelsea Green at 9 p.m.

What is left on Friday, Sept. 18?

Daytime only, as usual now. The View turns the hour into a birthday show for Sara Haines with Kenny Chesney on hand for Silver Sands Marina, and Tiffani Thiessen visits Live for Freeform's Coven Academy.

Nothing new arrives after 11 p.m. Fallon, Kimmel, The Daily Show and WWHL have all dropped Friday tapings, Seth Meyers runs a July repeat, and Real Time with Bill Maher has no Sept. 18 episode listed yet. Our explainer on why late night reruns on Fridays covers how that became normal.

Which guests are doing the rounds this week?

Three names land twice inside four days, which is the shape of a normal promotion week rather than a premiere scramble. The Judith Hill run is the outlier: Kimmel has booked her as the house music act for three straight nights.

What time is each show on, and where does it stream?

Central and Mountain viewers subtract an hour from the network shows; on the West Coast the 11:35 pair airs at 11:35 local off a separate feed. The two cable half hours hold the same clock time coast to coast.

The syndicated hours belong to your station rather than to a network, so Live at 9 a.m. and Drew in the afternoon are common patterns, not guarantees. Our daytime schedule guide lists the usual slots by market, and the 2026 late-night schedule does the same after dark.

Which shows are dark or in repeats?

Late Night with Seth Meyers is on its last week of summer repeats and comes back Sept. 21, seven and a half weeks after its final new July episode. Monday through Friday it replays hours from late July.

Kimmel's Monday is an encore of Sept. 9 rather than a fresh taping, and The Daily Show has no Monday show at all. Saturday Night Live does not open Season 52 until Sept. 26, so the weekend stays quiet.

Monday's Emmy telecast is the reason most of those holes exist. If you want the carpet rather than the couches, our sister site has the Emmys red-carpet start time and streaming options and a running look at Mariska Hargitay's host wardrobe.

How do you watch all of this without cable?

Broadcast first, streaming a day later. Peacock picks up Fallon and Meyers, Hulu takes Kimmel, The View and Live, Paramount+ carries The Daily Show and Drew, and Bravo's half hour lands on Peacock overnight.

Full episodes and clips are not the same thing, which trips people up most often with the syndicated hours. The cord-cutting guide spells out which of those five services you actually need for the shows you follow.

FAQ

Is Jimmy Kimmel new on Monday, Sept. 14? No. ABC has an encore of the Sept. 9 episode while the Emmys air on NBC.

When is Stephen Colbert on Kimmel? Tuesday, Sept. 15, at 11:35 p.m. ET, streaming on Hulu from Wednesday.

Why is The Daily Show not on Monday? Comedy Central has not scheduled a Monday episode this week; new shows run Tuesday through Thursday, and Jon Stewart resumes Mondays on Sept. 21.

When does Seth Meyers come back with new episodes? Sept. 21. Everything before that is a repeat.

Who is on The Drew Barrymore Show this week? Season 7 premieres Monday, but CBS has not released the guest list. We will fill those rows in here as the daily listings are published, and mark this page's update time when we do.

Are all of these guests confirmed? Every name above appears in both the public listings and a second lineup source, except the two we flagged: Wednesday's Raygun booking on Fallon, and The Daily Show's unannounced hosts.

Night-by-night versions of this run all week in the late-night section and the daytime section. Last week's board is still up at talk show guests for Sept. 8-11, and the most recent nightly pages are Thursday night's late-night rundown and Friday's daytime board. Everything we publish is filed under this week's lineups and the guide section.

Sources · Listings data via TVmaze · LateNighter — lineups by show · TV Lineups — The View weekly schedule · TV Insider — Stewart's Daily Show return · TV Insider — Drew Barrymore Season 7 · NBC Insider — 78th Emmy Awards date and host

By the Talk Show On Air desk · Updated Sept. 12, 8:30 a.m. ET