Late-night talk shows are returning to US screens after a five-month absence brought on by the Hollywood writers’ strike, while actors are set to begin talks that could end their own work walk-off.

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon were the first shows to leave the air when the writers’ strike began on May 2, and now will be among the first to return on Monday night.

Colbert will have astrophysicist and author Neil deGrasse Tyson on his first show back. Kimmel will host Arnold Schwarzenegger. Matthew McConaughey will be on Fallon’s couch.

All the hosts will surely address the strike in their monologues.

“I’ll see you Monday, and every day after that!” an ebullient Colbert said in an Instagram video last week from the Ed Sullivan Theatre, which was full of his writers and other staffers for their first meeting since spring.

The hosts haven’t been entirely idle. They teamed up for a podcast, Strike Force Five, during the strike.

The writers were allowed to return to work last week after the Writers Guild of America reached an agreement on a three-year contract with an alliance of the industry’s biggest studios, streaming services and production companies.

Union leaders touted the deal as a clear win on issues including pay, size of staff and the use of artificial intelligence that made the months off worth it.

Meanwhile, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) will begin negotiations with the same group, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, for the first time since they joined writers in a historic dual strike on July 14.

Actors walked off the job over many of the same issues as writers, and SAG-AFTRA leaders said they would look closely at the gains and compromises of the WGA’s deal, but emphasised that their demands would remain the same as they were when the strike began.

-AP