Interview: Seth Meyers Talks 10 Years of Hosting ‘Late Night’

This past February marked the ten year anniversary of Seth Meyers’ hosting duties on Late Night. Over the course of his tenure, Meyers has transformed the show from traditional late night talk show into a hub of political satire. The show received three Emmy nominations this year for its efforts — Outstanding Talk Series, Outstanding Short Form Comedy, Drama Or Variety Series for their online series, Corrections, and Outstanding Music Direction for Music Director Fred Armisen and the 8G Band.

In addition to Late Night, Meyers stays busy with a stand up career, as well as hosting a pair of podcasts — Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers, which he hosts with his brother Josh, and The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast, which features the comedy-music group, The Lonely Island (Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone). Meyers also co-hosted the limited podcast series Strike Force Five with his fellow late night talk show hosts, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver, and Stephen Colbert. 

Seth Meyers took time out of his busy schedule to talk to us about the evolution of Late Night, the political nature of the show, and his writing process. We also discuss Late Night staples such as A Closer Look and Corrections, as well as the loss of the 8G Band. 

First, congratulations on the well-deserved Emmy nominations. 

Thank you, very kind of you to say.

I imagine this election cycle has got to be a goldmine for you and your writers. 

We don’t think of it like a goldmine. It’s more that we never worry about how we’re going to fill the hour. If I was going to go back 10 years when I first started this show, that was the part that terrified me. I came from SNL, which was 90 minutes a week, and there were a couple of band performances, and there was a Weekend Update, and you kind of thought to yourself, “Well, we could fill 90 minutes once a week.” And then all of a sudden, you’re thrown into a situation where you have to fill an hour a night, and I just couldn’t wrap my head around how you do it. Now we live in an era where that is the least of my worries. 

Well, I imagine A Closer Look, which eats up eats up a good chunk of your night a few times a week, has got to be comforting for you to know you at least have that in your pocket.

Yeah, very much so. In the early years of the show, I think we had a far more conventional approach. We were doing desk pieces that could have existed in any era of late night. They weren’t necessarily bad in any way, shape, or form, but you sort of needed three of them a night to do what A Closer Look is. I do show up to the office a lot more comfortable knowing that while we have a hard day’s work ahead of us, at least we know where the work is. 

Your version of Late Night obviously skews considerably more political than your predecessors. Was that a conscious decision to stand apart from them, or even to stand apart from your lead in Jimmy Fallon, who isn’t that political?

I think if you look back, it wasn’t necessarily more political when we started. I think there was a little bit of a bend to it, just because that was also how I’d done Weekend Update. But it was at 2015 when things got so surreal. And I think we’re all a little guilty of thinking that the beginning of the Trump era was comic, right? There was a lot of, “Ha ha, look at this guy.”  I certainly was guilty of thinking it wasn’t going to last very long, and lo and behold. But we did, over the course of a Democratic primary and a long Republican primary, start focusing more and more on that. And then we liked it. We found we were enjoying the show more then, so we just kind of leaned into it. But it was less a conscious decision and more one that we sort of found our way to organically.

Speaking of political, you’re going live with a prime time A Closer Look special on September 11th after the presidential debate on the 10th. Can you talk about the logistics of that? Because I feel like that’s a really short turnaround for an hour special. 

There were times where we would go live after a debate that night, and that was certainly a faster turnaround, but obviously couldn’t do it prime time. So, because this was a prime time show that was also going to be live, we gave ourselves 24 hours. But we always are sort of working on a 24 hour schedule. I mean, we’re going to do A Closer Look tonight, and we did one last night, so it all has to be things that happened in the last 24 hours. So, we’re actually pretty good at that part of it. And it’s almost easier when it’s something like a debate where the expectation is there will be a lot to talk about. 

It’s just you talking for an hour. Is that something you’re concerned about? 

Usually, I’m pretty bummed with how many commercials there are, but when it’s a full hour, I’m like, “All right, here we go. Another commercial.” But I think the last time we did it, we did a full and it wasn’t live. But now that I’m talking about it, I am starting to give myself anxiety. We did do a full Closer Look when we came back from the writer’s strike, and it was nice. So, we at least know that I am at least physically capable of talking. Of course, that’s the part will be the least impressive to people. But hopefully we’ll have some content there as well. 

You celebrated 10 years earlier this year. The show’s obviously evolved over the years. How do you think you’ve changed as a host over that time? 

You know, so much of it is just comfort. It’s not doing things that aren’t true to you. It’s just being the more authentic version of yourself. I have a friend of mine who I’ve known since college who was a writer here, and he always reminds me that the longer the show goes on, the more I remind him of who he met when we were 18. You start having trust in your own instincts. I think when you start a show like this,  you spend a lot of time saying things like, “What would Jimmy do? What would Conan do? What would Dave do?” And now 10 years in, you sort of trust that what you’re going to do is best for this version of the show.

You seem more laid back lately, at least in your interviews. 

Yeah, that was the part that it felt so new to me, because even though you interview people as a Weekend Update anchor, those are obviously written interviews, and that’s easy. That’s just a sketch where you’re playing somebody interviewing somebody. It is really nice how once the first act of our show is over, which is almost usually the entirety of the written material of the show, it doesn’t feel like work anymore. It’s so fun to talk to people, knowing that I have had enough reps in me that I can, more often than not, add to the conversation and facilitate the best out of my guests. We’re always trying to build a reputation of being a place that when people come, they want to come back.

I wanted to touch on the 8G Band, who also got nominated for Emmy this this year. It’s got to be a bittersweet nomination.

Yeah. You know, I’ve said this before, but I have so much affection for the Academy for making that choice because I think it obviously means more than ever this year. But yeah, it’s very sad. Today we’re talking on their last day here, and I’ll be sitting on my computer and try to write out some thoughts after we get off the phone. I’m it’s really it’s a hard thing to wrap your head around. You had somebody be such an integral part of the show for 10 years,  and I’ll be really sad to see them go. I’m very lucky to be personal friends with them all, so it’s not like it’s the last time I’ll see anybody. But it was a really special thing to have them play you on every night. 

I know you’ve had over 200 drummers sit in for Fred Armisen, but was that always the plan? When Fred was first announced as the music director, did you know you’d frequently be replacing him?  

We did. I mean, all credit to Lorne Michaels, which is important, because I feel like Lorne doesn’t get any credit. And I want to get that name out there. That’s Lorne Michaels. L-O-R-N-E. He’s very famous. 

I will look him up.

So, he was the one who came up with the idea. I really had no idea of what I was trying to accomplish with the band choice in any way, shape or form. And and yet when he said it, he was like, “Look, he won’t be there every night.” We know Fred, and obviously as a friend, you don’t want to hamstring Fred’s creative endeavors, and as a fan, you also want to make sure Fred’s out doing other things, because I love watching Fred as much as I love being friends with him.

Corrections was also nominated for an Emmy. Not to play devil’s advocate, but is it at all possible that your writers and graphic designers intentionally make mistakes to provide content for Corrections? 

They don’t. They have too much integrity for that. And in fact, they’re constantly trying to catch things as late as possible. They will even come in and say, “Hey, we caught something. We think it’s Corrections bait and we feel like we should fix it. But I actually like knowing there’s going to be a few little mistakes, and I’ll say late in the game, “Oh, no, it’s fine. Let’s leave it in. Let’s hear what they say.” But the integrity of Corrections only works if nobody’s trying to make a mistake on purpose. 

Do you have a dream Day Drinking guest? 

You know, it was Rihanna. That was the one. It was everything I could have hoped for. And I feel like it wouldn’t have become what it has become without Rihanna. I think like Rihanna is somebody who then gives Lizzo the confidence to do it, who then gives Dua Lipa the confidence to do it. To me, the real dream is drinking as a job. That’s really the dream, and I get to live it like two or three times a year.

Between the show and the podcasts and your family, I imagine you have a pretty busy schedule, but you’re still managing to do stand up. What’s your writing process like given your schedule? 

The nice thing about stand up is it is a lot more centered on family, and because the show is so centered on current events, there’s just this huge gap of experiences I’m living that just fits in a better box when it’s stand up. So, there are things that happen, and I just sort of keep a running list of notes is insofar as when I’m trying to do stand up. I just shot a special, so I will take a break once that comes out. As to how long that break will be, I’ll let the fates decide. But I am a little relieved to be past the point where an hour I’ve been working on for a couple of years is in the can. 

Looking back on the last 10 years of the show, do you feel as if you’ve accomplished what you set out to accomplish?

I feel like what you’re trying to accomplish changes every year, because if I’m being brutally honest, all I wanted to accomplish in year one was year two. It was just survival. Then in year two, it was probably some level of competence that allowed me to do the show without being terrified every night. And then  best laid plans get upended with things like a pandemic, where you sort of have to rebuild the show from the ground up because  you’re shooting without an audience in strange places that are bad for talk shows.

You don’t think an attic is the best place to shoot talk show?

I will say an attic is not a bad creative incubator. It’s very important to do it at a time when everyone’s in their attic. I always said it was very helpful to do the attic, but if I had been the attic independent of a pandemic, I think the network might have had some questions. As far what I want to accomplish now, we are in a nice place where I feel like the show over the course of six months gets a little bit better. We’re not taking wild swings, trying to reinvent the wheel every night, but we do like that a show like ours benefits from the longer you do it, the more comfortable people are with you as an audience, the more they’re willing to let you be a little bit looser, which as we’ve as we’ve discussed, is one of the most fun things about it.

I know you have a busy day, so I don’t want to take up too much of your time, but I wanted to let you know that I don’t know that I’ve ever been more entertained by anything than I was by episode five of the Strike Force Five podcast. 

It’s genuinely one of the best things ever. 

It was a glorious train wreck. 

The thing about the glorious train wreck is that everybody has to agree it’s glorious, and the moment it becomes the best podcast hour, I would argue in the last five years, is when Fallon realizes, “Oh, OK, this is the game now. The game is terrible.” And it’s only fun because it’s joyful to him. It’s like a perfect sitcom episode, because he keeps getting worse in funnier ways. Also, it dawns on him that his questions aren’t better. I can listen to it over and over again. My wife loves it. My wife is very happy with how she came off in it.

And part two didn’t get any better. 

No, that was great too. I love doing that so much. There was always a risk that we would we would run out of unique experiences to share about hosting shows like these. I always feel like people talking about comedy is a lot less fun than people doing comedy, and episode five of Straight Force Five was doing comedy.

I did also want to let you know that I too have never been to the Grand Canyon, and I too have no desire to go.

Thank you. I feel like we’re just reasonable people, and we’ve been made to feel by society that there’s something wrong with us. Anytime I meet someone else, it does bring me warmth, so thank you for sharing your truth.

Well, Seth, I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to speak with us. Congratulations again on the Emmy nominations, and good luck with everything.

Thank you. It was really pleasurable. 

Late Night with Seth Meyers airs weeknights at 12:35/11:35c on NBC, and is available on the NBC app. Closer Look Primetime airs live on Wednesday, September 11 at 10/9c on NBC.