SmartLess - "Seth Meyers"

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

Can I hear me? It’s the wonderful Seth Meyers. Irons in the fire, squirrel in parentheses, and accepting the cookies. “You can’t put a price on a smile,” … on an all-new SmartLess. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of SmartLess ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You know, I've heard this for years, being in the Hollywood business, that for every 100 auditions, you'll book one job. So just keep going and keep going. And I thought, gosh, for every 100 episodes of Smartless, there's always one good one. So we've got about three in the can. Welcome to Smartless. Guys, guess what's coming up in a couple weeks?

Yeah, yeah, I know. We've got to mention. Oh, my God. Yeah, the Hollywood Bowl. We're going to be at the Hollywood Bowl October. Tober 17th. And not just there, like not hanging out, actually doing a show at the home.

We're going to be on the stage. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you don't have tickets yet, you go to smartlist.com slash live, is that right? Wait, what's it? What is it? Smartlist.com slash live. Oh, my gosh, that's pretty easy.

And for that, they're going to get a double guest. Is that right? Yep. Two guests. And we got some fun, we got some fun surprises. Yeah. Really? Yeah, we got some fun surprises.

All for the price of one ticket. Yeah, all for the price of one ticket. And a nice, beautiful. October 17th, right? A fall night out there under the stars. It's going to be gorgeous. And yeah, you buy a ticket and you can't put a price tag on a smile. Oh, what a great sell.

You know? Will, you're the best. Anyway, it's going to be a great night, hopefully as great as this next guest coming up. Guys, let's get to the episode. You can hear me now? There he is. Listener and guest.

You've just been, you've just been, You spent all night on your computer in incognito mode for, we don't know why. But we just... I had to change all my settings and all my usernames. Sorry. If you got hacked, it would be the most boring hack for a hacker. It would just be all baseball stats. And list of, like, movie stuff.

Yeah. You know, when I get all the cookie alerts, you know, would you like to reject all cookies or whatnot? And I do. I do reject them. I know Sean, you don't. Quick question, Sean, have you ever? Yeah. Yeah, I beat you.

But I don't have any secrets. And, you know, so like my instinct is to accept the cookies because then I don't get ads for things that I don't need. You know, like, you know, skin, skin rashes and things like that. I get ads for. J.B., but you don't have secrets, but you don't have secrets, but you. You used to be, you, there was a time where you were just built on secrets. Yeah. Well, I, no, I think I was, I was, I was doing things at a time when we didn't have phones and things.

I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. To photograph us. And even then, I wasn't, I was, I was never a bad boy. It's so boring. Come on. Even my bad days were boring. When you say bad boy, like the idea of you, like, like in a leather jacket, and then you flip the collar up, you know.

Yeah. Or, like, could you imagine? me ever trying to mix it up with like a paparazzi guy that gets too close to my face and I take a swing and I'm like Sean Penn and then I just get my ass beaten you know repeatedly I can see I could actually see that wait have you ever owned a leather jacket quickly either of you of course yeah yeah yeah I have but they were they were they were soft and swayed they weren't even like manly lambskin mine was lamb skin back in the 80s and no no I'm saying leather jacket yeah oh I see okay okay I think had like a veal skin vest

yeah veled velcro closers on it tonight we got a beautiful veal skin what else we got chef is preparing a beautiful veal skin yeah now uh

will uh yeah I feel like it's been a while since we've had an update on your on your love life and domestic life no we're not doing this what's going on there we always talk about Sean and I's personal life what about what's going on with your personal life

What's going on, Will? It's going really well. Oh, that's nice? Yeah. What's happening? First of all, talk about secrets. Talk about secrets. Yeah, what are the deeds on that?

Both of you know exactly what's happening and this is just, I'm not going to walk into your track. You're happy. You're happy? I'm very happy. Okay, so things are going great. Things are going great. You know, I've... Hold on, let me lead the witness.

Things are trending north, yeah? You know, the relationship is still ascendant? Yes. Yes. Okay. And if that were to continue to go on the course that it's going, at the angle, it is currently headed, where does that go? Yeah.

Well, first of all, why are you leading, why am I in court? Why are you leaving? Please answer the question, sir. Permission to treat the witness as hostile. Yeah. I mean, look, it will be a perfect world in five years. What does this relationship look like? Can I be honest with you?

If I fucking knew what five years, I am now at 56, I have learned a little bit, in the last two years especially, to let go of whatever ideas that I think it's going to go or it's going to happen. As we know, you get dealt so many fucking curveballs. And so I'm in a place now where I'm really trying my best to just deal with what's in front of me

and to try to take the next best. But you don't want to be fully reactive to everything in your life. You do like to be proactive in some areas, right? and kind of have the car moving in a particular direction? Well, for me that has been in the last couple of years, as both of you know, trying my best to lay a great foundation. I surround myself with great people. I'm in great programs with people.

I've done some work on myself to try to do it in a way so that whatever does come my way, I handle it hopefully better than I have historically. Right. Yeah, yeah. Prosecution rest. Hey, you know what? Let's get to our guest, huh?

Okay. Dr. Ruth Westheimer is on the show today to walk will through. You know what? Let's see. He might have a Dr. Ruth. He might have an opinion on Dr. Ruth. I don't know. He's got opinions on lots of stuff, and I like his opinions on most of stuff. He lands on the right side of virtually every issue I think I've ever had a conversation with him. Right, meaning correct? Correct, funny, insightful, and well, he's well educated, he's super smart. He's got 35 Emmy nominations to back it up.

He's hosted the Golden Globes. He's hosted the Emmys. He's produced shows. He was a cast member of S&L for 13 years. He was the co-host of Weekend Update for eight years with my ex-wife and our old friend, Amy Poehler. You guys. It's Seth Meyer. Seth Meyer.

Oh, gentlemen. This is our old. The right-wing pundits. He's been taking notes. Thank you for Claire. find the right side of every issue. I was like, okay, well, that means this was thrilling, just the pre-show banter.

And, you know, again, anybody listens to this show here is the pre-show banter, but I bet that, again, I'm now new to the podcast game compared to you guys. It's dead easy. It's thrilling to find out the tech doesn't get sorted out. No, yeah. It's just, I mean, if you guys could hear the three of them try to get ready for a podcast

they've done over 300, I was Googling how many episodes you were doing over the course of... Should I shut down or reset? Should I reboot or shut down? Jason, at one point you said, can I hear me? You asked the other two guys. Can I hear me? That's our new T-shirt and our swag.

I can't wait to tell the Lonely Island guys, it does not get easier. It does not get smoother. We're all ding-dongs. If anything, he gets harder. My favorite thing about when Jason, when he has to reboot and when it's not working and he can't hear the headphones, is his face because he's in the,

so he's not. aware of his face. So he's looking and he's like my dad with the remote and somebody has changed the input. Forget it. And somehow we feel like if we get closer to the object that's troubling us, it'll become fixed. Just get your face closer to it. We're all at the age now. We're at certain angles we look like a 70-year-old aunt's.

You know what I mean? And it's usually when we're trying to figure out, again, we're all, it's like in the cheater zone, I'm there too. were just certain angles. Somehow I always seem to have my jaw somewhat separated and people say they take these pictures of me, Will, as guilty of this, my wife a lot, taking pictures of me with my, and Jimmy, Kimmel and Molly,

my mouth just slightly open and I'm staring off into space or I'm laughing with my mouth sort of a gape. So yeah, it's sort of, it's a sign of old age coming in, I think. I do think I've crossed the threshold with my wife where if I see her taken out of her phone to take a picture of me, it means that something's gone terribly wrong. Something's not right on my face. No, you just reach the point where it's not like,

I need pictures of my husband looking handsome or good. Something they can send to their friends and laugh at. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're so mean. Seth, dude, this has been so long overdue. I feel like we talked about this last fall. I'm so happy to be here. We talked about it last.

I ran into you during trick-or-treat. last fall in New York in the middle of mayhem in the West Village. Wait, how does that go? That's just purely, that's just elevator riding, correct? It was really exciting.

We had two great run-ins in the course of like three months. One was just West Village, packed West Village. Perfect place to take your kids trick-or-treating in New York City. But otherwise, otherwise, it's in apartment buildings usually though, right?

I mean, you're going up and down an elevator. But this is people, no, this is now people sitting on Brownstone Steps. And they close down the streets and it is a real great community vibe. It is. You know, my kids, we saw Will, we saw Alec Baldwin and half a Telatubby costume.

Sure. With like four of his six kids and just kind of like trying to get. And were you guys dressed up? Matthew Broderick. I love Matthew. What's that? We were, I was not dressed up.

Will, I don't think. No. We were, we were, yeah. No, we were... We still wanted to be recognized for our work. We were trying to draw attention to IP that we didn't own. I was wearing a T-shirt, I said, I think that said, ask me if I'm Will Arnett.

Is that right? Yeah, that was... Wait, and then, and then we were in... Oh, I got to get that. I was in London having dinner with Laura Dern and Mark Chappell, and Rashida walked by. Rashida Jones. And she was like, hey, guys, and we were in the...

front and she goes, I'm here with Seth, and I went back and you were sitting by yourself, and I said, we're over here, and you guys came and joined us, and we had a very fun, impromptu night at a restaurant in London. Guys. It was great. You're selling yourself short because you first came over, and I was, you know, Rashida had gone

to use the restroom, so I was just looking at my phone like everybody would do, and you came over to take my order. And so I had a moment where... That's funny. It was a... It was jarring. And then lovely. Well, because you didn't, you didn't, you, you hadn't seen me since Halloween. You're like, in that time, he's now working at the Dover in London. Yeah.

And like I said, you never know what life's going to throw at you. Yeah. Because I said on Halloween, I'm like, what are you up to now? And you're like, I've got some irons in the fire. I did say that. Did you guys ever go through a table waiting period of your lives? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. I was at the Twisted Lizard in Chicago, which closed it. in the last five years, but I was, yeah, that was in my early improv days, and I remember the most memorable moment was I, it was a downstairs, you took stairs down, and I remember once getting no tip and chasing a guy out

and asking why he didn't leave me a tip, and he said, because you're a bad waiter. No way. He said that. Which is basically, historically what that means. I needed to, I needed to make him tell me twice. I don't bet in your defense you probably said, fair enough.

Yeah, I was, yeah, I did not fight it after that. I was like, oh, I thought it was an oversight. It's tough to argue. I mean, you can, I mean, theoretically you could have said, well, in what, in what way? You know what I mean? But at that point, there's no point. I think also, as soon as he said that, I looked back and saw about six or seven things I could have done differently. Right.

Now, let me ask you guys this. I'm not sure if this is the most relatable part of this interview, but in Europe, fellas, you're not supposed to leave a tip. Is that correct? I always get tripped up on this. It's changed. It's kind of changed. What is it now? You do.

You do leave a tip, but is it like... If you're American, you do. Yeah, yeah. The hope is you think about how much of your work has gone international. Yes. And whether or not they'll be able to... Word of mouth will be able to get out that you're a bad tip. That's the calculation.

I used to be a runner. Remember the restaurant red in L.A.? Remember that? No. No. Cornice on Beverly. I was a runner there. Wait, was it in parentheses?

No, it was bright red on the outside. It was called red. And they had great turkey meatloaf. But anyway, so I would run, I would be a runner, not even a waiter. And I had the one joke ready, every single table. They would say, you know, I'd have three plates. I'd like, great, blah, blah, blah. And inevitably, I'd put it down in front of somebody and they'd go, well, that looks fantastic.

And I'd point to my shirt and I'd say, thanks, I just got it. What a joke. So wait, a runner is the person that brings the plates, doesn't take the order. Runs the food. Got it. Yeah, I couldn't. Red in parentheses, isn't red in parentheses Bono's like, humanitarian? Oh, okay, there you go.

See how old I'm getting? It's also a nice burn on Sean. You're like, were you the one that was the humanitarian one? Okay, no, not at all. Yeah, but I got yelled at all the time. Like, do you know where you're going? Do you know which table you're going? I'm like, no, I just look at that table.

And then you had to memorize the seats where everybody was sitting, not only the 70 tables. It was hard. I'm just curious. How long did you work there, Sean? About a year. Okay. And it was just the one joke.

Just the one joke, yeah. Like you never decided to punch it up or just... No, he kept refining it. Yeah, yeah. It was good, though. And they never gave you the promotion up a level. No, I asked, too, to be a waiter, but I couldn't. Oh, look at you know.

I had more stress dreams about being a waiter than I did. Yeah, there's too much. Remember squirrel? Remember the program called Squirrel on the computer, which they would punch in, the waiters would punch it in? Oh, right, right. Anybody? No. Okay. Okay, great.

And you'd slide your card in to open up. On the POS? Was that squirrel in parentheses? No, no. All right, Seth, speaking of starting out, let's talk about how you started out. We got to go. All right, cue the music.

Yeah, cue the music. You're from New Hampshire, but we all know you're a Steelers fan, and we don't need to get into that. We know, right? That's fine. If you want to... That's fine. If you want to stop just for one second.

I will just tell you this real quick. Yesterday, my 10-year-old son was on the phone with my 78-year-old father talking about the Steelers' first preseason game, and I genuinely wanted to just go sit in a corner and sob. It made me so happy. Because it's just empty nonsense, no-calorie conversation, but the connection is real. And it was just like my son saying things like,

I think Jeremy Bernard is probably, our third best receiver. And I'm like, great. Yeah. But now Aaron Rogers is the quarterback again, correct? Yes, Aaron Rogers is the start. And he's also the chief scientist, I think, isn't he? He is.

He's taken over science for most of Pittsburgh, I think. And does he get to eat earlier because he's a senior? Or does he eat with the rest of the team? Oh, that's a good question. I believe he does. There's still certain places. Wait, how old is Aaron Lenders? 43 years old.

And he's... And you're just, that's very old for football. Yeah, not alive. Young for podcasts. It's true. You bet your ass. You know what? I will say, though, I connect with my dad.

I'm a long-suffering Toronto Maple Leafs fan. And my dad and I, often, you know, he's about to be 88. And we talk about the Leafs. That's our sort of point. We talk about lots of other stuff, too. But that is the thing that we can talk about on a daily basis. You know, we can just. just sort of have a, hey, they look terrible last night,

what's going on, all that kind of stuff. And it keeps us connected in that way. As you say, it's light on calories, but it's very filling. So, Seth, you're high. Wait, so, Seth, you come out of, you're fighting out of New Hampshire, and you decide what is the thing, how do you, you went to Northwestern. Is that where you started writing and or performing comedy,

or were you doing it before in New Hampshire? I was softly doing it in college. I'm sorry, in high school, I remember we did a comedy night in high school where we sort of rode sketches. We were doing, you know, B-minus impressions of teachers and stuff, but it was really fun. But I went to college to be a film major,

thought I wanted to write and direct movies, and Northwestern has this very famous... So many people go, I know, they go there. Yeah. And then it's a meow, is this very... I think the first improv troupe at any college, and it's been around forever. And that was immediately what I wanted to do. I saw them my first week.

Did you do any second city while you were in Chicago? After college, that was my goal. I only did me out for one year, but that was all I wanted to do, was to do Second City. And I had seen a lot of Second City. My parents went to Northwestern. They'd seen a lot of Second City.

I remember when we went and looked at Northwestern, my dad brought me to Second City, and we saw young Carrel, young Colbert on stage together. Wow. Yeah. And so that's all I wanted to do. So that was post-college.

That was Weight and Tables at the Twisted Lizard. And there was that weird thing. You just kind of improvise. I was doing stuff at Improv Olympic now called I-O, but waiting for that sort of biannual audition where everybody would go in and audition for Second City. But that's all I was looking at was that. Right.

And we will be right back. And now back to the show. So you saw those guys like Correll and those guys when you went, as you said, with your dad. And then once you got to Improv Olympic at post-college, who are the people, because there's so many different classes, of people who were kind of in and around. So many names we all know, right?

You included who came through that Chicago thing. Who were the people who were sort of your contemporaries at the time? Well, it's so nuts because it was genuinely I was present during a scene. Like I'm not being part of it, but it was like, oh, this is what like a scene is like where everybody, you knew you were in the right place because there had been this wave of people were just leaving, you know, like Brian Stack and Brian McCann like to go to Conan stuff, Dorff. So they were the slightly older.

And then there was, you know, in John Glazer. And then there was, you know, Tina and Amy and Horatio and Dratch. So that was all the people that you would either go see at Second City or sometimes they would just pop in to Improv Olympic. You guys know that game, the dream, where you bring somebody up and you ask about their day and then you improvise a dream about it. I remember just once being in the audience,

the first time I talked to Amy, She brought me on stage and she asked me about my day. And then that, like her cohort did basically improvised a sketch about what my dream would be based on the day I had. So it was really amazing to feel very confident, not in how it was going to turn out, but very confident. This is the right place to be at this moment if you want to be in comedy. But did that, did the confidence you feel about, well, I kind of would like to do this more than, your film goals, did you go all in on that as far as what your career

and path to making a living would be? Or were you studying something else simultaneously to mitigate your risk? You know, I got, immediately my takeaway on film class was, oh my God, this is so scientific. And I don't think I have the, you know, where I just don't think I have the attention span for this

and the amount of lighting and the 180 degree rule and lenses. I was like, well, this is the snooze. And so I started, there was a creative writing for the media sort of sub-major, and I was doing that. But, you know, half, I would say most of those people as soon as they graduated, went out to L.A. They wrote spec scripts and they went to L.A. where, you know, Sean, you know, there's a ton of Northwestern people out there. Yeah, so many.

And certainly, you know, when I graduated in the, you know, mid-90s, like there was just, this, you know, Northwestern Mafia out there. And so there were plenty of connections, but by the time I graduated, I wanted to improvise and do comedy more than I wanted to make or write films. But you had no backup career aside from, I mean, you were confident

that the entertainment industry was going to be something you were going to be able to make a living in. No backup, correct. I got a weird job, like a weird, early tech job right out of college where I worked for two months for a friend of mine who had started, the idea was it was a, you would get free minutes for your phone long distance,

but you would have to listen to a commercial before you placed an ad. I'm sorry, before you placed a call. It's not a bad idea. It's basically like what tech again? Wait a second. Keep selling me. So you're interested. But I worked for two months there.

I was like the seventh hire, and I remember he came in one day. He's like, so nobody thinks you want to be here. And I was like, you know what? I don't. And he's like, yeah, that's kind of what we thought. But they, I will say I had really, my friend group at Northwestern, which were not all comedy or theater people,

they were all really supportive. Everybody was like, yeah, I mean, don't, you should just try that. Yeah, that's all you seem to be interested. But you know, it brings up, I was having this conversation with somebody the other day, which was like, I think, you know, every once in a while somebody will call you and say, like, hey, my son is graduating college or they're trying to get into entertainment. Can they call you?

We've all had those calls. All the time. Yeah. Right? And so you end up talking to people, and I always think like there's no, what kind of advice can you give somebody? There's really no plan for it. It's not like law school where you say, finish law school here and then try to go and work for it. So there's not.

But I remember the other day I saying to somebody like, you kind of can't have a backup plan. You have to be all in. It has to be, that's the risk is the thing. And it's because when you don't have anything to fall back on, it forces you. you to try to do whatever you can to get a job. And you're not going to hit necessarily. It's very rare that somebody hits it out of the park on their first job, and you're going to take a lot of shit jobs,

and you're going to do, I don't know, work background, or you're going to do whatever it is that you're going to do, but you have to be all in, I think. It is nice, though, that pursuing the entertainment industry at its early stage does lend itself to the schedule whereby you can hold down a job that can pay your rent and feed you, you know, all out waiting tables, or whatever it is.

Sure. Right. But it is like that, I think when people talk about a plan B, you realize, you're like, you're gonna have a plan D. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, right? Which is like waiting tables. But like, when you talk about a plan B, like, what are you talking about? Because, you know, ultimately anybody who's plan A is your plan B

is going to be so far ahead of you by the time you decide like that's what you want to do. Yes. It is, I mean, man, it is so nice to hear you say that, well, because I,

the amount I feel like I am wasting everyone's time when they sit you down or get you on the phone with somebody who wants to talk about this business and the only thing you could say is like is if you have to only want to do it. Yes. That's the only way.

If you're on the fence about like this in med school, I'd go to med school. You know what I mean? I'm like, yeah, don't look at me. I hopped, I pasted this thing together with scotch tape and rubber bands to get here. I don't know how, you know? Now what was Seth, what was Josh doing at this?

Was he kind of like in a simple? similar track? Yeah, so the exact same track. Also Northwestern, also Meow. And then I had gotten... And he's two years, three years younger? Two years behind me in school. Yeah, two years exactly.

And we... So then I got hired for this job in Amsterdam called Boom Chicago. So these Chicago guys, Northwestern guys, started basically a second city type theater in Amsterdam. And that was a thing I would never have done on my own. Sean's co-star, Peter Gross. Peter Gross, one of the funniest people of live. On Broadway and Good Night Oscar.

He was my friend and he was, we had done improv together. We were improvising in Chicago together and he was the one who said, hey, there's this theater in Amsterdam and they're having auditions. And I just to this day, I'm so lucky to have had a friend who was willing to take a big swing like that

because I never would have even gone to that audition. But the fact that I had a friend, who was down for that kind of adventure, and we both auditioned for that, and then we both ended up moving to Amsterdam. I was there for two years. Am I right? Did Sadecas go to Boom Chicago after you?

Is that right? Yeah, so Sadecas, it was a crazy... I mean, that was another time where I felt that thing of, like, being... I feel like we had another guest on this show that went to Amsterdam. I mean, anyway... You could have been Sadecas, Jordan Peel,

Ike Barrenholz. Oh, I think it was Ike. Oh, yeah. That's right. It was Ike. It was Ike. And, but it was another time where you're like, oh, we're part of a scene. Like, you just, where you look around and you're like, this is the place to be right now.

And the hardest part about leaving to go do it was there was this idea that you were in line in Chicago. Whether you were or you weren't, you thought like, oh, my God, you know, I'm just going to spend six months getting closer to the kind of person that they'll hire for Second City and then I'll be a part of that organization. And so the risk we all had to do was leave and go do. this show in Amsterdam, but once you got there, you were performing way more than you would in Chicago, and you were living in fucking Amsterdam, and it was incredible. It was just the best done.

Because it's about time on stage. You need to have the hours. And we're getting to... Yeah, and so... By the way, Lord, the reason I was in London was, you know, they started us in O.C. And I had dinner with Lauren, and Lauren wanted me to go over there just to, like...

It was before the show started, just to, like, sort of sit and talk to him. You know, and I think you're the right, one because, you know, Amsterdam. And I'm like, from 25 years ago? But also... Lauren, they don't even use the same money is when I live there.

But by the way, what's kind of sweet about it is that he has these associations, he remembers that you came out of Amsterdam. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And he, by the way, it's like, I think like the thing, Lauren is so, he gives way too much credit

to living abroad and athletes. Like the amount people would audition for the show, give like the flattest audition, and Lauren would be like, you know, he played college at baseball, so you know he'll get it. But why? But then so, Seth,

so if everything went perfectly and one got recruited to Second City, is the next logical, you know, home run step after Second City Saturday Night Live? Is that the trajectory? Yeah, I mean, so that was the observable pipeline from the people that were, you know,

So, I mean, it was Jerry Minor. Before that was Tim Meadows. But I didn't really know him. But like Jerry Minor, Horatio Dratch, Tina. And then you just sort of thought like this, Adam McKay, you know, had gone there. And so that is, I think, why everybody wanted to be at Second City. And so then I spent two years in Amsterdam. I came back.

Once again, my expectation was I'll get back in line. You know, maybe it's the end of the line. But this is still what I want. And then I had this crazy stroke of good fortune, which is this woman I.L. Cohen, who worked in the S&L Talent Department, came to this tiny little improv festival where my partner and I were doing a two-person show. And basically, I got to audition for S&L based off that.

And that's all to. And were you in any sports that Lauren recognized? Did you play sports or no? No. No, okay. No. All right. I desperately wanted to, and it was not to be it. Talk to me about how you became more interested, motivated, fulfilled, I'm assuming,

with the writing track as opposed to the performing track. When did that start to take hold? Well, I mean, I would love to tell you that it was my instinct. But I think ultimately, and again, it worked out career-wise, so no regrets. Lorne made a mistake and should have hired me as a writer from that again. He hired me as a cat. member and I was then I mean again I was just it was a huge struggle for me to find a purchase and it only got worse I mean it was fine to be like all right you know I'm not obviously you know Will Farrell Tracy Morgan Chris Catan you know the people who are in the cast were older than me like nobody expected me to be better than them but then you know the next wave of people that came in you know then it's like sedacus hater right Fred and Will Bill and Ann and you're like, oh, no.

Like, they're like the younger cast members, but they're, you know, demonstrably better at sketch comedy than I am. And so I was sort of writing. I always loved writing, but at the time I was writing to stay alive more than anything else. Writing for yourself. Writing for myself.

But Shoemaker, Mike Shoemaker, the producer in the show, he gave great advice where he's like, look, what you should do is you should try to think of group scenes where you can score, but it's not like a Seth sketch. You know, it's a, it's five people and it will get on the show and you will, you know, have a fifth of the laughs, but that'll be better than you, you know. I was, because early on, I would write things that were good enough to get to dress, but then I didn't have the, I don't know, the charisma or skill to carry it. So I was getting so many things cut at dress on the, you know, and again, it was an accomplishment to make it to dress.

But then it just felt like a failure. That's, first of all, it's great that you had, Shue, and obviously I want to get into, you guys have managed to have an incredible sort of partnership, if you will, going forward, and that he gave you that advice at that time, and I want to get into that, but first I want to know,

what's your favorite sketch that got cut at dress that never made it to air that you, to this day, you're like, this would have killed. Do you have one? I don't know. I mean, I remember, because we did this thing, we started doing this thing at our show called Second Chance Theater, where we would do sketches that had gotten cut at S&L,

and then we would mount them on late night. But they were usually like crazy forte sketches, steak sketches, Will Ferrell. We did the Gabe Kaplan Will Ferrell sketch, which I'm sure you at some point Will had seen that dress up. And I remember one time she was like, we should do one of yours. And the only thing I liked about it was it was the beginning of a holiday ad,

which it was like, what do you get for a man who has everything, a second penis? And then it was just... And it was always... I took it, like basically submitted it all three December. shows for like my first five years on the show and never once went because it just ultimately and remember shoemaker's like we should do it and then I got a copy of it and Schemaker read it he's like I actually don't think we should do it so wait wait what what was the thing that always made it a non-candidate

I just think it immediately became no it wasn't too graphic it was too much a sketch about a sketch where it was about how it was just the actual apparatus that the site was psychic was clumsy it was it was about how it was it like it was a clumsy strap Which is amazing. And they were, I remember Parnell was the host of it and there were three testimonials and at the end he goes, so it seems like, he goes, so

one four, one against and one in the middle. They couldn't even get three strong testimonials. Can we just sideline and say how great Chris Parnell is? He's so great. He is world class. That dude fuck me, man. Well, there was, again, when I

I was so lucky to be a writer at a time on that show where just the toolbox was nuts. And I think certainly people who wrote for Phil Hartman had that same thing, but Chris Parnell was just a metronomic delivery system for information that he would do in a way that it felt like as though there was no, it was so dry that it became hilarious, but there was no effort, or it certainly,

no observable effort that he was like reaching for the laugh. He would just kind of get it. He says, oh, I always remember, every time I think of Parnell now, I think of that scene. There's a scene in 30 Rock where he plays that doctor, Spacham, and we're doing this scene, and he goes, and he's got to give somebody a shot,

and he goes, okay, he takes the needle out, and he goes, okay, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, he's revolted at the idea of giving somebody a shot, and nobody else could do it the way he did it. It was just amazing. So that's, man, so then you, so Shoemaker's like, all right, you got to start writing, you got to start doing this stuff.

And then, and then you start writing more, and then update happens. There's a, there's a kind of a, a, there's an empty chair, Tina leaves. Yes. Yes. And to do 30 Rock. And the big thing is, who's going to take over the seat? Yes.

Well, it was the second time it happened, right? because first Jimmy had left. Oh, yes. And, you know, in my head, I always, if I, if there was anybody at SNL whose path I thought I could maybe try to follow, it was Tina's, right? I always saw, I was like, oh, that's somebody who is a really good writer and also a good performer. But, you know what I mean? Like, she built her way to perform her on the, like, strength of her writing. And so, whereas, you know, again, when, you know, when you're next to Will Ferrell or, you know, Amy, and there's just like this charisma coming out of their performance.

pores that is not available to you. You're like, all right, we're going to write our way into this. With that said, when Lauren decided to go with Amy and Tina, it wasn't like I thought he had made a bad choice. My best chance was that Amy didn't want to do it. I wasn't like, what are they thinking?

But then, yeah, when it was you know, when it was Amy in an open chair and my recollection of it was it was the end of that year And so I had done one year where Lorna promoted me to writing supervisor. So he had taken me as a cast member.

And I think at this point he was admitting his mistake. He's like, I'd love you to, you know, basically, because Tina was gone a lot that year. Amsterdam, notwithstanding, I think them. You know, I'd like, I think, you know, in Amsterdam they like clowns. You know what, though, you were so great on update. I remember when Wigg and Armisen played those two characters where they, They're singers and they make albums, but of course they're improvising.

Yeah, Garth and Cat. And they're singing, making it up in the moment, clearly. And you got as big of laughs as they did asking the dumbest, obvious questions. And it's hard to do that. And you just so excelled at that. I thought it was hilarious. Thank you.

It is, to this day, they always would, they would ask to sing another song and they would say, please, Mr. Miners. They kept calling me Mr. Miners. And my wife will still say will refer to me as Mr. Miners when she wants me to do something. Knowing how well you guys all knew each other

and knowing how legitimately you were authentically delighted by so many of those players, watching other people come up. You and Amy doing update was phenomenal in and of itself, but watching how delighted you would be when, like, Fred would come out or Whig, and watching you be legit, like, you know what people would say? Like, oh, are they faking, laughing?

Like, no, no, no. Seth can't control himself because Fred is killing him right now. Right? And they're killing each other. And just, well, Fred and Whig and Bobby Moynihan. Yeah. They also just never, by the way, never tanked dress. They just always saved like three moves for air, which is,

I would never have the confidence to not give. like press so hard at drag it. Whereas they're like, I've got it. Like, I'm not going to do it all now. It was interesting, though, because when Amy left, you know, and I was doing it alone, my initial instinct, which is a bad one, because all update guests are doing a bad job executing what you, the anchor, tell the audience they're going to do.

For example, like, Stefan, the city correspondent, it was a terrible city correspondent. Right. And so my first instinct as an actor was to be frustrated and mad. Right. And again, not to continue to give him the credit he deserves, but Shoemaker was like, I think the audience doesn't like that you don't like them. Right.

You know, he was basically like, I think just, I think you should try to play this as sort of patient and delighted. And it was such a good note because, of course, that, you know, to sort of confirm what you're saying, Will, like I was delighted. So, like, why hide it from the audience? Like, it just seemed like, you know, this. Because, again, I think maybe just from, like, I don't know what it was, like, what comedy you watch growing up,

but, like, there's that straight man thing of, like, now you hold on here. You were supposed to be talking about this city, you know? And that's just, like, not joyful to do or watch. Right, right, right. We'll be right back. And back to the show. When Amy left and ends, because she chose our son over you,

when she when Artie was born and you know what he's a fine young man and I'm finally willing to concede the right choice it's almost 18 years

but uh and he's by the way he's still asleep he's in the other he's in his room right now he's still asleep yeah yeah but but when

when you were now on the desk by yourself uh what was that like that first time do you remember that for a show being out there Well, I mean, because the first time was crazy,

because it didn't, wasn't Archie born on a late Friday night? Well, of course. Yeah, of course. Yeah. No, you did that night by yourself. That, I think Saturday morning I woke up from a text from Amy being like so. She was in labor Saturday morning. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

She was like, you're on your own. And I, but it was crazy. And it was also not the most confident. I've ever felt Lauren was. Oh, no. My ability is. Lauren had a lot of ideas of like, but what if you did it with this person just for tonight?

And I'm not, I will say, I'm not someone who advocates particularly well for myself. But that was, I remember just saying, I really, I think if you don't let me do it alone tonight, you're, it will just look like you don't think I can do it alone. Right. Uh-huh, right, right. And the eyes were on, you guys had had an amazing fall

because it was the presidential race that year. Yes. You guys were every week crushing it. Well, I think maybe the, I mean, probably just based on, I remember, you know, her silhouette, it must have been her last update before Archie was the rap to Sarah Palin, right? So that's, so it is also. I mean, I do, I get that Lauren is like, so here's the thing. You going on alone without the woman who just hardcore rap to Sarah Palin,

like nine and a half months pregnant. Like, I think he was looking out for me, like, genuinely. Like, I don't think it was, he was probably like, let's just try to, like, have, give you a little help out there. But I think ultimately what we, and what ultimately my era of solo hosting update was, was, we'd just do a lot of features. You know what I mean?

Like, four jokes, Fred, four jokes. I will tell you something. I'll tell you something really cool, too, which, well, not, but I think it's cool, is we, of course, you know this very well, because you were texting in contact to Amy and Archie and I, and he was, watched that episode. live from the hospital.

That was the first show Archie ever saw. It was incredible, man. It was, and it was very emotional for her and for you guys and for us and for me. And Maya sang that song. Yeah, Kenan and Maya, Titi and Mario, which was the first time with you, Jason.

That was Titi and Mario was the soul singers. I'm gonna help him. You and Amy, you're on like a bearskin rug in front of... We're selling like a cake. On the show, on the show, not the time you guys went away to time. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Oh, you almost stepped in it. I did not lead you down a helpful path.

That was, we sing those songs all the time, which is they were very short, very inappropriate soul songs. They were kind of like an Ashford and Simpson. And one of the songs, the entirety of one of the songs was, let me put it in a little bit, just the tip. Yeah, just the tip. They were very short songs. Oh, yeah, and then like a, like a, like a, like a,

smash zoom with the camera. Just a tab! Like right in on their face. Yeah, I remember that. Shaky, but that was... So T.T. Morrow, we're saying a song to Arta. Yeah. Sanged. Yeah, it was amazing.

That's so cool. But then you go, so that, now you're on your own and you end up, and however, you got it off the ground really well. You know, behind the scenes, Lauren, as you said, was maybe a little bit nervous and whatever. We'll see. But you end up.

Now, in a way, do you think that that prepared you for ultimately doing late night? Because you kind of grew in confidence, you handled it so well, the audience never sensed that. And I don't think that, and there's no, obviously you and Amy were great to get it. But you really owned that era of doing it yourself, and you took that into late night. Do you feel like that experience helped you? I think it helped people see me as somebody who could do late night, which is ultimately like the bigger problem as far as the jobs we want is you need the people who give those jobs out to see it.

And so that was great. But again, I had no eyes on it. And no one wants to go first. Yeah. And by the way, I owe a great credit to the fact that it worked for, that Jimmy made it work late night because I think, you know, ultimately the complete lack of originality in network thinking led them to like,

what if that's the other update guy? Did Conan proceed Fallon? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was Conan and Jimmy and then... Right, and then it was Jay Conan and Jimmy, and then it was Jay and Jimmy. It was a fun time. But how many years have you done the late show?

Like 12. It started in 2014. Yeah, 2014. February will be 12 years. No, February will be 13. Yeah. It's nuts. But it was...

I will say a lot of the update stuff actually, I think, worked against figuring out the show because of... You know, one thing was so much of... update was about me and the best cast, one of the best cast in the history of SNL. And then you're like, now it's you without any of that. And-

But maybe without the cast, but, and we'd go back to Shoemaker, a guy who had worked closely with you in the writing, first of all, I'd encouraged you. Yes. And then you guys really partnered, and you guys went and did it together. You had a really great, solid... You guys knew each other.

That's such a cheat, because often I think when you start late night, not that I know, you're really... really you're hoping it works out. You're hoping the dynamic works out. You guys had years of working together. We had a shorthand. We had an agreement about what I was good at

and what I hadn't been good at. And we had also been there together while I had tried all the stuff that had not worked about like, I'm going to be a regular sketch cast player on SNL. And we'd kind of watch that fail to, you don't bear any fruit. And so, but the thing that frustrates me so much, and I say this would love,

I remember Lauren said it'll take you 18 months to figure it out. And I had the confidence to be like, I'd take me 18 months. And then 18 months into the show is when I was like, I'm going to stop doing a standing monologue and I'm going to start the show at the desk. And I remember, I didn't even realize it had been 18 months, but the minute I did that, I'm like, oh, this is it.

And then I'm like, oh, fuck. Just right. Then so, but on SNL, were you, how much of the, you were leading the writing process? Were you not? Were you headwriter either in name or in practicality? I was headwriter. I was headwriter for basically the end of my run on the show.

Like I was update and head writer. And I will say to this day, like probably the title, if it's not too silly to be proud of titles, the thing I'm proudest of is the fact that I was the headwriter in SNL. Yeah, as you should be. But again, like, it's you mostly, you know, the hardest or the most Utahile I was is bringing notes from Lauren to the writing staff.

Like, I worked, that writing staff would have been fine without me. They were just absolute top-to-bottom bangers. It was an incredible group of people. You then basically, obviously by default and title, become head writer on your own show. And how, compare those two workloads, positions, levels of responsibility. So it's actually Alex Bays, who was the head writer at Weekend Update, was the one person I poached when I left. And the one person, as soon as I got the

job, the first thing Lauren said was, you can't have Bays. Even Lauren knew how good he was. He's the greatest living joke writer. He's incredible. And so he's our head writer. And the job, I still do a ton of writing on my show, but I only rewrite.

Like, so much of my time at S&L was that, like, open on, you know, like the worst part of writing, just blank page. I remember Jost in his office, like, had a, to this day, I'll go in, because it's my old office, and he has the names of all the cast,

like just printed, just like, and I think of like, sometimes you just want to look at names and hope that, like, just anything to get you started? Right. Like, who, who does what? Right.

And so it is lovely to have transitioned to a part of my career where I'm rewriting more than writing. Gotcha. I mean, I went, I think I went back and hosted in 2017. I'd only been gone three years, and I had this, you know, grand plan. I'm like, I'm going to get back,

I'm going to crack my knuckles, write a couple of old, old school sketching. And I just, it felt like somebody trying to, it was, remember when Mark Spitz came back and tried to swim in the Olympics? And you saw, like, a picture of him, and you're like, he still looks good. And then he just got in the pool, and you're like, no, no, no.

Like, that's how it felt. The hours have got to be similar or better or worse? No, no, no, this is unbelievable. My hour is now compared to the essay. I don't know how. Is better or worse? So, right now it's the best. I don't know how I could have had a family with SNL hours

in the way that I do now. I mean, we tape our show at 4 in the afternoon, and we don't do a post-mortem. Again, Shoemaker, his thing was like, look, we, if there's something you're mad about tomorrow, let's have a meeting. But if you go home, I bet you'll come in tomorrow and be more concerned about tonight's show.

Right. You'll realize that the thing you're mad about, everybody noticed that it went wrong, and nobody will want it to go wrong again, and ultimately, let's say, ourselves, you know, 90 minutes. It's so interesting. Because again, you're just churning them out one after the other.

And not in a bad way. I don't mean that in a negative way, but it does really force you to look to the future and just try to slowly bring up. But it is daily, right? Except instead of weekly. Even though the daily workload on SNL, from my limited view of it, it does seem pretty rigorous, I would imagine on your, your show currently, it is much more involved.

It's, I mean, again, I get there first thing in the morning, and I'm working the whole day. Like, there's no, there's no downtime. But it's not boring because it's all, you know, you're all churning towards this really exciting release. And, you know, the, the adrenaline rush of walking out into a studio where, you know, 180 people are there to watch it. That's so cool.

Do you feel like you have to consciously because of, because it is daily and you do deal with, you know, topical things, do you feel the need to, like, fuck, I got to plow through every newspaper this morning. I need to be up on every, no? I sometimes feel like I get my news from the first draft. Yeah, right. And I'm like, that's also fine. I mean, like, you know, again, like, it's not like I'm not looking at social media

and scrolling through Twitter and seeing, like, what's happening in the world. So I'm not, like, caught flat-footed. But I don't, you know, On Sunday, do I, you know, think it's important to watch, you know, a lot of the, you know, Sunday news shows. Yeah. But, like, I'm not, I don't feel like I'm some, you know, insatiable news junkie for the purposes of my show, which is nice.

You can always just call Bateman. You could just call Bateman. Yeah. I'll plug you in. Yeah. Do you ever get tired of it, though? I mean, do you ever get, like, you need a break? You know, we're on, you know, we're talking during a hiatus.

I think maybe when there's air. We'll be back on. I can't wait to be back on. Like, genuinely, I love the people I work with. I also, you know, it's a very, hopefully it's a cathartic show to watch, and it's very cathartic to do. So my mental health is a lot more locked in

when I have this show as a way to sort of like, you know, anxiety dumb. What do you look forward to doing, sorry, Willie, on that when you guys are powered down during the summer, what is the thing you look most forward to doing with the family each year? Is it just, is it like, is it travel? Is it doing nothing? Is it just playing house?

You know, we got, we got beach kids. I got a father-in-law with a boat. Highly recommend having a father-in-law with a boat. Just a little motorboat. Sure. Just, you know, but that's a good thing to do with your kids. I got it. But in general, they're also, you know, they're 10, 8,

and my daughter's almost five. Just good company right now. Yeah. For the first time where I'm really like, you know what? You're all a lot less boring. Yeah. And there's much more self-sufficient at that age, right?

Yeah. Well, that's the curse, right? Like, the minute they're not boring, they're like, hey, I'm meeting other people. I'm like, yeah, yeah. I know you watch a lot, historically you've watched a lot of films, you watch a lot of shows.

is like you enjoy absorbing all sorts of art, if you will. What are the thing, what's the thing that, and you watch a lot of sports, you say you don't play, but you do, you watch a ton of sports. What's the thing, what is the thing that you do? Are you watching below deck like J.B. and me? Are you anything like that? Widows Bay.

That was my last show that I really love. Matthew Reese is great. Yeah. That dude doesn't. Really good. A very good dude. That's the last thing I feel like I, Do you ever watch documentaries, like true crime documentaries?

Not with much consistency. I love them. And then what is the go-to sport? It's football? It's Steelers' football? It depends on, I will say, like, if you have, if your baseball team is any good, it's very fun in the summer to care about baseball. But I would say like...

And what is your team? Sox? The Red Sox, and then also, my dad's from Pittsburgh, so the Pirates to a smaller degree. And then, but the Steelers 100%. And that, I do feel. like I'm gearing up for that emotional rollercoaster. Not in a way to where I'm excited. Are anybody, like, are you guys fans of sports teams outside of where you grew up?

Yeah. No. I mean, I'm a liberal. You didn't grow up in Boston, Seth, right? Well, New Hampshire is, you know, we got the Boston sports channels. Fucking right next to it, dude. It's like, right next to it. Although, I tell a story, like, I was at a charity event once, and a Wahlberg, I won't

say which one. He was like, are you from Boston? And I said, I'm from New Hampshire. And he said, so no. I was like, that is the perfect sort of provincial rudeness of someone who like gets the Boston Globe. I'm like, I'm within the window of the Boston Globe getting delivered. Home delivery, yeah. Well, could you imagine ever being called the New England Red Sox?

I mean, that would give you an excuse then, right? But they don't. Yeah, the New England Patriots do it. But it is, it's so funny because, like, I, again, you know, I got my start in Chicago. Chicago totally owns me. My dad's from Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh totally owns me. Boston, just kind of in the middle.

Never the Cubs. You know what I mean? Never the Cubs? They're pretty agnostic, never the Cubs. Never the White Sox? No. And never the Bears. Right.

No. Okay. I just didn't care. I had a. I had a true love, and I didn't need more. Got it. Sure. What do you think, everybody asks this all the time, what do you think... Is going to happen in the Middle East?

Well, don't get me started. The straight-to-ho-ho-hoose is open, okay? By the way, in case you didn't know, it's open for business. It's wide-open. And, by the way, it doesn't matter how far we're recording this based on when it comes out. It's going to stay open. It's still open. It's never been closed.

Last thing. next five years through, if you had to look, because we were talking about, like, what do you want to do in the preamble in our coffee chat, as J.B. calls it, what do you see it going? What do you want to do? Look, I mean, I don't know. I would love to say in five years from now, I'm still doing late night. I have no, I'm not tired of it at all. I really, really enjoy it. But, you know, I do think more than maybe even the things I learned at S&L help me figure out late night. Like, I think, like, what I've done at late night will be stuff that will help me figure out a great many things.

And ultimately, the fear I had leaving SNL was like, oh, I'm so worried my next job is going to be boring. And this one isn't. So I think the key is just to find something where you're just not bored. Well, I don't think you have to worry. You're a great comedy mind. You're a great mind. People love watching you, including me.

You're super, super funny. You're a wonderful talent set. Yeah, you're going to find. This was so much time. And you've got no plan B. And you've got no plan B. No plan B. Not even.

All these years later, not a plan B. So you're going to be just fine. Yeah. Yeah. And hey, Jason, I know you couldn't, but I can hear you. Thank you. Oh, wow. Thank you.

And you see me. I can hear you. Yeah, I can see you too. We love you, Seth, Myers. I love you, Seth. Thank you for coming, dude. Thank you for doing this. All right, guys.

I'll see you soon. Thanks, Seth. All right, bye, Seth. Thank you. The great Seth Myers. He's so great. You know what you can tell he's a great writer and a great,

person of comedy just because of his natural wit like he's so funny naturally just speaking so witty well I love he's so conversational in his show on his show and as you said and so witty

yeah so fast like crazy fast fast fast fasts yeah I mean we've all done his show right we've all been on his show and he's I don't know how you do that every single day where you're just on on on on and he's so natural on it

Anyway, he's one of the best. Yeah, it's super smooth, always so kind and gregarious, and he's just a... So smart. So smart. Yeah. He is a perfect host, for sure. It really is. God.

And I feel, is that the first time he's been on the show? Yeah, isn't that crazy? What is the deal? I don't know, right? I don't know. And then I ran into him last year. We've been trying to put this together for almost a year, just with dates and stuff. And, because I was like, how did we not...

Yeah, I mean, he was, he's definitely, you know, he's definitely, why do I see, why do I see you coming from around the corner? Every time, like he chokes the puppy. I think he literally grabs the microphone and he gets an idea. Sean, what is he? Well, I just want to say he wasn't, he wasn't on today by accident. He was on today, no, he wasn't on today. Still rolling. Jesus age.

He was on today because he was purposefully on today. He wasn't on by accident? I mean, less committal. Will you got anything? No, I don't know. You know, I'm sorry, Sean, but I don't. Bye. Bye.

Bye. There we go. Bye. Bye. Smartless is 100% organic and artisanly. Smartless is 100% organic and artisanly. handcrafted by Rob Armjarf, Bennett Barbico, and Michael Grant Terry. Smart.