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Seth Meyers and Andy Samberg Talk 10 Years of Late Night at PaleyFest 2024
The Late Night with Seth Meyers Host and his new podcast co-lead, Andy Samberg, got candid at the annual TV fest in Hollywood in April.
To say Seth Meyers' slate is full would be an understatement. In February, his NBC talk show Late Night with Seth Meyers celebrated its 10th anniversary. That means 10 years of engaging interviews, hilarious monologues, political satire (like Meyers' signature "A Closer Look" series), and clever bits like "Jokes Seth Can't Tell." Meyers also recently launched a Saturday Night Live rewatch podcast with the Lonely Island trio Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone, on top of his Family Trips podcast with his brother, Josh Meyers. He also stars with Mike Birbiglia in a documentary currently streaming on Peacock, The Good One: A Show About Jokes.
Not every writer-comedian could pull off so many complex projects at once, so we have to wonder: Does Meyers even sleep?
“Barely,” Meyers told NBC Insider on the PaleyFest 2024 red carpet on April 15, where he walked with “self-proclaimed best friend” Andy Samberg, who was there to interview his former SNL coworker for a PaleyFest event honoring a decade of Late Night with Seth Meyers.
"It’s bad,” Samberg added.
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“Like, we’re not doing great with the podcast," Meyers joked, in keeping with the group's self-deprecating attitude toward the project. "We’ve got a lot in the bank, but by the summer it’s gonna get pretty dicey!"
After confirming that they are, in fact, both good sleepers, Samberg elaborated that Meyers “somehow has always been able to keep his life and all the plates in the air, and I pretty much crumble immediately.”
Joking aside, Meyers had sweet words for his fellow podcast hosts. “Doing the podcast with not just Andy, but Akiva and Jorma — it’s always tough to schedule, but it doesn’t feel like work. We’re actually talking to each other,” he told NBC Insider.
Meyers was "hesitant" to take the Late Night job at first
Samberg assumed the role of interviewer at the PaleyFest event as the two sat in directors' chairs on stage, and the Brooklyn Nine-Nine alum peppered Meyers with questions about all things Late Night.
When Lorne Michaels first broached the idea of leaving SNL and taking over Late Night, "I was hesitant to do it," Meyers told Samberg. "The other thing is, I thought Jimmy Fallon's Late Night was incredibly inventive and novel, and new and different — and I knew I couldn't do that."
The involvement of producer Mike Shoemaker, who has worked with Fallon and Meyers on Saturday Night Live and both incarnations of Late Night, went a long way in convincing Meyers it was a good idea.
"When I knew I could do it with [Shoemaker], I had confidence that we'll figure it out as we go," Meyers added.
Seth Meyers shares his proudest "A Closer Look" moment
Samberg's PaleyFest questions included several about “A Closer Look,” the show's popular news segment.
"The longer we've done it, the more we've given ourselves permission to take tangents and do fun things and it's become really silly," Meyers told Samberg. But he credits segment writer Sal Gentile's role in the "Closer Look" installment he's proudest of.
"On January 6th, we were gonna tape our show at four in the afternoon, and we realized, 'oh, we can't tape now. Like, we don't know what's gonna happen — any jokes we make, anything we say now might be so historically dated in seven hours," Meyers recounted.
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So they did it live. "We waited until 12:37, and [Gentile] wrote "A Closer Look" that was basically, 'let's not forget what happened today.' And it was so beautifully written."
Meyers has revisited the January 6 "Closer Look" in the subsequent anniversaries of the insurrection. "It was just one of those days where you just feel so lucky to have a show to be able to say those things," he said.
“A Closer Look Rules! It’s how I get most of my news,” Samberg stated, and we couldn’t agree more (though Samberg debuted his own take on the segment during a past Late Night visit).
Meyers and Samberg on Meyers' Giuliani impression
NBC Insider had a few of our own piercing questions about “A Closer Look,” in which Meyers often pulls off hysterical impressions of politicians. When we caught up to Meyers and Samberg on the PaleyFest red carpet, we asked for their favorite "Closer Look" impressions.
“I do enjoy yelling really loud, like Bernie Sanders. I do enjoy doing Lindsey Graham. Those are two of my favorites,” revealed Meyers.
Samberg chimed in, “I love it when you do Giuliani. It’s unhinged. It gets at something,” referring to former New York City Mayor-turned Trump laywer Rudy Giuliani.
“Somebody said something very touching,” Meyers told us. “They go, 'this is both the worst and the best Giuliani. It doesn’t sound like him, but it grasps him.'”
When asked if there’s an impression he thinks he hasn’t quite nailed, the humble Meyers said, “I think the reason that’s a false premise is that I’ve never nailed any of them. When you aim for B- it’s a pretty nice way to live,” he joked.
When Late Night with Seth Meyers debuted ten years ago, it inaugurated a whole new generation of social satire. As for the show’s future, Meyers kept his plans close to the vest.
“I mean, I’d like to keep doing it. Selfishly, I’m just going to zero in on me, like, doing it,” Meyers joked. “It changes all the time, so certainly, if you asked me ten years ago, I wouldn’t have gotten anything right. So you just want to focus on the show ahead of you and hope that it all goes well.”
Late Night with Seth Meyers is back with new episodes on Monday, April 29, 2024.
