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As a veteran late-night guest, I know a phony host when I see one — and Seth Meyers is as genuine as they come. He’s been a professional funny guy on TV for decades, first joining the cast of Saturday Night Live in 2001, then hosting his own late-night talk show since 2014. Over the years, he’s learned the hard way what works and what doesn’t, stumbling through creative missteps in front of millions of people and, even worse, in front of Lorne Michaels. We discuss standout skits, the legacy of late night, and how having good taste often means knowing when to step aside.

Late Night with Seth Meyers will go live on Wednesday, September 11 at 10 p.m. for “A Closer Look with Seth Meyers: Primetime LIVE Election Special”, an extended edition of the show’s signature A Closer Look segment, examining the previous night’s presidential debate.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Seth Meyers, David Duchovny, Old Recording

David Duchovny  00:00

I’ve done a lot of talk show appearances in my time. You know, I can’t even remember how many, probably, Letterman, 10-15, times, Kimmel, I think they said 20 times last time I did it, I’m, I’m sure I’ve done Seth Meyers 10 times. Maybe, I don’t know. So I’ve done a lot of late night and I kind of, I can tell the difference between a good host and a bad host, for me, anyway. And Seth is a good one. Seth is a great one. Actually. He’s kind, he’s funny. He knows not to step on a joke. He knows how to set you up on a joke. He’s one of the generous hosts who wants you to score and he wants you to, you know, represent whatever it is you’re selling at that moment, whatever TV show or book or a movie you’re selling at that moment, and he’s always surprising in a very generous and kind way. So it was, I think, a little awkward for talk show host to be on the other side of that, but with Seth, you know, he knows who he is, so he’s not, he’s not adapting himself to either being the host or being the guest, he’s going to be the same Seth Meyers, and that’s that’s powerful in this business, and it’s one of the reasons, I think, the main reason why he he remains a viable host and a vital host, and His show remains popular and successful.

 

David Duchovny  01:22

I’m David Duchovny, and this is Fail Better, a show where failure, not success, shapes who we are. Seth Meyers is a comedian, Emmy winning writer and TV host. You might know him from sitting behind the host desk on Late Night with Seth Meyers, or maybe on the Saturday Night Live segment Weekend Update, which he hosted for the better half of a decade before landing his own show, Seth has been a mainstay in late night comedy basically since he graduated from college. It hasn’t come without conflict and compromise, though, and hard work and some disappointments along the way, but he’s a very humble guy, sometimes leaning towards self deprecating and frequently crediting and cheerleading his teams Late Night with Seth Meyers is over 1500 episodes, averaging well over 100 per year, and hosting even more guests. As I mentioned, I’m fortunate to have been one of them. So he’s interviewed me many times, and so now I get to return the favor live from New York. No, just kidding, prerecorded from a Zoom meeting. Here’s Seth Meyers.

 

Seth Meyers  02:28

I feel so much less stressed being a guest on a podcast than I do hosting one. So I just want to tell you how happy I am to be on the other side of this.

 

David Duchovny  02:35

That’s interesting, because I was going to begin this by by telling you that I once heard somebody describe Gene Hackman coming to work. You know that he comes to work with his bags packed, not not meaning that he wants to leave, but he’s just ready, like he’s got all his shit packed and he’s ready to use it. And that’s always how I felt about coming on a talk show. I try and come on your show, or any show that I’ve done and try to make your job as easy as possible. Or just, like, come in and, like, with my bags packed, as I do as an actor.

 

Seth Meyers  03:08

It’s a very I’m going to steal it now, because I think it’s a great way to describe guests internally.

 

David Duchovny  03:15

Yeah, internally, you’re just sitting there thinking you did not pack anything for this at all.

 

Seth Meyers  03:19

But I, you know, I had high expectations the first time you were on my show based on just having seen you on talk shows over the years, and you did not disappoint.

 

David Duchovny  03:29

I came with my bag with your.

 

Seth Meyers  03:31

Bags packed.

 

David Duchovny  03:32

So I’m wondering, like when you packed your bag this morning, did you pack it full of failure for me?

 

Seth Meyers  03:37

Yeah, I feel like I have some failure. I am going to let you, you know, obviously lead, but I do have some failure stuff, and I just want to make sure the kind of failure I have is gonna, is gonna satisfy you.

 

David Duchovny  03:49

I’ll be satisfied by any kind of conversation. That’s what I’m learning about doing this podcast. This failure is like the, it’s the amuse bouche. But I guess, I guess what I’d asked you to begin with is, you know, the notion of failure also, it entails a notion of ambition. You know, of like, what was the what was your little Seth Meyers in there in New Hampshire and his PJs, staring up at the ceiling in bed? What’s it look like?

 

Seth Meyers  04:20

Well.

 

David Duchovny  04:20

Looks forward.

 

Seth Meyers  04:21

It’s a trip. It’s a real trip, because one could argue it went better than I dreamed it would go. And by that, I mean my favorite show as a kid was Saturday Night Live Like that was without doubt. And yet, I don’t think I ever, in my head, ever dared to think I would end up on that show, but I did think that I would be somehow in show business by the time, though I was leaving for college, I think the path I was on was maybe behind the camera, be it as a writer or director, that was what. Thought I would do when I went to college. And one of the reasons I thought that instead of a performer is I never had the guts to even audition for a play in high school. That was too terrifying to me. And we did some, you know, Comedy Night type things in my high school, where it was a little bit more, you know, sketches and doing impressions of teachers and stuff like that. And I felt very, you know, comfortable enough to do stuff like that, but the idea of actually going out and auditioning in front of my peers was just too much to bear. So I think that I because of that, by the time I went to school, I was thinking, all right, I’m going to be a writer. I’m going to be a director and and so that was, that was, if I had any dreams, it was that I remember a dream that broke my heart was I had a dream once that I was on the show Cheers. I remember this dream, and I remember, uh, waking up and being so sad that I wasn’t on cheers. And so that is, that’s a dream I had as a kid.

 

David Duchovny  05:55

Yeah, when you wake up and it’s not true, yeah.

 

Seth Meyers  06:00

And then it was funny later, when I had, you know, stress nightmares about working on SNL and waking up and realizing I was on SNL, right?

 

David Duchovny  06:11

What gave you the balls to think you were going to be in show business though? You know, I know you happen to come from a genius cluster up there in New Hampshire. You know, you have you Sandler and silver, and something’s in the water.

 

Seth Meyers  06:21

Something’s in the water […] I was, I was aware, by the way, of the fact that Sandler and so, you know, Sarah’s from my actual hometown, Bedford, Adams next door in Manchester, where I went to high school. And I remember Adam being on Letterman, doing stand up, and knowing he was from, you know, basically Jason hometown, and thinking, oh, man, probably not going to be two of us. And then when Sarah Silverman showed up, and I knew people who knew her, you know, friends, older siblings were, like, friends with her. And at that point, I was like, well, I mean, now it’s officially over.

 

David Duchovny  06:58

So what did you would you didn’t think I was going to be an actor. You’re just thinking some kind of vague thing, I’m going to be in show business.

 

Seth Meyers  07:05

I was one of those kids who, like, worked at the video store, you know, the kind of store that blockbuster put out of business. You know, like a local like, a guy’s name and then video, Maloney’s. Video.

 

David Duchovny  07:20

Oh, Maloney’s. Everybody knows everybody come on.

 

Seth Meyers  07:22

That guy’s got the best movies. And so I worked, and I was one of those kids who thought, I’m going to be an auteur. I Nobody where you think you’re going to be in showbiz because you like movies?

 

David Duchovny  07:33

Quentin Tarantino, kind of a Tarantino story.

 

Seth Meyers  07:36

Kind of a Tarantino story. And and yet, when Tarantino story broke, he realized he actually watched movies that not everybody watched. You know what I mean, like, the reason Tarantino worked is he watched all the movies, whereas nobody, nobody made it when they showed up and said, I’ve seen the Godfather Chinatown.

 

David Duchovny  07:54

Tarantino has the best samples. I mean, if you want to, if you want to think of it musically, he just sampled the music that we didn’t know.

 

Seth Meyers  08:01

Yeah, no, it’s like the Beastie Boys, where, you know, they sample music, but you didn’t know any of the songs.

 

David Duchovny  08:05

And they had great taste.

 

Seth Meyers  08:06

Yeah, it was amazing. What taste, what a big part of this whole thing tastes.

 

David Duchovny  08:12

That’s right.

 

Seth Meyers  08:12

So that’s what I always say about I should sorry just to zip all over the place, and I.

 

David Duchovny  08:17

Will get to know I want you to zip.

 

Seth Meyers  08:19

Why? Uh, why Lauren Michaels is irreplaceable? Because there’s, everybody always says, you know what’s going to happen is, like, people forget the giant chunk of it that’s irreplaceable is, it’s been one man’s taste for, you know, half a century. And you know, other people come through and have huge impacts on the show. But it all this sort of, this last taste filter, which you know isn’t batting 1000 by any means, but it is. It is so acutely tuned to what American culture has had a place for so many years.

 

David Duchovny  08:54

It’s so interesting to me that you bring Lauren up because I had wanted to ask you at some point about Lauren, because I have this sense that that’s true what you just said, and I also it’s interesting for me on the outside. I mean, I’ve done the show a couple times, but also, as you know, as a fan, as as watching people cycle in and out becoming big stars or whatever. It’s interesting to hear the way people talk about Lauren because it’s so praising, in a way, and yet also careful. I always get the feeling that there’s a fear there, like he’s the combination between your crazy uncle and the godfather. And I wonder, I was going to ask you, what is it that you learned? Like, I understand what you’re saying about Lauren and his taste. And I always say, as a director, when I direct, that’s all a director has, is his taste and his tone. And that’s coming from Lauren in SNL for how many years now, right? And it’s changing, and it’s changed so he’s alive and he’s vital, and he’s he’s reacting to what’s going. Going on out there, so I guess what I wanted to ask you was, what did you learn from Lorne, aside from him singling you out and saying, okay, you’ve got something, and I’m going to find a place for you. And he did, he he helped you find a place where you could thrive.

 

Seth Meyers  10:16

Well, yes, I would say he helped me, he gave me an opportunity to find my place. Because ultimately, success and failure, and if we’re going to get into failure, I would say that the, weirdly, the biggest failure in my life came after, or I should say my biggest chapter of my life, that was defined by failure, was right after the biggest success of my life, which is I got hired by SNL, and then I couldn’t find my footing, and ultimately, Lauren can’t figure out how you’re going to succeed at that show. He can only give you the chance to succeed at that show. It’s like, ultimately certain, you know, you can’t coach up. You can’t right, coach talent, you can, you know, coach technique.

 

David Duchovny  10:59

Put the ball in the basket. More please.

 

Seth Meyers  11:01

Yeah, exactly, be better, yeah so.

 

David Duchovny  11:04

So what was it? What was it that was, what was missing, and what were you trying? What are there, some, some characters?

 

Seth Meyers  11:11

Well, so you get hired on the show, and you get hired, and, you know, you audition on, you know, you do impressions, and you do characters, and I think ultimately one of the reasons I got hired was because I wrote a really good audition and I executed well as a performer. But I think you know that it was there were good jokes in the body of it, and I think that ultimately you could see the pieces of why somebody like me would work, which is, oh, not only can they do stuff, but you can tell they know how to excellent. Yeah, they know how to write, and that’s such a big part of succeeding on the show. But then I got on the show, and, you know, I I’m not really great at characters. I’m not great. I wasn’t a great impressionist, I wasn’t great.

 

David Duchovny  11:55

I beg to differ there, because I really like your your impressions.

 

Seth Meyers  11:58

I think I found my way into it now.

 

David Duchovny  12:00

Like, I think I’m better, ready to go. You’re ready to go back to SNL now.

 

Seth Meyers  12:03

I think I’m a fun talking, but like, when you actually put me. And I should note, like, one of the differences between the way I do impressions now and the way I do impressions then is I was so tight. Then I was so everyone was living and dying. And, you know, everybody’s a little bit better when they’ve got the job. And what I realized about my SNL audition was you think when you get it, you know, again, as we’ve established, this arbiter of taste, Lauren Michaels has tapped you on the shoulder, and you think, because he’s tapped you on the shoulder, you’re bound to succeed. But then every week at SNL is now another audition, and now you’re not auditioning against other prospective cast members. Now, every week, you’re auditioning against Will Ferrell, you’re auditioning against, you know, Chris, Catan, Tracy, Morgan, Amy Poehler, and you’re realizing, Oh, the standard of what is good has risen faster than I was ready for, and I was just, and I’m not making this up, being hard on myself. You know, the first summer of SNL, you know, you basically sign a seven year contract, but the show has your options every year. And so in the beginning, you’re like, oh my god, seven years, and then the first summer, your agent calls and said they’re doing something which is called an extension. And that sounds good, right? Extension, eight years, nine, what they’re they actually have to pick up your contract every year, and on June 1, let’s say, and they’re asking for an extension until August 1.

 

David Duchovny  13:43

Well, Holy shit, that is not the way to loosen you up.

 

Seth Meyers  13:46

No, and then you say, what is, what is the purpose of this extension? And the reality is, make you look everywhere in America and and then they’re if they find anyone better than you, that you might not. And so, but that happened.

 

David Duchovny  14:05

sSo tell me what that feels like in that moment you’re in that you’re in that phone call.

 

Seth Meyers  14:10

I remember it was my I remember exactly where I was. My brother, who lived in LA at the time, was had a house on Sunset and curse on. And it was, it was not a nice house, but it was a fun house for people in their 20s who were in show business to live. And I remember being just standing in the front lawn while I got the call. And I should note I did get there was sort of a two pronged call. First, I think I maybe heard from my agent, who sort of delivered the news very coldly, and then I was lucky enough to get the news from Mike Shoemaker, who’s currently the producer of my show. He’s the best friend you could have in in this business, and he’s been my best friend for coming up on almost 25 years. And he called me and sort of tried to talk me down off the ledge, but he was also, you know, he was very real with me about the fact that, like, yeah, this isn’t great. Like, this isn’t there’s no good reason for this to happen. But it’s not happening just to you. It’s happening to some other cast members, but you know that thing that oppressive weight when it dawns on you that it might not work out. You know that you would, yeah, this dream and and for as hard as SNL is, you do get a really fair shot with your talent. You know sometimes, if you’re look if you cast on a sitcom, you are at the mercy of what the writers right? You know you are at the mercy of you know where the plot goes, but every week at SNL, you could sit down with a blank piece of paper and try to write your way into the show. And so I wouldn’t have been able to walk away. I mean, I probably would have, but in my heart of hearts, I would not have been able to say I had gotten a raw deal.

 

David Duchovny  16:02

What’s interesting in this podcast, I talked to a lot of athletes, or people that are interested in in sports as well, because obviously, in those in those situations, failure and successes is black and white. I mean, you either you either win or you lose, and if a thing of you as an athlete, you get that call. I’m like, oh, fuck, I’m gonna train harder, you know, I’m gonna eat better. But how do you you know you’re talking to an artist or a creative person, and you’re telling them to work harder, work better. It’s such a tough it’s such a tough line to be standing in front of, you know, it’s like, and it can really throw you off. It can really throw throw you off of what it is you want to do or what it is you do well by trying to do it better or trying to do it harder.

 

Seth Meyers  16:50

Yeah, and just that idea of be funnier is maybe the most impossible note to take. I remember, and it came from a very loving place. I think maybe the first show of my second year, I don’t even remember somebody had a dance show on MTV, like a dance competition show, and Matt Damon was the host. And I think I played an impression of this guy I’d never watched before. I’d never seen this dance show. And, but this guy I shared an office with, who was a really funny writer, almost like threw me a bone and cast me as this guy looked a little bit like this guy, and we did this sketch, and I had to like dance in this sketch, and I’m a bad dancer, and the sketch was bad. And I remember this producer called me in and basically said, you have to avoid doing things like that where, basically where Lauren sees you fail in front of people you know you have to. And I, at the time, I couldn’t wrap my head around what he was asking me to do, because I was saying, Well, should I say to the writer, don’t put me in your sketch? Because that seems like, you know, you’re basically admitting you shouldn’t be here anywhere. And ultimately, it was an impossible to take note, but I understand now what he was trying to say, which is, look, you, this is a trial and error show. Like, we all know this, don’t fail in front of the audience. Like, because if Lauren is on the fence of I’m, you know, I’m not feeling Seth right now. You know, the audience can convince him he’s wrong, but the audience can also convince him he’s right, and that is not what you should be putting yourself in the crosshairs of right now.

 

David Duchovny  18:32

And again. That’s another, kind of constricting bit of knowledge so constrained from all areas here.

 

Seth Meyers  18:39

I did have the good note, which came from the aforementioned Mike Shoemaker, was this. He said, Look, you can write really well, and you can write better than most cast members can, especially for other people. So the advice I would give you is to write group sketches, write sketches where a lot of cast members are in it, and give yourself 1 to 3, lines that work. And if you are putting yourself out there every week trying to carry a sketch, you’re not gonna make it at this show, because those sketches aren’t gonna work, and everybody’s gonna get tired of them at the table, and it’s just gonna end. But if you write something that is sort of a group win for the show, and you’re making other cast members look good, and at the end of the day, every time you’re out there, people are laughing, and the audience and Lauren start thinking, I’d like to see a little bit more of them, as opposed to, I’d like to see a lot less of them, that might be the best path forward. So if I the way I I got out of that failure, in the end, was some version of writing my way out of it, but taking the path which a lot of, I think cast members at the show get caught up in, which is, I got to figure out how to write a big thing for me. The way I got out of it was, I’m going to write a small thing for me.

 

David Duchovny  20:24

Are there any characters that you wrote during that time that you miss or that you wish you could have gotten a chance to get out there?

 

Seth Meyers  20:32

Now, I did a thing. One of the best things I the best character I wrote for myself was a guy named Dr Dave Zinger. And he was just, he just was a doctor who had zingers.

 

David Duchovny  20:45

I can imagine.

 

Seth Meyers  20:46

I had made a terrible decision that seemed like a great decision at the time, which is the first Dave Zinger sketch was with Alec Baldwin, and he played Dr Gregory Burns. And all he had were Burns. And so is the two of us going back and forth, zinging and burning each other. And it was from the table to air a success.

 

Old Recording  21:10

Burn singer, I heard you were out at the zinger game. I heard you were tired, and they named second place after you. Nice. Burn singer, by the way, you still owe me that wrench check, since you spend all your time living in my shadow.

 

Seth Meyers  21:30

The problem was I had written the eighth sketch in a series of successful recurring characters. First, it was never going to go better than it was with Alec Baldwin.

 

David Duchovny  21:43

Right.

 

Seth Meyers  21:43

Because then I would write it for other hosts, and they would, I would say, yeah, it’s like this, I think, with Alec Baldwin. And every single one of them say, I can’t do it as good as Alec Baldwin, and, you know, Jennifer Aniston, you want to do this? Oh, no, I saw that. I can’t do that. And, so that was, you know, a success. That was one of those Pyrrhic victories. And the other one was, I wrote one with Amy Poehler called Little sleuths. Little sleuths was like encyclopedia brown type character, and his sister, I think his name was, bookie Newton, and they were, they solved, they helped solve grizzly crimes. So it was and the first one we did was with John Goodman, and it was maybe my fourth show, and again, unqualified success. And then it we tried to redo it. I remember the next time we tried, it was with Hugh Jackman, and it was, he was like a Sherlock Holmes type character, and it was in a beautiful English manner. And I remember seeing this set. The set was so gorgeous. It was like a, you know, old books on the library. And I remember saying, well, they’re not going to cut this. And they fucking cut it. You know what I mean, like, they never keep the sketch for the set.

 

David Duchovny  22:56

Right.

 

Seth Meyers  22:57

And I realized what the problem with both of those sketches were, they were premise sketches. They weren’t actually character sketches. Like I played a character in them, but you didn’t need to see it a second time. It wasn’t right. The fun had not been in my performance. The fun had been in the in the premise. And so ultimately, I slowly came to the conclusion of like, Oh, when I actually worked on, on recurring characters later in the run of the show. It was always when it was, you know, it was somebody like Bill Hader who could do something over and over again and and people liked watching it because of the way he would do it.

 

David Duchovny  23:31

Right, I think what I’m getting from asking you about Lauren, he gives you a chance to get to know yourself. He just allows you the time to figure out where your strengths are. Is that fair?

 

Seth Meyers  23:47

I think that’s fair. Sometimes, like being go back to taste like I have good taste, and part of good taste is knowing when people are better than me at things. And so it was, it was, I almost wish I had been delusional, but I was not. And it was, it was a really hard time.

 

David Duchovny  24:03

Well, it sounds, yeah. It sounds to me, though, just to extrapolate from that, that your future at some point would be directing.

 

Seth Meyers  24:11

Yeah. I mean, I It certainly does seem like a nice thing that I haven’t done yet, that I would, I would like to take a crack at and and the way my show works, another thing I would say, I learned from Lauren, which I stole from this show, and I’m sure you steal when you direct a film which.

 

David Duchovny  24:31

Is never stolen anything.

 

Seth Meyers  24:32

But just surround yourself with experts in their.

 

David Duchovny  24:37

Absolutely.

 

Seth Meyers  24:38

And so, you know, in my show, I don’t ever if there’s a prop. I never feel as though I have to go down to the prop shop and ask for four options. You know, I just know the props gonna be.

 

David Duchovny  24:50

We have to do that one time, just so people believe, Oh my God.

 

Seth Meyers  24:53

That he’s gonna stop by.

 

David Duchovny  24:55

Is he ever detail oriented? Or what that guy’s that guy’s got everything in mind.

 

Seth Meyers  24:59

I went. I will say I went once to a set where they were there was gonna be alien blood in the movie and it was my friend who was directing. There was a table with like seven different shades of green.

 

David Duchovny  25:14

Sure, alien. I’ve seen all the alien blood. I know all the shades.

 

Seth Meyers  25:17

It’s so but it was so funny how long he looked at them to me because, and that’s where I worry that I wouldn’t be a good director, because I would just say, Oh, I just, I don’t think it matters.

 

David Duchovny  25:27

Just go with your gut. The third one, the third one’s fine.

 

Seth Meyers  25:29

Yeah, the third one’s fine. Whatever your first instinct is.

 

David Duchovny  25:32

One of the things I had wanted to ask you, and I’m glad you’re talking like this, because you do this very smart kind of Carson esque thing where you call attention to the inadequacy, you like to call attention to the failure of the impression. And that’s your that’s your kind of that’s a charming kind of a safety net that you build around what you would call your lack of expertise at that.

 

Seth Meyers  25:56

Yes, that’s the thing you can do on a talk show that you can’t do it. SNL, right? Like you can never sell out on.

 

David Duchovny  26:03

You can go up, right. On SNL, that’s a way. I mean, some people love when people go up, and some people don’t, you know.

 

Seth Meyers  26:11

Right, but can’t. There’s a element on SNL, of we are doing this to the height of our abilities, and you don’t want to, you know, you can’t in the middle of an impression, sort of like wink of the audience, like, where I can do that in late night. I will say, when I started the show, I remember people would often say, like, you know, what I loved about Carson is it was just as funny, if not funnier, when the joke’s bombed, right? And I feel like that’s true, right? With that said, I don’t think you’re allowed to start there, you know, and, and I think that so much, especially people you know, by the time I started late night, the people who knew Carson, none of them watched early Carson, you know, it was all, it was all late in the pocket Carson. And now 10 years in, that is my favorite part, is when something goes bad. I know the fun will be in commenting on it, but you know you do have to lay down this base coat of competence. Because I think if you walk out on your first night and you’re just like, ah, that one stunk, people will be like, well, I might go elsewhere. Yeah, you’re right. It did stink. And so it’s funny when people sometimes point out the thing they love about a person who’s better at it than anyone has ever been, and also the thing they did 30 years into it. Really, you should do that.

 

26:40

Right, exactly. Yeah, would I be right in saying that again, going back to Lauren for just a moment that that he it seems like some performers are embraced when they go up. Some people love to watch some performers go up, and sometimes they don’t. And I, my feeling is that maybe what you just said is that you have to kind of earn that particular moment, and that’s where Lauren would come down on it. But my sense is that he doesn’t love that kind of a thing.

 

Seth Meyers  28:07

About breaking, which I always felt.

 

David Duchovny  28:10

Breaking, right? That’s the word.

 

Seth Meyers  28:11

Is, you can always tell there was you can tell when people are breaking because it’s going badly and they know it will save it. And that is this sort of, that’s the original sin, like to it’s not working with that said, like, here’s, there’s a super showcase, I can’t even remember what it’s called, and it’s recent, and it’s wig and Maya are like, showcase show girls, and Bill’s a talk show host, and Vanessa Bayer is a contestant. And they have these crazy accents, and they’re talking about what is in the Showcase Showdown, and it’s like super chicken mom and they wig and Maya, who are so close and love each other so much, are clearly pushing it to try to make the other person laugh, and the audience is also they’re on board. They feel as though they’ve been let in on the game right. Sketch is working, and yet they can see that now there’s this building tension of the two of them, and then Bill breaks too, and it’s really one of my favorite things to go back and watch. But my favorite thing about it is that Vanessa bear, who’s new, doesn’t, and I felt her professionalism to realize like I’m not, it’s not fun yet for me to break and yet it’s so impressive. And I remember telling Lauren that, and him remarking that he, you know, he loved watching it. And again, you know, Bill Maya, Kristen, those are probably three of Lauren’s favorite cast members ever. And yet, you know, you can also say that’s, that’s really good. I remember my first it was cut my first or second show. It’s on the best of Will Ferrell. DVD. There’s a sketch called Old Prospector, where he, and it’s literally get this, like, a month after 911 it was about how we’re gonna find the Taliban, and we’re all dressed like soldiers. And will comes out as an old prospector and just does. And he’s banging pots and pans and his whole, you know, and it, it’s, you know, Will’s ability to stay absolutely in character while pushing everybody to the point of laughing and and I’m caught stifling a laugh on camera, and I’m so happy now because, you know, I like watching it and remembering those moments. But also, at the time, I was devastated that I almost broke on camera.

 

David Duchovny  30:44

I go back with that too. As a kid watching Carol Burnett, that was always that those were the those were the breaking moments that I remember. And I think as a kid, I didn’t have any sense of what acting was, or any of that. But what translated was, they’re having a really good time, you know, and so am I, because I’m watching people have a good time.

 

Seth Meyers  31:08

I had a it’s weird to say. It was a good note that came from audience testing, but I had been doing update alone, so Amy had left to do Parks and Rec, and I was doing update alone, and Mike Shoemaker took me out to dinner, and he said, Hey, there’s been some audience testing on you doing update alone. And one thing that keeps coming back is people don’t like when you are mean to the guest. So the guest would be, say, Stefan, or, you know, anybody who rolls out and again, it was always written for me to be frustrated because every guest on Weekend Update ultimately doesn’t do what you say they’re gonna do. You know when, Stefan comes out for Valentine’s Day tips, they’re not actually affected so.

 

David Duchovny  31:55

But isn’t he also trying to make you laugh sometimes?

 

Seth Meyers  31:57

Well, it was, this is sort of pre because I was playing it angry and and I realized, Oh, that’s such a good note. Like, and so then I was always just patient. And it was just so much funnier to be patient and loving to Stefan. And then, you know, when he made me laugh, I would just laugh. And you know, people sometimes say to me, like, how did you know, how could you not break during Stefan? And I’d say, oh, go back and watch. I’m pretty much left with the whole thing. But it was okay because it was authentic and and I liked becoming a Weekend Update host who was having fun more than a Weekend Update host who was playing a character who wanted the news to go, well, that was just less fun to play.

 

David Duchovny  32:42

And I would think that doing the work on Weekend Update is really what kind of prepared you for coming off and doing your own show. And I’m wondering about, and again, it’s the it’s kind of like I’m wondering about the creation, or the ongoing creation of that persona, because, you know, it’s your name, it’s Seth Meyers, but it’s not you, it’s it’s this version of you who is on television. And I wonder, did you do a lot of thinking about that, or was it just kind of organic and instinctual, as you succeeded and failed throughout the first couple years, or whatever, and that kind of thing.

 

Seth Meyers  33:21

Yeah, it was more that. And to be honest, like, the reason it was so much that is, we did do a lot of thinking, and that was almost everything we thought about failed immediately. But we had all these grand ideas for the show, and they were all just clunkers. And so we can then we kind of like, I feel like there was this six month period of almost doing the show in a fighter’s crouch, of just trying to do a just be competent and and then, and then learn through trial and error about the show. But it was funny because almost I made this, it made sense at the time, but was a mistake, which is, oh, I’m going to show people. I’m not just the Weekend Update guy, and I’m going to do a standing monolog, and I’m going to do all these things that I had to learn, whereas by doing that, I threw away 10 years of another hard thing I learned how to do. And ultimately, it’s okay, you know, to be in this business for at that point, you know, 15 years, and say, You know what it’s you can just refine the thing you’re good at. You don’t have to show everybody good at another thing. And so, you know, we moved behind the desk. We started doing the top of the show, a lot more like Weekend Update than the other shows. And it was a nice, small distinction that didn’t take a lot of effort on us. And then the other thing about the show is just, I do feel like the show gets better the the closer my on screen persona is to who I really am and and, you know, again, I do think that’s earned, but I don’t now. Have to like, think about how I’m going to do anything on the show. I give myself permission to just like, do like, you know, follow your gut. And it’s been a it’s been really rewarding these last few years for that to be the best version of the show.

 

Seth Meyers  35:40

What was your first I’m going to turn the Taylor cycle. What was your first talk show? You were a guest on?

 

David Duchovny  35:47

It was Letterman.

 

Seth Meyers  35:48

Wow.

 

David Duchovny  35:50

Yeah.

 

Seth Meyers  35:50

That’s, I think that’s a tough first out of the gates.

 

David Duchovny  35:53

Oh, well, it was really funny because I was working in Vancouver. I know, I know what you’re doing. Seth Meyers, I know what you’re doing right now. And I’m because I’m a narcissist, I’m going to take the bait. So I was working in Vancouver, and it was the first year of The X Files, and they said, you know, Letterman wants you on the show. And it was like, that was like doing SNL, because actually.

 

Seth Meyers  36:13

That’s it, and it mattered that much. I don’t think I’m not just saying this.

 

David Duchovny  36:17

It mattered to ratings, and it mattered to me. It was like the gatekeeper, you know, all of a sudden, here’s a game. It was like when I finished my first year of The X Files, I said, all I want to do is SNL and Larry Sanders, and that’s what I didn’t want to do a movie. I just want to do those things. Because you just felt like you arrived. So I got flown out from Vancouver to to New York to do Letterman. And I’m, I’m sitting in my dressing room, and I’m so nervous, my God, I’m so nervous. And all of a sudden Morty came in. Remember Morty?

 

Seth Meyers  36:52

Yeah.

 

David Duchovny  36:52

His producer. And Morty is like, it’s not going to happen tonight. I was like, what? He goes, Yeah, uh, Bill Cosby is the first guest, and he’s, he’s just, he’s going on and on and on. I was, I mean, I was heartbroken, because I had to go back to work the next day. And I just thought I flew here for nothing. And then I talked to, you know, the producers of the show The X Files, and they said, you know, if you can get on tomorrow, we’ll figure out a way. We’ll figure out a day without you. So we made this deal with them that I could come back tomorrow. And then what I didn’t tell Dave, and what I think made him trust me, is I came out, and before he could ask me a question, I said, look, I mean, there’s just something you all need to know there in the audience is that I got cut from the show yesterday, but David Letterman is such a prince that he came back. He took me to his house. I slept over at Dave’s house. He woke me up early to work out and made me breakfast. And the thing was, like, Dave never had even said anything to me, right? Like you, you know what it’s like so.

 

Seth Meyers  38:08

Of course.

 

David Duchovny  38:08

And he’s just, like, looking at me, like, Who the fuck is this guy? And it was working. And ever since then, you know, he, he trusted me to come out and, you know, do my thing, or whatever it was, but, but I remember that and.

 

Seth Meyers  38:21

I remember very bold swing, very smart, very bold swing.

 

David Duchovny  38:28

Yeah, I was kind of, I was kind of weirdly really confident. For some reason. I don’t know why, but that was, you know, that was when, you know, talk shows were kind of like gatekeepers of comedy, really. And I think, I think all, and I wonder how you feel, like, you know, not just creating your persona, Seth, Meyers, the whatever brand. I hate that word too, but persona I like, or character. But you know, as you’re doing your own show, when you first start, you have your heroes in that area. You have, you have Carson, and you have, I would imagine it’s Carson and Letterman and maybe John, maybe Jon Stewart at that point too, because you’re politically oriented.

 

Seth Meyers  39:12

I would say was Carson. I mean, certainly like, Carson and Letterman and and then, like, you know, Conan, but Letterman was the biggest one for me, just, and again, it’s all about how old you are when they’re on, and but at the same time, you know, there is that weird thing of, you know, be careful what you steal. You know, you don’t, I remember, because you can’t try to be anybody, and it’s only through repetition that you realize which parts of you work are distinctive in which work. You know, like, there’s a lot of a lot of things that are authentic to me that don’t work on the show, and then I’m lucky enough that there’s a lot of things that are authentic enough to me that they do work on the show.

 

David Duchovny  39:59

I um, one of the things I also wanted to ask about was a kind, the kind of code, you know, if there is a code that we don’t attack our own here at SNL and and also, how you bring that code into speaking to your guest?

 

Seth Meyers  40:17

I would say, for me, the code at SNL. Every now and then people say, you know, I do a Q A in my own and so I’ll say, Who is the worst host you ever had at SNL? Now I’ve got a list of 10 for sure. With that said, I never say it because they, you know, right? Like talking about being stressed out doing Letterman, but like SNL, is a week of your life, and you’re asking somebody to come into this world, give you a full week go, in many cases, farther outside their comfort zone than they’ve ever gone. Now, don’t get me wrong, some people, I’m sure, are assholes on low stress weeks, but you can catch people maybe at their worst, through a week like that. And so I try very hard not to besmirch anybody who sort of was part of that process. And then, you know, I will, just in regards to our show. Now, we realized early on, I don’t like doing contentious interviews, and the real easy way to avoid that is you only book people you like and respect, and you sort of present to the audience. Hey, this is our show. Is this? We’re just gonna talk to people we like and have nice conversations.

 

David Duchovny  41:39

Have you gone back to host SNL?

 

Seth Meyers  41:42

I went back one time to host SNL and ran up against all the problems I had as a cast member, which is, what voices do i and i will say i also have said to multiple people who were hosts when I was there, that I’ve seen after I hosted, I feel like I’m on an apology tour where I will say, I, you know if I behaved, because I here was my my experience from the other side. As head writer, I would often have to go talk to a host who didn’t like a sketch or wanted to change this, right? And I was always very patient and listening. But of course, internally, I often was rolling my eyes and saying, Just fucking do it, we know what we’re doing. Just do it. And then the minute I hosted SNL, I was the amount. I was like, oh, I need to talk to the head writer. I realized oh I.

 

David Duchovny  42:43

It’s me. I can just tell you, from my experience of hosting in terms of, like, being an asshole, to kind of explain why somebody might feel the stress, and I don’t feel I wasn’t. I had a great time doing both of them. I don’t know if they were good, but I had a great time doing them. But, you know, on Thursday, nothing’s funny. You know, it’s like you read, you do the read through, and you’re thinking, I’m in the SNL show that’s got nothing funny in it. And that, I think that can really panic some people. You know that it really comes together on Friday and Saturday, and that’s early sometimes, I guess it comes together Friday night, right, so.

 

Seth Meyers  43:25

Yeah, or just it comes together at AIR, right? Like, dress is two hours and and then you take out the worst 30 minutes of sketches, and you take out the worst 20% of all the sketches you do, and it’s sort of like, ideally, that’s how it should work is it takes off of there, which I think, by the way, like I think.

 

David Duchovny  43:44

It’s live, that’s that that’s the magic ingredient, is that.

 

Seth Meyers  43:48

It is and so weirdly, you get the best out of everybody at the live show.

 

David Duchovny  43:52

Right.

 

Seth Meyers  43:53

That was the real to go back to failure. There was, it was a, Lauren would always tell me the one thing Lauren told me because we were saying like he doesn’t actually give notes. He once took me to his office and said, uh, as of Friday morning, you have to stop thinking like a writer, because we can see you. I never want to see a writer in a sketch. So you have to start being a performer, starting on Friday morning, and ultimately, like that was a good note. Now, I don’t know if I ever took it, but there was a my first year on the show. The first two years on the show, we had a stage manager whose job it was, if it was a sketch I wrote, I would move my lips when other people were talking, and they would stand and make a mouth hand and just like, trip with their mouth to let me know that I was doing it. And so that’s why Lauren had to be like, Hey, dummy. But yeah, that’s a that was a big part of it. Was just faith. Figuring out how to just let go of of that part of of the writing process.

 

David Duchovny  45:04

Well, for me, also, what was fascinating about the whole process of of hosting was I thought, you know, there’s that meeting, that first meeting in Lauren’s office, where everybody’s pitching you, you know. And I thought, man, they all love me. They’ve all thought about, like, stuff that I’d be good in. And they’re, you know, they’re pushing me, and they’re, and Lauren’s asking me, you know, if I do any impressions, or if I want to sing and dance and this stuff. And it’s like, wow, they all, they all really dig me. And then I realized, it’s a, it’s a fucking Lion’s Den, and they all want to get on the air, you know, like, and you’ve really got to pick and choose where you’re going to shine and when you’re going to play second fiddle to, you know, the cheerleader or whatever. You know it’s like, it’s like you and your ego as hosts have to make the decision to be a team player on a great sketch or the star of a mediocre sketch, and that’s a tough one, especially when you got ego.

 

Seth Meyers  46:04

When it dawns on you that they are not actually there to serve you.

 

David Duchovny  46:12

I thought they love me, but, you know, here I’ve got two lines of this sketch, you know.

 

Seth Meyers  46:16

I have a good uh, I have a good failure story about pitch, which is my modus operandi. Am I using that right? My Mo was to always fake pitch. I would never pitch a real thing, but I would try to get a laugh with my pitch, and then I’d write something else, because I didn’t want to get in the weeds of explaining a thing that might you know. And so I remember when Alec Baldwin was there, and I would just try to come with my fake pitches, like literally walking down the hallway, really. And Baldwin was there, and I said, I have this you you have a lake house, and the lake is about to ban jet skis. And so I’m writing a sketch where it’s your last ride around the lake. And he was like, that’s very good. And then for two days, every time I I’d see him in the hallway, he’d go, how’s jet ski coming? And then I said to Steve Higgins, who works in town, I’m like, I don’t have a jet ski sketch. He’s like, well, you got to write one now. And so I sat down and did my best effort to write this sketch. And then it, you know, as any idea that was never meant to be more than that first laugh, it just died at the table. And I remember, after read through baho and goes, I expected more from jet ski.

 

David Duchovny  47:35

All right. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for your time. Seth and I look forward to seeing you again, thank you.

 

Seth Meyers  47:44

I love talking to you. This is my our longest conversation, and it makes me really think we should have dinner together.

 

David Duchovny  47:50

Oh, I like that. Thank you, Seth. And have a wonderful rest of your day.

 

Seth Meyers  47:55

All right, thanks, buddy.

 

David Duchovny  48:10

Wow, Seth Meyers is a great guy, really nice guy, and I get how his show is so successful because, as we talked about in the podcast, you kind of have to be yourself, close to yourself, if you’re going to portray yourself. You know, 50 weeks out of the year, five nights a week, and people aren’t going to call bullshit on you. You know, ultimately, like thinking that you’re fake, and his generosity and listening, his generosity, the generosity of his spirit, comes across, and I think that’s what you know, aside from his ability as a writer, his sharpness as an observer, his sharpness as a comedy writer, this is what makes him a Successful late night television host. You know, I think one of the things I didn’t ask him about was, you know when, when there’s kind of a shattering between the persona of the host and the person, as we witnessed, I guess, a couple years ago with Ellen DeGeneres, you know when that when a disconnect happens between who we think that person is and, you know who were, who that person is exposed to be, whether rightly or wrongly. You know, I don’t really have any horse in that race. I don’t know. I don’t know what the truth is. But there was certainly that was a interesting moment when people felt like they feel betrayed, you know. So I think when you’re going into that profession of I’m going to be in your living rooms, people every day, you kind of have to be who you are, because if you’re not, there’s going to be a moment. There’s going to be a moment when you’re not, and that moment is going to come out.

 

CREDITS 50:17

There’s more Fail Better with Lemonada Premium. Subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content like more of my behind the scenes thoughts on this episode. Subscribe now and Apple podcasts. Fail Better as a production of Lemonada media in coordination with King Baby. It is produced by Kegan Zema, Aria Bracci, and Dani Matias, Paula Kaplan  . Our engineer is Brian Castillo. Our SVP of weekly is Steve Nelson. Our VP of new content is Rachel Neil. Special thanks to Carl Ackerman, Tom Karpinski and Brad Davidson, the show’s executive produced by Stephanie Wittels Wachs, Jessica Cordova, Kramer and me, David Duchovny. The music is also by me and my band. Lovely Colin Lee. Pat McCusker, Mitch Stewart, Davis Rowan and Sebastian […]. You can find us online at @LemonadaMedia and you can find me @DavidDuchovny. Follow Fail Better wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership.