"Seth Meyers"

SmartLess

In this episode of SmartLess, the hosts welcome comedian Seth Meyers to discuss his unconventional journey through the comedy world. The con

Key takeaways

• Seth Meyers developed his comedy roots in the 'Meow' improv troupe at Northwestern University.
• He spent two years performing at Boom Chicago in Amsterdam, which helped expand his comedic horizons.

Main topics

• Improv comedy training
• Saturday Night Live history

Notable quotes

I was writing to stay alive more than anything else.

Conclusion

A nostalgic and insightful look at the grit and serendipity required t

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:04) You know, I've heard this for years, being in the Hollywood business, that for every 100 auditions, Speaker 1 (0:10) you'll book one job. So just keep going and keep going. Speaker 2 (0:14) And I thought, gosh, for every 100 episodes of Smartless, there's always one good one. So we got about three in the can. Welcome to Smartless. Speaker 2 (0:42) Guys, guess what's coming up in a couple weeks? Yeah, yeah, I know. Speaker 3 (0:44) We got to mention. Oh, my God. Yeah, the Hollywood Bowl. Hollywood Bowl. We're going to be at the Speaker 2 (0:48) Hollywood Bowl October 17th. Speaker 3 (0:51) And not just there, like not hanging out, actually doing a show at the Hollywood Speaker 2 (0:53) Bowl. Speaker 3 (0:53) We're Speaker 2 (0:54) going Speaker 3 (0:54) to be on the Speaker 2 (0:54) stage. Speaker 3 (0:55) Yeah, yeah, we're not. And Speaker 2 (0:55) 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, Speaker 4 (1:04) my gosh. That's pretty easy. And for that, they're going to get a double guest. Is that right? Speaker 3 (1:09) Yep. Speaker 4 (1:09) Two guests. And we got some Speaker 3 (1:11) fun surprises. Really? Yeah, we got some fun surprises. Speaker 4 (1:16) All for the price of one ticket. Yeah, all for the price of one ticket. And Speaker 3 (1:19) a Speaker 4 (1:19) nice, beautiful October 17th. Correct. Right? A fall night out there under the stars. It's Speaker 3 (1:24) going Speaker 4 (1:24) to Speaker 3 (1:24) be gorgeous. And yeah, you buy a ticket, and you can't put a price tag on a smile. What Speaker 4 (1:30) a great sell. You Speaker 3 (1:32) know? Speaker 4 (1:32) Will, you're the best. Anyway, it's going to be a great night. Yes. Hopefully as great. as this next guest coming up. Guys, let's get to the episode. You can hear me now? There Speaker 3 (1:45) he is. Speaker 4 (1:47) Listener and guest, I'm so sorry. You spent Speaker 3 (1:49) all night on your computer in incognito mode for we don't know why. I had to change Speaker 4 (1:56) all my settings and all my Speaker 3 (1:57) usernames. Sorry. Speaker 3 (2:02) 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 Speaker 4 (2:10) movie stuff. Speaker 3 (2:11) Yeah. Speaker 4 (2:12) 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 Speaker 3 (2:21) don't. Speaker 4 (2:21) Quick question, Speaker 3 (2:21) Sean, have you ever? God, I beat you. But I don't have any Speaker 4 (2:28) secrets. And, you know, so like my... My instinct is to accept the cookies because then I don't get ads for things that I don't need. You know, like skin rashes and things like that. I get ads for... Speaker 3 (2:47) JB, but you don't have secrets, but you used to be... There was a time where you were just built on secrets. Speaker 4 (2:53) Yeah. Well, I... No, I think I was doing things at a time when we didn't have phones and things to photograph us. And even then, I wasn't—I was never a bad boy. It's so boring. Even my bad days were boring. Speaker 3 (3:11) When you say bad boy, I like the idea of you, like, in a leather jacket, and then you flip the collar up, you know? Or, like, could you Speaker 4 (3:18) imagine me ever trying to, like, mix it up with, like, a— paparazzi guy that gets too close to my face and I take a swing at him like Sean Penn. And then I just get my ass beaten, you Speaker 3 (3:27) know, repeatedly. I can see, I can actually see that. Wait, have you ever owned a leather jacket? Quickly, either of you? Of course, yeah. Yeah, I have. But they were Speaker 4 (3:36) soft and suede. They weren't even like manly. Lambskin. Mine was lambskin back in the 80s. No, no, no, I'm saying Speaker 3 (3:44) leather jacket. Speaker 4 (3:45) Yeah. Oh, I see. Okay. Speaker 1 (3:47) Okay. Speaker 4 (3:48) I think I had like a veal skin vest. Veal skin vest. It had velcro closers on it. Speaker 3 (3:57) Tonight we got a beautiful veal skin. What else have we got? Chef is preparing a beautiful veal skin. Yeah. Speaker 4 (4:05) Now... Will, I feel like it's been a while since we've had an update on your love life and domestic life. No, we're not doing Speaker 2 (4:13) this. What's going on there? Speaker 4 (4:14) We always talk about Sean and I's personal life. What's going on with your personal life, Will? Speaker 3 (4:20) It's going really well. Oh, that's nice. Speaker 2 (4:23) What's happening? First of all, both of you know exactly. Talk about secrets. Yeah, what are the Speaker 3 (4:29) deets on that? Both of you know exactly what's happening, and this is just, I'm not going to walk into your trap. But you're happy. Speaker 4 (4:36) Suffice to say, you're happy? Speaker 3 (4:37) I'm very happy. Very, very happy. Okay, Speaker 4 (4:38) so things Speaker 3 (4:38) are going great. Things are going great. Things are trending. Speaker 4 (4:42) Hold on, let me lead the witness. Things are trending north, yeah? You know, the relationship is still ascendant. Speaker 3 (4:48) Yes. Yes. Speaker 4 (4:49) 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? Well, first of all, why am I in court? Why are you leading? Please answer the question, sir. Permission to treat the witnesses Speaker 3 (5:08) hostile. I Speaker 4 (5:09) mean, look, it will be a perfect world in five years. What does this relationship look like? Speaker 3 (5:14) Can I be honest with you? Please. fucking knew what five years i 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 gonna go or it's gonna happen i have we as we know you get dealt so many fucking curveballs yeah Speaker 4 (5:34) and Speaker 3 (5:34) so i'm i'm 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 i But Speaker 4 (5:43) 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 Speaker 3 (5:53) 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. Speaker 4 (6:12) Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Prosecution rest. Speaker 3 (6:14) Hey, you know Speaker 4 (6:15) what? Let's get to our guest, huh? Okay. Dr. Ruth Westheimer is on the show today to walk Will Speaker 3 (6:22) through the Speaker 4 (6:22) wisdom. Speaker 3 (6:23) 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 the stuff. He lands on the right side of virtually every issue I think I've ever had a conversation with him about. Right Speaker 4 (6:36) meaning correct? Correct. funny, Speaker 3 (6:38) 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 SNL 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. Speaker 2 (7:04) It's Seth Meyers. Speaker 3 (7:05) Seth Meyers. Speaker 4 (7:06) Seth Meyers. Speaker 2 (7:09) Hello, gentlemen. Oh, hello. The right wing pundits. Seth is just digging in. He's been taking notes. Thank Speaker 1 (7:16) you for clarifying the right side of every issue. I was like, okay, well, hold. That means this was thrilling. Just the pre-show banter. And, you know, again, anybody who listens to the show hears 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, no. It's so bad. 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... Speaker 4 (7:47) Should I shut down or reset? Should I reboot or shut down? Jason, Speaker 1 (7:51) at one Speaker 4 (7:51) point Speaker 1 (7:51) you said, can I hear me? You asked the other two guys. Speaker 1 (7:57) Can I hear me? Speaker 4 (7:59) That's our new t-shirt and our swag. I can't wait to tell the Lonely Island Speaker 1 (8:03) guys it does not get easier. It does not Speaker 4 (8:06) get smoother. We're all ding-dongs. If Speaker 3 (8:08) anything, it gets harder. My favorite thing about 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, so he's not aware of his face so he's looking and he's like Speaker 4 (8:20) my dad with the remote and somebody has changed the input. Forget it. And somehow we feel like if we we get closer to the object that's troubling us, it'll become fixed. Just get your face closer to it. Speaker 1 (8:32) We're all the age now where at certain angles we look like 70-year-old aunts. You know what I mean? And it's usually when we're trying to figure out, again, it's like in the cheater zone. I'm there too. We're just certain angles. Speaker 2 (8:49) Somehow Speaker 4 (8:49) I always seem to have my jaw somewhat separated and people say they take these pictures of me. Will is guilty of this, my wife, a lot. Taking pictures of me with my... Jimmy Kimmel and Molly. My mouth's just slightly open and I'm staring off into space or I'm laughing with my mouth sort of agape. So yeah, it's sort of, it's a sign of old age coming in, I think. I Speaker 1 (9:15) also, I do think I've crossed the threshold with my wife where if I see her taking out her phone to take a picture of me, it means that something's gone terribly wrong. Speaker 4 (9:24) Something's not right on my face. Speaker 1 (9:25) No, you just reach the point where it's not like, I need pictures of my husband looking handsome or good. Speaker 4 (9:30) No. It's something they can send to their friends and laugh at. Speaker 1 (9:33) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Speaker 4 (9:34) They're so Speaker 1 (9:34) mean. Speaker 3 (9:35) Seth, dude, this has been so Speaker 2 (9:37) long overdue. I feel like we talked about this last fall. I'm Speaker 3 (9:41) so happy to Speaker 2 (9:41) be Speaker 3 (9:42) here. We talked about it last. I ran into you during trick-or-treating last fall in New York. Yep. In the middle of mayhem. In the West Village? Wait, how Speaker 4 (9:50) does that go? That's just elevator riding, correct? Speaker 1 (9:55) It was really exciting. We had two great run-ins in the course of like three months. Oh, yes. One was just West Village, packed West Village. Okay. Perfect place to take your kids trick-or-treating in New York City. But otherwise, it's in apartment Speaker 4 (10:10) buildings usually though, right? I mean, you're going up and down elevators. Speaker 1 (10:13) No, this is now people sitting on brownstone steps. Oh, Speaker 2 (10:16) okay. Speaker 1 (10:16) Yeah. 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 in half a Teletubby costume. Sure. With like four of his... Four of his six kids. And just kind of like trying to get. And Speaker 2 (10:37) were you guys dressed up? Matthew Speaker 1 (10:39) Broderick. I Speaker 2 (10:40) love Matthew. Speaker 1 (10:41) What's Speaker 2 (10:41) that? Speaker 1 (10:41) We were, I was not dressed up. Will, I don't think. We were, we were. No, we were. We wanted, we still wanted to be recognized for our work. We were trying to draw attention to IP that we didn't own. Speaker 3 (10:53) 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, yeah. Speaker 4 (10:59) Wait, and then, and then, Speaker 3 (11:00) and Speaker 4 (11:01) then we were in, we were, Speaker 3 (11:02) I was in London. having dinner with Laura Dern and Mark Chappell, and Rashida walked by. Rashida Jones. Speaker 2 (11:12) Rashida Speaker 3 (11:12) Jones. And she was like, hey, guys. And Speaker 2 (11:14) we were Speaker 3 (11:15) 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. Speaker 1 (11:23) 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 jarring. And then lovely. Speaker 3 (11:45) Well, because 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. Speaker 1 (11:56) 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. I did say that. Speaker 4 (12:05) Did you guys ever go through a table waiting period of your lives? Speaker 1 (12:10) Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I was at the Twisted Lizard in Chicago, which closed in the last five years, but I was... Yeah, that was in my early improv days. And I remember the most memorable moment was 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. Speaker 2 (12:31) No way. He said that. Which is basically Speaker 1 (12:35) historically what that means. I needed to make him tell me twice. Speaker 4 (12:39) I'll bet in your defense, you probably said, fair enough. Speaker 1 (12:42) I was. Yeah, I did not fight it after that. I was like, oh, I. I thought it was an oversight. It's tough. I mean, Speaker 3 (12:48) it's tough to argue. I mean, you can, I mean, you, theoretically, you could have said, well, in what, in what way? You know what I mean? But at that point, there's no point. Speaker 1 (12:57) I think also, as soon as he said that, I looked back and saw about six or seven things I could have done differently. Now, let Speaker 4 (13:03) 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. Speaker 4 (13:15) It's changed. It's kind of changed. Speaker 1 (13:18) What is it Speaker 4 (13:18) now? You do. You do Speaker 1 (13:21) leave a tip, but is it like... You do, but you don't have to. If you're American, you Speaker 3 (13:24) do. Yeah. The Speaker 1 (13:26) 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 Speaker 2 (13:35) the Speaker 1 (13:35) calculation. Speaker 2 (13:36) I used to be a runner. Remember the restaurant Red in LA? No. Remember that? No. No. It was on the corner. It was on Beverly. I was a runner there. Wait, was it Speaker 4 (13:46) in parentheses? Speaker 2 (13:48) 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 at every single table. They would say, you know, I'd have three plates. I'd be 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. Speaker 1 (14:11) What Speaker 2 (14:11) a joke. Speaker 4 (14:12) So wait, a runner is the person that brings the plates, doesn't take the order. Just Speaker 2 (14:15) runs the Speaker 4 (14:15) food. Got it. Red in Speaker 1 (14:18) parentheses, isn't red in parentheses Bono's like a humanitarian? Speaker 4 (14:21) Oh, Speaker 1 (14:21) right, yes. See Speaker 4 (14:23) how old I'm getting? Speaker 1 (14:24) It's also a nice burn on Sean. You're like, were you the one that was the humanitarian one? Okay, yeah, no,