Seth Meyers: “It Felt Like We Were Hanging Onto a Pandemic”

• Seth Meyers says he didn’t wear a suit while working on Late Night during the COVID-19 outbreak.
• Since returning to 30 Rock, he’s kept his casual clothing.
• “I don’t think anybody who’s watching is wearing a fucking suit,” he said.

Seth Meyers has said that doing remote episodes of Late Night during the COVID-19 outbreak helped the show.

Since returning to 30 Rock, he’s kept his pandemic-era casual clothing.

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Meyers told Aidy Bryant at the Tribeca Festival last week “We made a choice not to go back to wearing suits, mostly because the show’s on at 12:30 [at night] and I don’t think anybody who’s watching is wearing a fucking suit.”

Added, “If people were wearing suits in their home at 12:30, I would put my suit back on.”

Late Night was one of the last televised late-night shows to bring back a live audience, but in October 2021, Meyers thought the time was ripe.

Meyers: “We didn’t quite know what we were saying by not having [a live audience],” continued, “And I also think it felt like we were hanging onto a pandemic thing after it had gone away, like somebody who’s like ‘I’m just going to stay in this cabin in the woods. I think this is me now.’”

Meyers has also brought back “day drinking,” which he said Bryant is nerve-wracking to video.

Meyers: “I get super stressed, I genuinely do, because I like about my show that it’s all written and I do feel like I have a writer’s mind, even though I came from improv.”

Even now, Meyers can’t watch the original piece. “I have Mike Shoemaker watch the first cut. I say, “Watch it first and tell me it’s OK.” I won’t watch a shitshow.'”

Meyers continued his habit of having his family as guests on Late Night’s Thanksgiving episode, which he informed Bryant is the show’s highest-rated of the year, but not for the reason his parents believe.

Our Thanksgiving programme is always our highest-rated due of NBC’s late game. It’s huge compared to the rest of the year, he remarked. My parents don’t want to hear about football since someone told them. My mum says, “It’s the highest-rated programme of the year,” and I say, “Not because of you people.”

Bryant praised Meyers’ rewrite and direction at SNL.

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She further said, “He really was the most generous, truly kind, helpful. I just always was so impressed because Seth would read over every single writer’s, every cast member’s script on Tuesday night at like five in the morning,”
She added, “And just to give people like ‘Oh, maybe cut this’ or ‘Punch this up, here’s some jokes for this page.’ Not everyone does that. And it really was life changing and how I learned to write was from you.”

Meyers admitted he loved rewriting “already humorous” comedy so much that he extended the process.

“I used to think that people would figure me out because I used to like to stretch out rewrites because that was my favorite part of the week, just being at the table with funny people,”  he added.  “This was before I was married and had kids, and the people who were married and had kids were like, ‘Hey, buddy, we gotta go home to our families.’ And I was like, ‘This is so much fun.’”