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Seth Meyers has hosted Late Night with Seth Meyers for 10 years now. In the early years of the show, he told The Hollywood Reporter that he felt he was a “competent” host.
“I remember thinking, like, ‘Oh, this is a slightly worse copy of a thing that came before,'” he said during the interview.
Two things made him rethink his approach to the show: the ugly 2016 election and the COVID-19 pandemic. It's been a long-running joke that Meyers is partially responsible for Trump's candidacy. He once roasted the former president, who's currently embroiled in numerous lawsuits, when he hosted the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner.
Now, 10 years later, he's feeling himself at the desk of his newly renewed late night show. He's kept the smart casual get-up that he adopted during the time he hosted the show from home. Meyers has also added a few segments that have gone viral — one that's unique to him and the show where the now-50-year-old father of three day drink with A-list celebrities.
Late Night with Seth Meyers and the ‘Rihanna bounce'
As for the Day Drinking segment, he said that the pitches from celebrities' representatives have all been incoming due to what he calls the “Rihanna bounce.” The pop superstar was Meyers' fourth celebrity guest. Their Day Drinking episode has the most number of views by far with 22 million to date.
“The heartbreak is it isn't as good an idea as, say, ‘Carpool Karaoke,' where you could do it as many times as possible and it doesn't have a negative effect on your liver. It's so weird to have been this sort of lo-fi talk show and then have a thing like this break out that is completely different from the vibe of our show,” he explained.
“I should also note that the minute we book one, I dread it. And then I have a great time, and then I wake up the next morning in a full white-hot panic because I only have a foggy memory of how it went,” Meyers added.
He and his staff do a lot of prep work and research before booking their celebrity guests.
“When the incoming pitch happens, people will often say, ‘Trust us, they're fun to drink with,'” he stated.
Meyers insisted that they never want a guest “who's surly or blacked out.”
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“It's funny because day drinking was a thing that I thought we'd do one time. It was just me trying to figure out a way to do something with my brother,” he explained. The second episode of Day Drinking was with his brother and father in Brooklyn.
“We always thought we'd do more comedy with guests on the show, and then we realized it was not our strength. I think day drinking is a heightened version of the authenticity that we're looking for in the interviews when we're stone-cold sober,” Meyers added.
With all that drinking, 13 episodes so far, you'd think the SNL alum has become a better drinker. However…
“No! As I'm aging and have kids, I'm actually drinking less in my regular life, but I do think having gone to a Midwestern college during the binge-drinking '90s, I laid a nice base coat,” the Northwestern University graduate insisted.
But he's still proud of being able to outdrink guest Dua Lipa.
“I mean, I have love and affection for Dua Lipa, but I also feel bad that she has to know every day of her life that an almost-50-year-old man at the time drank her under the table,” he joked.
In that episode, Meyers had a special drink for the singer to celebrate her new single Houdini. He named the drink Houdtini. Going with the theme, the second drink he created was called Abra-Cadabra.
Speaking of turning 50, the host turned half-a-century old last year with his Late Night staff surprising him with a birthday extravaganza, complete with balloons and pizzas.
