Seth Meyers has been in charge and hosting his show, Late Night with Seth Meyers, since 2014 and has seen success with the project. The actor/comedian/host is well known for Saturday Night Live, where he spent 13 years from 2001 to 2014 portraying different characters, most notably the Weekend Update Anchor.
Late Night has been nominated for 7 Emmys during its 9-season, 1300-episode run, with most nominations being Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series. However, this year, his late show received its first nomination for Outstanding Variety Talk series, a significant accomplishment for the longtime host. Meyers tells Deadline the show was forced to change the way it worked during COVID, allowing for ‘massive creative changes,’ which fans noticed. When asked how Late Night with Seth Meyers prospered during the pandemic, Seth Meyers shared a few reasons for the show’s success.
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Meyers brought the show down to a more relaxed level in the attic he filmed in during the pandemic, and he carried this vibe over to his late show when he returned to 30 Rock. However, he’s kept his informal attire and a different way of telling jokes that he used while filming with no audience. The changes seem to work, as Late Night with Seth Meyers is receiving more attention and praise than ever.
“Our initial approach to it was just figuring out a way to keep producing our show. But then we did see this window of opportunity to make the kind of massive creative changes that you wouldn’t have made independent of a pandemic. It wasn’t staff changes or anything. But without an audience there for almost 20 months, we really did just get to drill down and do the show that was the most authentic to us. That just gave us more confidence to continue down that path. If there was no pandemic, and I went to NBC in March 2020 and said, ‘I think we need three months in an attic,’ I don’t think that they would have responded well. But it turned out, we did need three months in an attic.”
Seth Meyers Admits the Emmy Nomination Meant a Lot to Him
As year after year passed and Late Night with Seth Meyers didn’t receive the coveted Emmy nomination, the host began to get discouraged. However, Meyers admits he was delighted to finally capture the Outstanding Variety Talk Series nod, even if he was away from his family when it happened.
A major primetime Emmy nomination is a huge deal to anyone in the industry, and Seth Meyers couldn’t be happier to finally receive one for Late Night.
“I actually didn’t want to have to be with my kids when I found out because, as we’ve established over a long and healthy career, I’m a terrible actor. I didn’t want to be with my kids pretending like I wasn’t bummed out, so I went for a run, and I put my phone down so I could use that time to once again [think] none of this matters. Then when you find out you’re nominated, and you’re so happy, you realize that mostly what you’ve been doing is telling yourself lies about how little it matters, because it has such a positive effect.”
