Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Publishers, Amanda Edwards/FilmMagic
Late Night with Seth Meyers returned from a two-week hiatus on Monday, but the guy has been keeping plenty busy outside of Studio 8G. In addition to touring with material for a new stand-up special (taping soon), Meyers can be found actively gabbing on two separate podcasts: Family Trips, a loosely themed hangout celebrity show that he records with his brother Josh, and The Lonely Island & Seth Meyers Podcast, a project recapping the Lonely Island’s oeuvre that doubles as a retrospective on the trio’s, and Meyers’s, tenure at Saturday Night Live.
Of course, doing all these things at the same time is a massive amount of work, but the logic of doing this much makes a little more sense when you consider two things. The first is logistical, in that both shows were spun up as side projects during the time left open by last year’s writers strike. “I had always kind of thought it was a mistake to start a podcast while I was doing a late-night talk show because of the heavy lift,” said Meyers when we spoke over the phone earlier this week. “It’s a little easier to do ’em than to start ’em.”
The second thing to consider is how those podcasts plug into Meyers’s life in similar ways, in that they provide opportunities to spend more consistent time with people he misses. In the case of Family Trips, that’s his brother, whom Meyers considers his best friend, and in the case of the Lonely Island pod, it’s the trio of Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone. “I loved those guys,” Meyers said. “And I loved being around while they were in their ascendancy, because they changed the course of SNL as much as anyone ever did.”
One thing I’ve always wondered about recap podcasts hosted by the people involved in the works being recapped: Does it feel unsettling to so closely revisit a younger version of one’s self? Does the passage of time not fill one with a strangeness? That doesn’t seem to be the case for Meyers. “My aging is such a strange question,” he said. “Because I’m still in the same building. [The Lonely Island] have moved on and worked on shows that don’t take place in 30 Rock. Meanwhile, I’m carrying around an ID with the same picture I took in 2001. So I’m Peter Panning it while everybody else, you know, looks older every time I get on a Zoom with them.”
He added, “By the way, I appreciate that I look older too. But the thing that makes me happy is that while I have nostalgia for being that age and working on that show at a very exciting time, I’m very happy that I’m still friends with everybody I worked with.”
Ahead of Late Night’s return last week, we asked Meyers to tell us a few podcasts — and other things — he’s enjoyed lately.
Comedians Liz Cackowski and Emily Spivey spoof the true-crime genre. From Audacy and Amy Poehler’s Paper Kite Productions.
This is hosted by two of my former SNL colleagues, Liz Cackowski and Emily Spivey, who were incredible writers when I was at the show that I also knew to be incredible performers. It’s from the world of Amy Poehler’s Say More With Dr? Sheila, and it’s a very comedy podcast playing off other true-crime podcasts that feels half-scripted, half-improvised to me — it’s just a delight to listen to these two funny women talk.
Personally, I’ve had my time with true crime. I enjoyed it more before I had children, but now I don’t wanna walk around listening to crime. I remember people saying that was going to happen to me, and I was like, “Not me! I’m gonna love murder no matter how many kids I have.” Turns out, not so much.
The former is self-explanatory. The latter, hosted by Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, is also self-explanatory. Sort of.
I’m going to cheat here because I’m going to draw attention to two podcasts that don’t really need attention at all. I realize what I love about them is similar, but different. With Simmons, here’s what I want to say: I grew up in New England. I feel like I knew a hundred guys like Simmons who talked about sports as much as I wanted to hear about sports, and who liked all the same TV shows and movies that I do. So listening to Bill provides me with a great amount of comfort. I don’t feel like I knew anybody growing up who were like Matt and Bowen — yet listening to them, I feel like I grew up with them. And that’s a totally different kind of comfort.
Cole Escola’s deranged, unresearched stage play about Mary Todd Lincoln.
Photo: Emilio Madrid
First of all, I want to thank my booking department, who told me, “You have to have them on.” So I went to see it, and yep, it was just incredible. My expectation was that I would appreciate it, but it wouldn’t be for me — and it was immediately more for me than I ever could have imagined. There are still jokes I think about a lot. It has one of the funniest physical moves I’ve ever seen. I have never seen an audience more excited to see a thing, and I’ve never seen how quickly there was an infectious joy through the room.
I’m also very proud of myself because, living in this city for two decades now, I’ve failed at ever being at the beginning of something. People who are like, “Oh, I saw Hamilton when it was down at the Public,” and you know if it’s one of those people because they’d tell you right away. So I got to see Oh, Mary! right before it moved to Broadway, and I have every intention of dining out on that. I think it’s exactly as good, but I will still be able to look down my nose at the people who see the show on Broadway.
Steve Zaillian’s black-and-white adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley. Streaming on Netflix.
Photo: Stefano Cristiano Montesi/Netflix
The next thing I want to recommend is Ripley — but the funny parts. I want to be specific about this. It’s obviously a very dark and incredibly stressful show, but there are some very funny parts. Dakota Fanning, so good. The Italian detective, played by Maurizio Lombardi … incredible. I looked him up because I wanted to make sure I shouted him out. Maurizio Lombardi’s face when he’s looking at Dickie’s “art” is just the best. He seems like he should be in every silent movie that’s a comedy from the ’30s.
By Kaveh Akbar, about an orphaned son of Iranian immigrants who embarks on a search for family secrets.
I was at a Christmas party complaining to someone in publishing that ever since I had kids, I’ve done a bad job as a reader. Because if a book doesn’t grab me right away, I won’t have the patience to work through that first 50 pages. And they said to me, “Read Martyr, by Kaveh Akbar, and I guarantee you’ll be done in two days.” And I was done in two days.
It’s an incredible book about an Iranian American bisexual poet who’s working through his past and finding out things about his family — and it’s so moving. The main character is so multidimensional. It’s so, so funny. It was the kind of book I never thought I would like, but I just enjoyed it so very much.
In his first hour-long special, posted on YouTube, O’Malley embodies an Illinois man pitching investors on a peculiar AI-related product.
Photo: Conner O’Malley via YouTube
I have no grand opinions on AI myself. I think it will eventually catch me and be able to do what I do — like, that’s going to happen. But when I watch Conner O’Malley, I’m pretty confident AI will never be able to write his brand of comedy. There is a uniqueness to what he does. He’s impossible to get ahead of. I swear, I think he might be the voice of our generation [laughs]. Just the way he has thrown himself into doing comedy about, I would say, white male rage, AI, technology. Everything he does is unlike everything or anything he’s done before, and I’m in awe.
