Seth Meyers is grateful he didn’t burn any bridges during his time on Saturday Night Live.
Amid the NBC sketch comedy show’s landmark 50th season, the Late Night host reflected on some of the “shamefully petty” exchanges he had with fellow staffers during his 2001-’14 run on SNL.
“I feel like I was far more temperamental when I was younger and things ran very hot at SNL,” said Meyers on NPR’s Wild Card podcast. “And there were definitely times where my instincts were to say something that would have been relationship-ending to people.”
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He added, “You know, just you’re having an argument and, looking back, all shamefully petty, you know?”
Meyers credited friend and producer Mike Shoemaker, who’s worked with him on both SNL and Late Night, for giving him some valuable advice when his instinct was to be confrontational.
“I remember once saying, ‘I’m going to go tell so-and-so he’s a you-know-what,’” he recalled. “And he used to always say, ‘It’s a long life. It’s a long life. And the people you work with here, what you are going through with them is going to — even for the ones that aren’t your favorite people — this is bonding. And you will need, for the rest of your life, you will need these relationships to remember what this time was like. And these people, more of them are going to be at your wedding than aren’t.’
“And so I’m very happy I lived by the adage of, ‘It’s a long life.’ Because if it’s somebody you think might be your friend in the future, there’s no reason to burn it down in the present,” said Meyers, who was head writer on SNL from 2006 until his departure.
Meyers also admitted being somewhat “covetous” of his SNL co-stars, who had gone onto roles in big movies, noting he “wasted a lot of time and put myself through a wringer.”
“And then you make this mistake of, you walk down a hallway and you see pictures of former cast members and you think because you work at the same place they do, you’re going to have the same career path, you know?” added Meyers. “But it’s a mistake to say just because you got hired at the same place as Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell, that doesn’t mean you’re going to have their career. And a lot of different people with a lot of different skill sets come through SNL. And so, you know, I’m very grateful that there was a patience with my time there that allowed me to find my fit.”
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