Backstage With Wally the Cue Card Guy (and Christopher Walken)

Hi, Wally Feresten here. Or perhaps you know me by the handle “Cue Card Wally.” Or by my real name, Chris Feresten. Or maybe you just refer to me as that guy who holds the cue cards on the TV?  Whatever the case may be, welcome to a new weekly column I’ll be writing here on LateNighter.

I’m excited to be a part of this new, exciting, and growing website and I wanted to let everyone know what they can expect to read here each week. I will be sharing stories from my 34 years working in television on all of your favorite late-night shows. 

I started working on Saturday Night Live in 1990, at the age of 25, and boy do I have a plethora of funny stories, cool stories, stressful stories, and maybe a few intoxicated stories that I will share. I have also worked on every iteration of Late Night going back to the beginning with David Letterman at 30 Rock.

In addition, I have worked—and was lucky enough to appear on camera—on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Last Call with Carson Daly, and The Amber Ruffin Show. In my earlier years, I worked on countless live specials, primetime television series, cable shows, and the occasional movie (including Milos Forman’s Man On the Moon and Todd Phillips’ Joker).

If you have questions about any of the projects I’ve worked on, I’d love to read them and possibly answer them in future columns. Also, if something unexpected or extra funny happens on SNL or Late Night that you’re curious about, you can ask me about it and if I can, I’ll fill you in on what actually happened behind the scenes from my perspective. You can send your questions to [email protected].

People I meet for the first time tell me that I have the coolest job they’ve ever heard of, and they’re not wrong. But there is so much more that goes into writing and holding cue cards for A-List celebrities, SNL cast members, and Seth Meyers. It’s obviously a fun job, but as you’ll discover: it’s still a job (albeit a very cool one, but ultimately a job). Through the stories I share you’ll see what it takes day in and day out to be a professional cue card guy.

Thanks for checking out my first column and I hope you’ll return each week as I pull back the curtains and show you what it’s like to be “Backstage With Wally.”

Backstage With Wally: Christopher Walken

One of my favorite hosts to work with on Saturday Night Live is Christopher Walken. He was one of my favorite actors before I met him, so it was thrilling to meet and work with him.  Mr. Walken, as you maybe know, is famous on SNL for staring directly at the cue cards and never taking his eyes off them.  I remember the director letting him know he should be looking in a certain direction for a specific sketch, and his response was that if you wanted him to look that way, simply put the cue cards there.  Even though he always played to the cards, his delivery and nuanced acting are so different and funny, the audience always looks forward to and loves his hosting appearances—the last one being in April 2008 (with a cameo in late 2023).

On the February 22, 2003 episode, Walken did his famous “The Continental ” sketch, where he plays a womanizing Romeo trying to woo a woman off-camera (who is played by a handheld cameraman dressed as a woman). I held a set of very small cue cards over the camera lens, and it was truly a ballet of moving, turning quickly, and concise timing to make the sketch work—but boy was it fun. Below is a video of that sketch, where they show what was seen on TV in a small box and the rest of the screen is what the studio audience saw.

Then this wild thing happened on that Saturday:  During rehearsal, I was walking through the studio to rehearse a sketch and Mr. Walken was stopped in the middle of the studio looking down at some cue cards that the scenic artists had put down on the floor to catch some stray paint droplets.  He stopped me and asked me where those cards were from.  I told him that they were from the previous week’s show and that they were recycled this way to protect the floor from paint.

He was staring at one card that had all these random paint droplets on it. He paused and then asked me if he could have it. I really thought he was joking around, so I said, “Sure.” He thanked me and told me he’d grab it after his next sketch rehearsal. After we finished the sketch, I ran back to my cue card area and quickly relayed the story to some of my fellow cue card guys. I really didn’t know if he was kidding, but we would find out momentarily. We all stared down the backstage aisle because that’s where he would exit the studio. Sure enough, he walked out of the studio and, unbelievably, he was carrying that paint-splattered cue card.

I went up to him at the after-party a few hours later just to let him know how much fun it was to work with him again. And, as if he read my mind, he explained his adoration of the cue cards. He asked me if I got to take any cards home over the years and I told him that I did have a small collection of cards stashed away at home. He told me that what I did was a true art form and that all the cards we use on the show were pieces of art. He was completely serious, and I was starting to understand his fascination.

He told me he was going to frame the cue card he had picked up from the studio floor and hang it in his apartment. How cool is that? One of my cue cards was going to hang in his apartment! It doesn’t get better than that.

If you would like your very own personalized cue card written and autographed by Wally, please go to cuecardsbywally.com and get all the information you will need. It’s the perfect gift for that late night comedy fan in your life.