In his weekly column for LateNighter, Chris “Wally” Feresten, (a.k.a. the guy who holds the cue cards on Saturday Night Live, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and beyond) shares stories from his remarkable career. Got a question you’d like Wally to answer in a future column? Send it to [email protected].
I have been extremely blessed to have worked on Late Night with Seth Meyers for its entire 10-year run. Before Seth took the reins in 2014, I was only working Saturday Night Live three days a week for 21 weeks of the year.
When I wasn’t working, I was at home playing dad to my two, now-grown sons, Matt and Danny. My wife, Deb, worked in Corporate America full-time and I picked up the slack, as many dads do, by coaching, shopping, and chauffeuring the boys to their doctors, dentists, practices, playdates, Hebrew school lessons, and the occasional afternoon movie or mini-golf session.
When Seth’s Late Night was in pre-production, my boys were older—12 and 14—so I offered my services to Seth and executive producer Mike Shoemaker. Seth and I had worked together for his entire run at SNL, and we had a very comfortable work and personal relationship. My thought was: If Seth had me holding his cue cards, he could focus his attention on the rest of the show.
Compared to working at SNL, running the cue card department for Late Night is a much easier undertaking. Yes, it’s four shows a week compared to only one SNL, but it’s not live, so that intense pressure of doing things perfectly doesn’t exist. Of course, everyone at Late Night strives for perfection on the creative and production side, but if a mistake gets made we can do a re-take or Seth will make a funny remark about it and the show goes on.
From the beginning, Late Night was a fun show to work on. But it very quickly got even better when Seth and the writers started putting me in the show’s sketches.
At first it was just a line or two. Then I got slightly bigger parts, which soon led to entire sketches based around me. If you want to see a few of those, check out “Seth Sends a Cue Card to the Farm,” “Seth Goes Off Cards,” and “Who Ate All of Seth’s Weed Gummies?”
The chance to play a weird TV version of myself on a show that I love has changed my life. I started getting recognized around the building, and I was in the show so much that I had to become a member of the actor’s union, SAG/AFTRA. And that’s worked out great as well, as I’m close to qualifying for a pension and I’m currently using the SAG/AFTRA Health Plan for myself and for my family. This is the first time that I’ve ever been responsible for the health benefits for my family, and it makes me feel like a real adult person.
I usually don’t know if I’m going to be in the show until a few hours before taping. I’ve done a lot of fun bits on the show and being on so much has made it commonplace to the point of it’s just another day at work. I don’t usually get nervous; I just want to do my best so that I don’t let the show down. But all that was thrown out the door on May 20, 2021, when something happened that initially terrified me.
COVID was still very much a thing at the time, so we were being tested every day, and Late Night was doing shows from the studio without a live audience and with a hybrid of Zoom and in-person guests. It was not the easiest situation for anyone, as Zoom would sometimes freeze mid-interview, and scheduled guests would test positive—as would crew members.
On this particular day, the guests were Senator Bernie Sanders over Zoom and rapper Action Bronson in the studio. We had a normal day of prep, rehearsal, and running cards with Seth in his dressing room 45 minutes before the taping.
My first hint that things might take a turn was when Seth’s wardrobe person, Donna Richards, very nonchalantly told me to make sure that my show clothes looked good because there was talk that I might be filling in as guest on the show that night. It’s a good thing I wasn’t drinking a glass of water at the time because I would have given the biggest spit take of my life. (Side note: I ‘ve been doing spit takes since I was 8 years old, because my dad would have us practice them at the dinner table. But that’s a story for another day.)
I asked Donna what the hell she was talking about, and she told me that Action Bronson might be canceling, and Seth had suggested that I replace him. I walked away from her in a bit of a daze trying to grasp this scenario. I was initially nervous, because this wouldn’t be a sketch written by the Late Night writers; it would be Seth interviewing me with no prep whatsoever.
Mike Shoemaker found me and told me that indeed I would be the second guest that night, and I started to get excited ).
Normally when you’re a guest on a late-night talk show, you have many weeks to think about your appearance. You get pre-interviewed by segment producers who talk to you about what questions the host will ask, and you get a nice dressing room to hang out in with gifts and candy and other stuff. I found out about my guest spot 30 minutes before taping: I had no segment producing meeting, no nice dressing room to chill out in, and, perhaps worst all, no gifts or candy or other stuff!
After we taped the first three acts of the show, I went backstage to get looked over by hair, make-up, and wardrobe. After being touched up, I was led backstage by the show’s stage manager,Tom Ucciferi. As I stood there, Seth came back and quickly said to me, “Okay, we’ll talk about your Charles Barkley Story, your company (Cue Cards by Wally), and we’ll wing the rest.”
By then I’d watched Seth interview people for seven years and I knew how good he is at it, so I knew I was in good hands.
I was feeling confident right up until I was introduced. The stage doors slid open and as I walked through them my right shoulder crashed into the right stage sliding door, something that had never happened to any other guest in the entire run of the show. I shook if off and as I walked to the couch, I shouted out hellos by name to as many crew members/friends that I could remember. Seth made fun of the fact that I didn’t make a clean entrance and it broke the ice and got the interview started in a funny and unique way.
Seth kept the interview moving and I was able to relax a bit and got to share some fun and entertaining (I hope) stories. I’m going to spare you my re-telling of those stories and instead I hope you watch it below.
When it was over, several of my friends on the crew congratulated me and asked how I looked so relaxed being thrust into that position at the last minute. I told them I was a bit nervous, but was happy to hear they they thought I hid it well. I also relayed that I’d been watching Seth interview people for years and had fantasized pretty much every day about being a guest on the show—and then it actually happened.
Being a guest on Late Night with Seth Meyers was one of the coolest things to happen to me in my entire 35 years of working at NBC.
I love working on this show, and I can’t wait to have many more fun experiences both off- and on-camera. But I will never forget that day in May when I was the fallback plan on Late Night with Seth Meyers.
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.