It turns out late-night talk show hosts want to play dead bodies on TV procedurals, too.
As Seth Meyers explained to Jim Gaffigan, he’d hoped he might be offered a role on Law & Order after getting to know the show’s writing staff during the 2007-08 writers’ strike. But when they came up with an idea for him after the strike ended, Meyers didn’t love the character they pitched him.
The pair spoke about their experiences with the New-York based crime franchise on the latest episode of the podcast Meyers hosts with his brother Josh, Family Trips.
The Late Night host shared how thankful he was to have had his special about having kids drop a month before Gaffigan’s. He quipped that he knew his experience with three kids pales in comparison to Gaffigan’s with five.
That led to Meyers bringing up an episode of Law & Order where Gaffigan’s character had a lot of kids, which also featured him killing his wife.
Asked if being cast as a father with many kids was coincidental, Gaffigan replied, “No, they did it on purpose, I think.” It’s a logical conclusion, given his public reputation as a father and the way it’s often woven into his comedy.
The pair went on to discuss how New York-based actors love Law & Order. It’s one of the few shows that shoots in the city, as well as having numerous small roles in each episode that need new actors to constantly rotate in.
While Gaffigan hasn’t done one in a while, he added that sometimes you get offered parts where it’s not something you really want to connect yourself with.
“Some of what they offer you is, I think I was offered one—they’re like, ‘You’re going to be like a Jeffrey Epstein character,'” Gaffigan recalled. “I’m like, ‘I don’t know if I want to be a Jeffrey Epstein. Why would you want me for that?'”
Meyers described his own brush with the Dick Wolf franchise, sharing that one upside to the 2007-08 Writers Guild strike was getting to be on the picket line with other people who work on New York shows.
“I remember meeting Law & Order writers and I was like, ‘Oh, I’d love to be, let me be somebody who just gets killed or somebody who finds a body,'” Seth said. “What I really wanted to be is in that first scene where you find a body.”
But that wasn’t the idea they reached out to him with after the strike ended.
“Instead, they were like, ‘Hey, so we have an idea where you’re a labor leader who gets murdered.’ I’m like, ‘That’s a little on the nose,'” Meyers said, laughing. “Literally, the strike just ended. I don’t want to do a scene where I’m carrying a picket sign and I get beat.”
Gaffigan made his own casting pitch to Seth at the start of the show, asking, “Is this like, you have to do this one to earn the ‘Day Drinking‘ thing?” We’ll have to wait and see whether Gaffigan ends up doing a Day Drinking with Meyers down the road.
Gaffigan also talked about shaving his beard to play Tim Walz on Saturday Night Live—and how his kids responded with cynicism to the idea of their dad playing the potential vice president on SNL. He joked that he could have responded, “Maybe I’ll wait for some other, the last remaining legendary comedy show that’s been around for 50 years.”
Law & Order stars have frequently been guests on Meyers’ Late Night, with Seth previously sharing with Mariska Hargitay how he’d gotten to know the show’s writers while on strike.
You can watch the full Jim Gaffigan episode of Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers in the video above or listen via your podcast player of choice.
