Seth Meyers on the Differences Between Writing for Late Night and Stand-Up

Seth Meyers is a man of many talents: writing, producing, podcasting, day drinking, and stand-up comedy.

The Late Night with Seth Meyers host is set to release his first HBO comedy special, Seth Meyers: Dad Man Walking, on October 26. As the title suggests, Dad Man Walking centers on Meyers’ relationship with fatherhood as he juggles his busy career with raising three young children. His first special, Lobby Baby, debuted on Netflix in 2019.

While participating in a virtual press conference last Thursday as part of HBO and Max’s “Stand Up for Comedy” Week, Meyers reflected on the differences between writing for late night versus writing stand-up comedy. 

“I love what we do every night on Late Night,” Meyers said. “It would be very stressful if my children had to provide an hour’s worth of material a day, which politics does without a problem. When you work on a special, the goal is for it to have a little bit more permanence than late night has. You are trying to find universal themes and ideas that are really funny.”

Meyers then dove into how the writing processes themselves differ, explaining, “When you do a late-night talk show, you’re just on the shoulders of your incredible writing staff. Obviously, I do a great amount of writing on the show, but I’m not first-drafting anything anymore. So for me, it’s really cool to have this other thing where it’s a fluid process over a matter of years… Whereas in late night, you’re just sort of churning it out.”

“It’s a little bit like, I don’t know, working as a journalist for a newspaper and also trying to write a novel at the same time,” the Late Night host added. “One is a completely different exercise, but both require writing.”

When asked if he considered his stand-up act to be more “raw” than his late-night TV personality, Meyers responded that he didn’t consider either medium to be less authentic, just different.

“I think that with my show, I am calling out other people’s incompetence, and I try very hard to be a voice of reason,” he explained. “Whereas I think in my standup hour, I am the incompetent one and other people are the voice of reason.”

“So for me, the persona shift is not about anything that I can’t get away with on Late Night,” he added. “[Stand-up is] more just a different version of me that is no less authentic, but is a completely different comedic perspective.”

Seth Meyers: Dad Man Walking premieres Saturday, October 26 at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and will be available to stream on Max.

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