Seth Meyers is the first to admit that there’s nothing in his background that qualifies him to host his own late-night talk show, where he’d have to sit behind a desk and chat with celebrities five nights a week.
But he has a very good and very powerful guardian angel who thinks he can handle it.
“I will say that so much of this job is having confidence to think you can go out there every night and be good at it. For me, there’s no better gift of confidence than knowing Lorne thought I could do it,” he says.
“Lorne” is “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels, who suggested that Meyers, 40, take over the time slot that was vacated by Jimmy Fallon when he became the new “Tonight Show” host.
“I was really shocked when they asked me to do this,” Meyers says.
Sitting in his 30 Rock office overlooking the Rockefeller Center skating rink, the casually dressed Meyers is the picture of equanimity. He’s had time to settle into his new role — the announcement was made last May — and he has been doing test shows before Monday night’s premiere (12:35 a.m.) with “favor-based” guests such as “Today” co-hosts Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb, designer Zac Posen and filmmaker Brian Koppleman (“Solitary Man”).
Meyers found his background in improv came in handy during these test segments. “When you’re talking to people in an interview setting, the key to being a good improviser is being a good listener,” he says. “The stuff that’s been the most fun is based on what you say based on what they’re telling you — as opposed to the stuff you had ready in your back pocket.”
One of the reasons Meyers seems so at ease is because 30 Rock has been his home since 2001, when the Northwestern graduate joined the cast of “Saturday Night Live.”
“Let’s not forget this is one of the great buildings of the country. You feel like you’re walking into old television, old radio,” he says. “It’s a very inspiring place to call home.”
Meyers rose through the ranks at “SNL” with the greatest of ease. Over a two-year period, he went from writing supervisor to head writer to “Weekend Update” co-anchor with his good friend — and first “Late Night” guest — Amy Poehler. He anchored the segment by himself for five years; the combination of his effortless charm, rapier wit and a beguiling twinkle in his blue eyes was as good an indication as any that he was destined for bigger and better things.
Now he’s at the precipice, the moment when it either works or it doesn’t. Still, Meyers is willing to take the long view. “The best advice I’ve received is Jimmy [Fallon] just reminding me that this job is a marathon, not a sprint,” he says. “You have to go in with a sense of what you want this show to be and not over-course-correct based on how the first few [shows] go.
“With ‘SNL,’ you do a show and you spend a long time looking back on what you liked and what you didn’t like,” he says. “I think that here, you do that every week as opposed to every show.
“Lorne has come to the first two test shows and come back afterwards. He’s a great resource that way,” Meyers adds. “He’s been through this before. It’s the third time he’s helped launch a late-night show.”
The advantages of the career shift are incalculable, while the benefit to his personal life is very concrete. Last year, Meyers married Alexi Ashe, a human rights lawyer. With his new schedule, he’s home every night at 8:30 p.m. He and his bride get to go out on dates.
“Last week we went on six dates. We were like the montage of a romantic comedy,” he says, smiling. “We were like Broadway, Knicks game, dinners. It was great.”
The Meyerses will even have time now to start a family. “My wife and I are lucky to both come from great families and we certainly want to have our own,” he says.
And he will have Poehler by his side to help him get his late-night career off the ground.
“Having Amy on is like having the national anthem before the game starts,” he says. “It was important to have her on first, mostly for comfort but also because without she’s one of the many people I would have never had a show like this if I wasn’t lucky enough to work with her.
“She’s a really good person, and sometimes with a job like this, the best you can do is be out there with a really good person.”
Meyers’ first week will also include Vice President Joe Biden and Kanye West, and actors Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. Meyers has a staff of 60, including former “SNL” writer Alex Baze, whom he terms “the best joke writer in America.”
One of Meyers’ more offbeat selections was choosing former “SNL” cast member and “Portlandia” star Fred Armisen as his band leader.
“We had explored a couple of options, but hadn’t been able to settle on anything, and we were talking to Lorne about it. And he said, ‘What about Fred?’ It was one of those things where you say, ‘Don’t say this unless you think it could be a thing that could happen. Because now that you’ve said it, I can’t imagine anything else.’ ”
With Michaels working behind the scenes to create his late-night dynasty, Meyers could not be in a better place. To his credit, he’s smart enough and humble enough to know it.
“It’s still a stressful transition, and you want to do a good job, and I keep thinking how much harder or stressed out I would be if it were in a different building or a different city,” he says.
“I’ve known this NBC family for a long time. I’ve known Lorne for a long time. With that comes a nice shorthand. They have an expectation of what I can do.
“I have an expectation of what they want from me.”