It was a late-night chat between late-night hosts when Seth Meyers swung by Andy Cohen’s clubhouse on “Watch What Happens Live,” where they discussed day drinking with Rihanna, his possible influence on Trump’s presidential aspiration and Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ recent “Saturday Night Live” comments.
At another point in the show, both hosts revealed the guests they thought didn’t like them, with the “Late Night” host suspecting that Mickey Rourke was indifferent to him, at best, while Cohen was absolutely certain that Gillian Anderson hated him throughout their entire chat.
In that same segment, Meyers was asked the sketchiest “SNL” behavior he witnessed, which he quickly laughed was when more than one band apparently assumed the show still traded on the same reputation it had in its earlier days and asked if the show could help them score some drugs.
“Not pot,” Meyers emphasized. “Not anything that’s been legalized anywhere. Nothing that the world has come around on.” So yeah, cocaine … and possibly several other things. That first cast was pretty notoriously wild.
SNL Culture
That naturally brought them to another problem that’s been reported about those earlier years on “SNL,” and an issue that was brought to life again when Julia Louis-Dreyfus recently commented about the “sexist” environment she endured at the “boys club” during her years there.
Meyers, of course, couldn’t comment directly about her experiences, because they were there at very different times. But he was able to express that things seemed to have improved dramatically by the time his tenure came about.
“I think I worked there at a much better time,” he said. “I think part of that was when I started on the show, Tina Fey was head writer and there were a lot of strong women at the show who were in positions of power, and I think they just laid out a much better framework for that to not be an issue.”
And speaking of “Saturday Night Live,” another caller asked if Lorne Michaels would get mad when the actors would break during sketches. Sure, the audience howls, but that’s perhaps not the goal on a show like this. As Meyers explained, Michaels had very specific expectations, and they weren’t that everyone could keep it together all the time.
“I think Lorne didn’t like it when people would laugh for the purpose of making something that wasn’t working work,” Meyers explained. “But if something was working with the audience and they were all laughing, he didn’t mind if the actor was sort of overcome with how much fun it is.”
His best example was Bill Hader’s Stefon, who broke almost constantly. But that was because writer John Mulaney would switch up jokes intentionally to mess with him and get a more candid reaction. “The fact that we were all sharing in it together, Lorne took no issue with it,” Meyers said of moments like that.
Rihanna Coolness
One of Meyers’ most memorable segments was when he went day drinking with Rihanna, with both of them getting very silly and the singer even giving him a disastrous makeover. When a caller asked just how drunk he was, Meyers admitted he’d probably had eight drinks within two hours, and Rihanna was right there with him.
“Plus, just being around Rihanna is it’s own alcohol, so it was kind of both at the same time,” he said.
Perhaps that explains why they apparently had very different follow-up experiences to their time together. “I gotta be honest, I went home and fell asleep in the foyer of my apartment,” Meyers said. “And I think she went out. It turns out that Rihanna might be younger and cooler than me. It’s official now.”
Trump Catalyst
One of the theories that’s been making the rounds ever since Donald Trump announced his intention to run for president this latest time is that Seth Meyers may well have been the catalyst. Meyers hosted the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner, which Trump attended, and he went in pretty hard on the reality star. At the time, Trump was all in on the birther conspiracy theory.
“I look back on that night and feel that I– I don’t have any shame about anything that I did,” Meyers said. He then joked, “I think Obama told jokes and it was his fault.”
He said that while he feels the Trump of 2011 was absolutely deserving of every joke he delivered, Meyers admitted he “never thought this was going to be the outcome.”
“I don’t want to pretend like that I, you know [said], ‘Look, there was always a chance that he was going to be president,'” Meyers said. “I fully am still taken aback by the fact that that’s the current timeline we’re living in.”
And with that, he took a drink.
Got a story or a tip for us? Email TooFab editors at [email protected].
View Photos
Getty
The Stars of Jumanji: The Next Level Step Out for the Los Angeles Premiere