Seth Meyers says future of ‘Late Night’ is ‘outside of my control,’ details mental health concerns if show gets axed
Seth Meyers is anxious about the future of “Late Night.”
The talk show host, 51, said his mental health will plummet if his NBC show will get the boot — much like the recent cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show.”
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Speaking on the “Armchair Expert” podcast, the “SNL” alum told host Dax Shepard that he’s concerned about the fate of his own show.
“Only because it is such a time we’re living in as far as the entertainment industry,” he said in the episode, which was recorded before Colbert’s format was axed by CBS.
“There is this weird thing [where] I feel like I shifted from fearing that I wouldn’t be good enough and now my fear is weirdly more outside my control, which is just at some point the ecosystem might not support it. I guess that’s better than thinking it’s your fault, but it is weird to not feel any control over it.”
“Late Night with Seth Meyers” premiered in February 2014 — and the host has fronted almost 1,700 episodes to-date.
“I would worry about myself, like, mental health-wise,” he said. “But I put a lot of thought into diversifying my skill set.”
“Certainly, financially, I could have been fine just doing the show for the last eleven years. But then it was like, oh, you know what? I feel like there’s something to trying to build a stand-up career and trying to do other things,” he said.
“It’s more like, try to find something that makes you as happy as late night’s making you, but it’s not just to have busy work or anything,” Meyers went on. “It’s like, oh, I like these things, too. And there’s no one entity that can take everything away at once, and I think that’s the scariest situation to be in.”
Meyers’ show, which is produced by Broadway Video and Universal Television for NBC, taught him to “just show up and do the work.”
“That’s the only part they’re paying you to do, it’s the only part you’re good at. All the other problems, we have people that are as good as that as you are at a thing you do and don’t mess around with it,” he went on.
“I sometimes take stock of, this isn’t the best time to be doing what I’m doing but at least I got in. The world knows Seth Meyers in a way that I’m happy with.”
Meyers admitted that his show experienced some teething issues in its early days, with NBC honchos addressing their concerns upfront.
“I’ve had lower points in the body of the show where, early on in the show, we had some NBC executives actually say to us ‘We’re very worried about how the show is going to go,’” he revealed.
The cancellation of Colbert’s CBS show has prompted a slew of comedy’s biggest stars — including Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver, Jon Stewart, Adam Sandler and more — to speak out in support of the host.
Colbert addressed the network’s decision during the July 27 taping at the Ed Sullivan Theater in NYC.
“Before we start the show, I want to let you know something that I found out just last night: Next year will be our last season,” he told the crowd. “The network will be ending ‘The Late Show’ in May.”
The news was met with loud boos from the audience.
“Yeah, I share your feelings,” he said. “It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of ‘The Late Show’ on CBS. I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away.”
“We get to do this show for each other, every day, all day, and I’ve had the pleasure and the responsibility of sharing what we do every day with you in front of this camera for the last 10 years,” he went on.
“And it’s a job that I’m looking forward to doing with this usual gang of idiots for another 10 months. It’s going to be fun.”
The network has publicly cited financial reasons behind the decision to cancel the show.
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