It was 1:00pm. Exactly two and a half hours until the SXSW panel Inside Late Night with Seth Meyers was scheduled to start. The panel was great. I got to ask Seth Meyers a question about Brooklyn Nine-Nine (he said he wanted to guest-star!) and even confirmed Stefon (from SNL) will make an appearance on Late Night.
The panel started off a little awkward. The video that was suppose to open the panel didn’t work at first. Panel Moderator Olivia Munn gave an impromptu story about wanting to be a mermaid in third grade. The panel moved into talking about Meyer’s new gig and how it differs from his 12.5 year tenure at Saturday Night Live.
Olivia Munn read tweets from a sheet of paper. To “refresh” she would flip the papers and go to the next one. She was one great moderator.
Aside from the many humor-filled moments, Meyers had solid advice to offer the audience. He mentioned that a lot of the Late Night & NBC writers were hired because they had a strong digital presence on Twitter. To combat the self critic in oneself, he said that perfection is unrealistic.
“Perfection is this crazy idea. It’s improvement that matters,”-Seth Meyers
The humor highlights were great. An audience member told Meyers that he “wanted his face so that he could have a girlfriend.” Other bits included Meyers telling of how he is one of the few in the world with a Blackberry.
Plenty of “out there” questions were asked by moderator Olivia Munn. When Munn asked Meyers what a dreamed tasted like, he asked perfectly:
“A dream tastes like reality with whipped cream”-Meyers
So the event was great. Looking back I can tell that waiting in line for 2.5 hours and crawling around on stage wasn’t the best idea but no regrets right? (or if you’ve seen We’re the Millers #noragrets). Below is a list of some more liners from the hour long panel.
“I always look like me when wearing a wig. I look like a guy who found a wig and put it on”-Meyers [On why he didn’t do many characters on SNL besides his Weekend Update duties]
“Fred Armisen told me his restaurant [Doctor Fred] is like hospital food but better”-Meyers
“I make everything into sandwiches. I like the idea of something inside of something”-Meyers