Lorne Michaels laughed, and rest is history
Fallon had inauspicious start to late-night career
Our series “How I became a …” digs into the stories of accomplished and influential people, finding out how they got to where they are in their careers.
Late-night talk show host Jimmy Fallon has been dominating the small screen for years. On his show, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy
Fallon, you’ll see Fallon doing everything from making “Slow Jam News” with President Obama and sharing the stage with artists such as Bruce Springsteen to having lip sync battles and parodying celebrities and iconic pop culture moments.
USA TODAY caught up with the impressionist, comedian, host and dad to talk about everything from his relationship with Lorne Michaels to his beginnings on Saturday Night Live. (Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.)
Question: Who has been your biggest mentor?
Answer: Lorne Michaels, who is a producer of the To
night Show as well as 70% of every show on television and, right now, Broadway. He was my first producer, my first boss with Satur-
day Night Live, and we stayed friends ever since. I was 23 when I got Saturday Night Live and I’m 43 now, so we’ve been friends for 20 years.
He’s the guy I go to for all advice, not just career-wise, but life-wise. If I’m renting a car, I’ll call him and go, “What car should I rent?” and he’ll go, “A Lexus is always nice, quiet … it’s kind of unassuming, but still luxurious.” (He laughs)
I honestly recommend, if you run into him, ask him any question. He just gives really great advice.
Q: What does your career path look like?
A: My first big break was that my mom had heard about an impression contest on the radio, and they were looking for the funniest person in the Hudson Valley. I was in Upstate New York — in Socrates. It was at Bananas Comedy Club in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and it was two or three minutes of an impression. My mom said, “Jimmy, you should do this, because you do all of these voices in your bedroom, and I can hear you!”
And I’m like … “What else can you hear? Because this is creepy.”
Someone had given me a Troll doll for my graduation. So I took this Troll doll and did these different celebrities auditioning to be the spokesperson for this doll. I did like 12 impressions in two minutes, and I won the contest. I won a lot of money — I want to say, like, $500. So for two minutes of work — and I had been working since I was 13 — that was so much money. I freaked out and said “This is my future! This is it!” The cold hard truth was, no. You don’t make $500 every two minutes.
I started entering talent shows, and my dad would drive me around to different gigs. I got booked at Bananas, I was the emcee, and I worked Friday, Saturday and Sundays on top of my other job working at a beverage center. On weekends I would do stand-up, adding more voices and eventually adding music.
I went to college (the College of St. Rose in Albany, N.Y.), put on my own comedy shows at St. Joseph’s Hall, and then my senior year I sent my videotape out to see if anyone was looking for a comedian. A guy I used to work for — Peter Iselin — I had given him my tape and my headshots because he had said he was going out to L.A., and asked him to let me know if he saw any room for comedians. I get a call ... from him, saying they had a comedy division and the manager liked what she saw — “You’re green, but she’d love to work with you. Would you consider moving to L.A.?”
I was a senior, 15 credits shy of graduating, and I told my parents that I thought I was going to drop out and move to Los Angeles. They agreed, we all pooled as much money as we could, and I moved to Los Angeles and lived on my friend’s couch for three or four months before I could get my own place.
I did improv, I took classes at The Groundlings. I was very lucky out there. I got to do a lot of cool things. Long story long, I sent my tape to Saturday Night Live for an audition, and they said they’ll take a look at it in New York. So I went to the Comic Strip in New York City and I did my Troll doll act, and I totally bombed. I was so nervous. Saturday Night Live said, “Don’t worry about it,” I’m not getting the job, and turns out they hired Tracy Morgan.
I was so depressed and went back to L.A., went back to classes at The Groundlings, went back to The Improv. And then the next year I got another call from Saturday Night Live, saying they wanted to see me again but they didn’t want to see the Troll doll bit — “we’ve already seen that.” I wrote a whole new act, came back to New York and auditioned on the stage of Saturday Night Live, and I took pictures of everything I could with a throwaway camera I got at a drugstore. I thought I might never step foot on NBC (property) again.
I had a great audition. A lot of people kept telling me, “Don’t worry about it, Lorne won’t laugh.”
I did an impression of Adam Sandler. He had just left the show, and no one had done an impression of Adam. And I made Lorne laugh — he put his head in his hands and laughed, and I thought, “Wow!”
I remember just floating out of there, and it took a while for them to call me. They had me meet Lorne in L.A., and he told me I got the job, so I moved back to New York for my dream job. I did Saturday Night Live, I had a great run there (seven seasons), and as I was leaving was asked if I ever wanted to become a talk show host, because Conan O’Brien was leaving in, like, six years.
Six years later, my movie career didn’t pan out, and I got a call from Lorne and asked me if I wanted to do it.
So, I said I’ll do it. NBC waffled for a little bit, they’re like, “Is Jimmy Fallon the guy we want?” and Lorne stuck up for me. He said, “If you don’t do it with Jimmy, I won’t produce.” And that’s how I became a talk show host.
Q: What advice would you give someone who wants to follow in your footsteps?
A: Don’t worry about money, just do it because it’s fun and it’s interesting for you. Keep it interesting and stay creative and keep dreaming and keep believing and it will all fall into place.