INSIDE THE WRITERS’ ROOM
Over A year into the Donald Trump presidency, the headlines Come so fast that 9 A.m. reports feel irrelevant By 5 p.m. late-night hosts have become Anti-Trump america’s Guide to what It All means. How do these shows navigate the news? To find out, Elahe I
8:30 A.M.
Seth Meyers has already read the draft of the Closer Look segment writer Sal Gentile emailed him overnight. It focuses on the Iran nuclear deal and Trump’s former physician, Harold Bornstein. Meyers, in his office, adds jokes.
Gentile heads to the writers’ room, where 14 other writers sit at desks chatting, scrolling through headlines — Trump has proposed a sixth military branch, the space force — and send monologue jokes to head writer Alex Baze, who worked with Meyers on SNL.
By 10:30 a.m., Gentile has connected Sheriff Joe Arpaio to Bornstein in the Closer Look script. He sets aside the Iran deal and focuses on Bornstein and others in Trump’s orbit.
11 A.M.
Everything that ends up on air goes through Meyers and his head writer. They’re going over next week’s Jokes Seth Can’t Tell, a recurring sketch in which Meyers recites the joke setups before writers Amber Ruffin, a black woman, and Jenny Hagel, a gay woman, deliver the punchlines.
Meyers speed-reads aloud. Ruffin and Hagel deliver punchlines about Kanye West, who praised Trump and called slavery a choice.
“It’s a crazy thing that Kanye is doing,” says Meyers. “Where he’s like, ‘I’m going to say a lot of things that you hate, but I’m saying them from a place of love,’ and I feel like it all ends with a hug.”
Ruffin’s explanation for his behaviour: “You gotta have black friends!” Everyone laughs. “I know people say it to white people, but it’s twice as important for black people! You can’t just be running around repeating what you’ve heard white people say.”
As they leave the meeting, Baze asks her if she has any Kanye ideas for tonight’s show.
She thought of one last night. They have 90 minutes to put something together.
12:30 P.M.
Hagel and Ruffin improvise a purposefully bad rap. Hagel asks, “Can we reverse engineer, and tell me what you want to say without thinking of it as a rap?”
The two keep writing as Gentile and others head to the 1 p.m. Closer Look meeting in Meyers’ office.
“There’s times where despite our best efforts we can’t find a good enough joke to keep an important part of the news story in,” Meyers explains. “Whereas journalists keep it in because it doesn’t require a joke, we’re apt to drop it because our ego doesn’t want to live through silence. So that’s why people should read the newspaper.”
Head writer Baze brings up a clip of Trump proposing the space force and then says, “Does that make sense?”
“I just like that even he — that idea is so stupid that even Trump is like, ‘Does this make sense?’” Baze says. “‘Am I saying words right now?’”
That goes into the script.
Many assumed Trump’s election would be good for comedy. Meyers isn’t sure. Yes, “the years I worked on SNL where the news in Washington was a debt ceiling, like, those things were death to write about,” Meyers said. But, “you do like topics to change every now and then.”
Meyers said the Trump era has also ushered in a cast of characters, like a sitcom. “So it’s not just Trump,” Meyers explained. “All of a sudden you have two weeks where there’s (Anthony) Scaramucci comedy” or “three months of (Steve) Bannon comedy.”
Today, it’s Bornstein comedy. The eccentric figure is back in the news after claiming Trump associates raided his office. He also rocks shoulder-length hair and looks like a middle-aged stoner — at least according to Late Night writers.
“I have a feeling the last president Bornstein remembers is LBJ,” Meyers reads from the script. “’All I remember is we were protesting LBJ, I lit up a joint, and then I was doing this interview.’”
2 P. M .
The monologue writers pack into Meyers’ office and listen to him run through jokes about everything from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s tweets to how it feels to step on Legos. Baze has managed to whittle down the mountain of jokes to 86. About 25 will make it to rehearsal.
Ruffin and Hagel hand Meyers a draft of the Kanye sketch, which will end the monologue. Ruffin two-steps in the crowded room and does her best Sugarhill Gang impersonation as she raps about why Kanye needs black friends. Meyers softly says, “We should just try it, right?”
4:15P.M.
Meyers stands before a crowd of roughly 40 people recruited from the halls of Rockefeller Center to watch the rehearsal. He explains that they are his test audience — their laughter will shape the show. Baze listens to the audience reactions and writes a question mark next to jokes that work. He then turns to the writers and asks them to come up with more about smaller news stories, to balance out the political material. He aims for 50-50.
Meyers riffs that Bornstein looks like a guy who’s late for a puppet show. That goes in the script. As soon as the rehearsal ends, Meyers and his writers race through Closer Look edits. There’s no time for debate or chewing over punchlines.
5:15P.M.
Wally Feresten has 99 Closer Look cards to change, and the final monologue script is running a little late.
He’s done the cards at SNL for 27 years. On Late Night, “if we’re running late or we get stuff late, then they can hold the show for five or 10 minutes ...”
By 6 p.m., he’s in Meyers’ dressing room, holding up cards. The host reads them rapidly to catch any errant words.
By 6:15 p.m., Meyers greets tonight’s guests — Lord Huron, Priyanka Chopra and Mike O’Brien. Three wardrobe and makeup people touch him up. “I feel like a car in a NASCAR race,” Meyers jokes.
6:28P.M.
The announcer declares, “From 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New
York, it’s Late Night With Seth Meyers.” Meyers dashes to his desk, delivering seven monologue jokes.
Ruffin pops into view, as the audience cheers. They also clap to the beat, which could drown her out. “Please stop clapping,” she asks quickly.
“African-Americans’ history should be a great source of pride!” she raps. “To imply that slaves had a choice minimizes slavery, and undercuts the strength of the black community! Something, that Kanye, used to be a part of. Uhh!”
“How crazy that she knew to say, ‘stop clapping,’” Shoemaker remarks backstage afterward.
“So few people,” Meyers says. “Nobody would be that smart.”
At 7:30 p.m. Ruffin works on a sketch. Gentile goes home to flesh out the Closer Look draft. It’s past 9 p.m. when Gentile closes his laptop. Rudy Giuliani says the president repaid his personal lawyer for hush money to a porn star. Gentile reopens his laptop and starts an all-new Giuliani segment. He emails the draft to Meyersat4a.m.