Seth Meyers Talks Day Drinking, Game of Jones, And A Long Future For ‘Late Night’

Tonight the Television Academy in North Hollywood presented a panel discussion with Seth Meyers, and perhaps the audience might have expected a heavy dose of Trump gags and witty political snark from the Late Night With Seth Meyers host – particularly in light of this week’s controversial news about Alabama’s restrictive abortion bill.

Instead, the amiable hour-long discussion, titled A Closer Look and hosted by The Good Place star D’Arcy Carden, was highlighted by two more frivolous topics: Game of Thrones, and alcohol.

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True, Meyers made a brief reference to Alabama, “that law, you guys know it,” but only in the context of talking about Late Night’s segment “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell” and his satisfaction that it gave show writers Amber Ruffin and Jenny Hagel a forum to discuss that and other subjects relevant to women or the minority groups they represent.

Still, Meyers and host Carden mostly concentrated on more personal aspects of Meyers’ career, as well as fielding an audience question in whether Meyers plans to do another Game of Jones segment with Saturday Night Live star Leslie Jones, viewing the final episode of GoT together.

Meyers would confirm nothing. “We are in discussions,” he said, adding that his hesitation to commit is that he expects that final episode “to be a huge bummer. I think I emotionally want to watch it curled up in a ball, alone.”

Carden did not ask about GoT, but pressed Meyers on whether or not he actually gets drunk with celebrity guests for the show’s segment Day Drinking.

“I am so drunk, I am really drinking,” Meyers assured the audience at the Saban Media Center at the Television Academy’s Wolf Theatre. He said the segment is shot from noon to 2 p.m., and he warns his wife: “I’m going to get home at 2:30 like, midnight drunk…and I want us not to have a fight this time.”

Meyers joked that Late Night is planning to “start doing Day Drinking With Kids, for the new NBC streaming platform.” But he assured listeners that Day Drinking would never become every day drinking: “Twice a year is perfect.”

Meyers said coming back to SNL as a host made him feel “very old” and it confirmed that it was time to move on when he did. However, Meyer said he plans to keep growing with Late Night “for a very long time…we’ve never tried to look too far into the future…a very gradual improvement is what we shoot for. A nice five year chunk just ended, and we’re starting the next…nothing is personally more rewarding than what I do now and the people I do it with.”

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