The State News: How do you feel about being a 'Professor' for the night?

Seth Meyers: A little bit like an impostor, hoping nobody asks for my credentials.

SN: Is this your first time in Michigan?: 

SM: No, here’s the crazy thing from four to 10 years old I live in Okemos like five minutes from here. So when I landed I drove by my old house I hadn’t seen since like 1983. My first college football game was here and my first college basketball game was here. I wound up going to a Big Ten rival, Northwestern.

SN: What did you do in college that helped put you ahead in the field?

SM: Northwestern had a really good improv comedy troupe and I didn’t get into it until my senior year and that completely changed my perspective on what I wanted to do with my life going forward. I really to this day thank my lucky stars that it happened.

SN: How have you stayed yourself while being in the industry? Do you think it's because you of your comedic relief?

SM: I have really good friends from college, a really tight-knit family and even the people you sort of start with at (Saturday Night Live). I think those have all been groups that would be the first people to tell you if you were going through any sort of negative change. I think anyone who ends up getting a job or any sort of success that becomes a negative influence on them it probably means they’re not surrounded by the right support group.

SN: What advice would you have for students who are tentative to pursue a career in entertainment because of negative talk and comments about finding success?

SM: You have to sort of be honest with yourself before you start knowing that there’s a very low threshold of success but if it’s something you care deeply about and you go in knowing the odds, I think you should always follow your passion. The thing I would say is you always have to have your antenna up as to ‘is this going well?’ ‘am I making progress?’ That’s why I always recommend surrounding yourself with people who are also trying to do the same thing because it’s only within a peer group that you can sort of be able to judge yourself and know if you’re making the progress you need to stay in the step of what other people are doing within the industry.

SN: How do you balance delivering the news while still having a comedic, sarcastic undertone like on 'Weekend Update?'

SM: The best kind of comedy I’ve always done is based on the day’s news, but with that said especially now that you do it four nights a week, I do think it’s important to try and inform people to a certain degree. People who watch a late night show might have missed, either from working or from school, might have missed what happened in the world that day. There is a little bit of responsibility to at least fill them in on broad strokes with that said the news is a very good companion for my show, my show is not the news.

SN: How did you deal with the pressure of moving on from SNL and taking the late night hosting spot?

SM: I don’t know how I did or didn’t deal with it. The nice thing was I only had about three weeks off from my last SNL to my first Late Night. I think sometimes what will bring the most pressure on is too much time to think about something so I tried to give myself as little time as possible to think about it. I sort of think charging forward has been the best way to deal with any kind of pressure. 

SN: As far as networking goes, how did you build relationships that helped assist your career in the long run?

SM: In creative fields, the first thing anyone is going to do is judge you for your work It’s a little less important to network, I feel like your work does the networking for you. I think certainly at SNL I tried to build a reputation as someone that you could count on, somebody who would be the last one out the door if there was something that needed to be worked on and you know over the years I think that’s why I ultimately grew into the head writer role. There was a sense that I could carry those responsibilities.

SN: If you could say one thing to your young self studying in college what would say?

SM: I’d just say, “You can't believe how well this is going to work out.”

SN: What are you hoping to get out of (Friday's) performance?

SM: Probably some sort of an Honorary Doctorate. I’d like at least three or four people to cry from how much I’ve changed their life and it would be nice if at least one person proposed to me.