-Welcome back to the show, Seth. How are ya?
-I'm good. How are you, Seth? -I'm good.
I know you're in L.A. now but were you in New York
right before this all started.
Were you at least behaving safely when you were
in New York back in February? -I was trying --
I was at a giant charity event.
So it was hard to behave safely and it was just --
there was like rumblings of it in the air.
So I, at moments, would just hand myself over to
normal behavior and shook 200,000 people's hands
at the event, and, and Martha Stewart was there
and I don't want to, you know, support any conspiracy theories
but she had just gotten back from China where the virus was
at that moment very active.
And she left because of the virus,
and we're sharing this information,
the face-to-face conversation at which moment I was like,
Martha Stewart, back away from me, please.
But, yeah. It was -- but if I was to get it
from Martha Stewart it would have been completely --
-Oh, yeah. -The best.
-It would be that artisan vibe.
-Exactly. -Yes.
You, this movie, which is fantastic, is based on
a short story by Simon Rich who also wrote the screenplay
I think he was a writer at "SNL."
And I had forgotten a couple things, one,
that he wrote your monologue the first time you hosted "SNL,"
and two that you were only 23 years old the first time
you hosted "SNL" which is incredibly young.
-Yeah, I was.
And I think Simon was actually around the same age.
But, although he looked maybe 9 years old, I think.
-Yeah. He was -- he maybe looks 23 now.
-Exactly! Yeah. It was really a lot to see
that my monologue was not even conceived of
and Saturday afternoon I think was approaching and, again,
I was a 23-year-old young man who grew up watching "SNL"
and wanted to make a good impression.
I was really, really, really nervous, and then Simon.
This kid, this guy who seemed, again, like a child,
came up and handed me this thing.
Hey, man, I wrote this. And I read it.
It was like word-for-word perfect.
I literally didn't change one thing and I remember thinking,
if this guy ever writes a movie about a guy who gets pickled
I'd love to be in it! -[ Laughter ]
I went with -- you know, after working there a long time,
When I went back and hosted I had this whole new respect
for what we put hosts through because there was this sense of,
oh, the monologue, we can push it off,
we can push it often, forgetting that
when you actually have to host a show and it's the first time
you're gonna talk to the audience,
you'd really like to have it under control by like
Monday, Tuesday, actually. -You like to have some sense
of what the first things you're going to be expected to say are.
But, yeah. But I've since --
it is Lorne who said we don't do the show because it's ready
we do the show because it's Saturday and 11:30.
Which are very impactful words on me.
-So impactful, you said it maybe 1 million times.
-Exactly. I apply it to non-"SNL" things
which I don't know if it works. but I think that it does.
-Your monologue, for those who don't remember,
because a long time ago now, was the idea behind it,
was you reading a monologue you had written when you were 13
that always wanted to do if you ever hosted "SNL"
but you were actually doing stand-up as a 13-year-old.
This is not a crazy idea.
What was your material like when you were 13?
-Um, it was 13-year-old stuff.
It was, if I would write about my grandparents.
That was the first joke I ever wrote. It was my grandparents.
I would go watch "TGIF" at their house every Friday
while my family went to synagogue
and I didn't want to go and they would argue about --
they were both deaf and they would argue with each other.
And those were my first jokes I wrote was like
my grandparents arguing with each other.
And not knowing the other person was arguing about.
-This is a, this is a movie about our ancestors,
grandparents, great-grandparents.
The premise of the film is that you play both yourself
in modern day and yourself from 100 years ago.
Your great-great-grandfather who was pickled
and preserved at a pickle factory.
And so basically you're playing two versions of yourself,
but one from a century earlier. -Yes. It was weird.
Um, it was not, it was not a choice I made lightly,
because, yeah. There's not -- you know,
I think of a spotty tradition of actors playing
two roles in a film.
But I honestly felt like it really helped the narrative.
That convinced me, honestly, in the end.
And this idea of, you know, if we met our grandparents
when they were the same age of us, what would they think of us?
Would they like us?
My grandparents barely tolerated me as my grandparents.
My grandfather was a tough man, he was a plumber.
He was in the war. You know?
And he had no time for my, my modern, you know,
my modern crap. It was not entertaining for him.
I remember one time as a kid my toenail was too long
and I asked him to help me cut it
and he ripped my entire toenail off.
-I was also, there's a very -- a great amount of heart
in this film as well. -Yeah.
-It's a incredibly silly concept.
There's fantastic jokes, but there's this idea of,
can a previous generation be proud of the next generation
even though they're doing different things
and different accomplishments.
I read an interview with you today where you were saying
that your grandparent were never that impressed
with your success but still be super psyched
to go to a McDonald's. -Yeah they loved.
And they would steal napkins. That was my grandparents.
My grandmother stole everything and that was to her, like,
her greatest accomplishments were the things, like,
we would go to dinner, and literally, you'd see her
being like, this is a nice plate.
And then you go to her house the next day,
and she would have the plate, because --
she would put it in her purse.
So they really coveted things like napkins and plates.
So the fact I had, like a whole closet full of paper towel rolls
was very impressive to my grandparents.
But the fact that I was in movies,
they would always be like, you think you're a big shot?
You think you're a big shot?
That was -- that was, their favorite expression.