Seth Meyers Bio
Seth Adam Meyers (born December 28, 1973) is an American comedian, television host, writer, actor, and producer. He has hosted Late Night with Seth Meyers, a late-night talk show on NBC since 2014. Prior to hosting Late Night, he was a cast member on NBC’s sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live (SNL) from 2001 to 2014. He served as SNL’s head writer, as well as an anchor of the news parody segment Weekend Update, from 2006 until his departure from the show. His career spans more than two decades of influential work in sketch comedy, late-night television, and podcasting.
Early Life and Background
Meyers was born on December 28, 1973, in Evanston, Illinois. When he was four, his family moved to Okemos, Michigan, where he lived until he was ten. After that, he grew up in Bedford, New Hampshire. His mother, Hilary Claire (née Olson), was a French teacher, and his father, Laurence (Larry) Meyers Jr., worked in finance. His younger brother, Josh Meyers, is also an actor and comedian.
Meyers’s paternal grandfather was an Ashkenazi Jewish immigrant from Kalvarija near Marijampolė in modern-day Lithuania. The rest of his ancestry includes Czech, Austrian, Croatian, Swedish, English, and German heritage. He discovered on the television series Finding Your Roots that his family’s original surname, Trakianski, was changed by his great-grandfather to Meyers, after his own father Mejer Trakianski.
Meyers attended Edgewood Elementary School in Okemos and graduated from Manchester High School West in New Hampshire. He graduated in 1996 from Northwestern University in Evanston, where he majored in film and television production and was a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. His college roommate was fellow actor Peter Grosz. In 2016, he delivered the commencement address at Northwestern’s graduation.
Path to Comedy
While a student at Northwestern University, Meyers began performing improv comedy as a member of the university’s improv sketch group the Mee-Ow Show. He continued his comedy career at ImprovOlympic with the group Preponderate and overseas as a cast member of Boom Chicago, an English language improv troupe based in Amsterdam, where his brother Josh was also a cast member. When a Boom Chicago show he developed was mounted in Chicago, Saturday Night Live talent scouts noticed him and invited him to audition for SNL. His early training in improvisational comedy laid the foundation for his future success in sketch comedy.
Seth Meyers Career
Early Career (2001–2006)
Meyers joined the Saturday Night Live cast in 2001. In 2005, he was promoted to writing supervisor and, in January 2006, became a co-head writer, sharing the role with Tina Fey and Harper Steele. In 2004, Meyers auditioned to co-anchor Weekend Update with Fey, but Amy Poehler was selected for the position. His early years at SNL established his reputation as a versatile performer and skilled writer within the show’s demanding creative environment.
Breakthrough (2006–2014)
With Fey’s departure, Meyers became head writer for the 2006–2007 season and assumed the role of Weekend Update co-anchor with Amy Poehler. He was asked to sign a contract agreeing to be just the head writer if he did not get Weekend Update, but he declined and waited to see what plans the show had for the segment. After Poehler’s departure, he served as solo anchor of Weekend Update from 2008 to 2013. During the 2013–2014 season, Cecily Strong joined Meyers as co-anchor until his mid-season departure.
On SNL, Meyers impersonated figures including John Kerry, Michael Caine, Anderson Cooper, Donald Trump Jr., Tom Cruise, and Sean Penn. His recurring characters included Zach Ricky, host of the kids’ hidden camera show “Pranksters,” and Dan Needler, half of a married couple “that should be divorced,” opposite Amy Poehler.
Meyers received critical praise for several iconic SNL sketches during his tenure. During the 2008 United States presidential election, he wrote sketches for former cast member Tina Fey, who returned as a guest star to impersonate Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. He created the famed phrase uttered by Fey’s Palin, “I can see Russia from my house.” While co-anchoring Weekend Update with Poehler, they developed the popular recurring bit “Really!?! with Seth and Amy,” where both hosts would mock people in the news, ending each point with a sarcastic “Really!?.” Additionally, the “Abe Lincoln” sketch Meyers wrote for Louis C.K. was praised by critics as among the best sketches he contributed to SNL.
Late Night with Seth Meyers (2014–Present)
NBC announced on May 12, 2013, that Meyers would be the new host of Late Night in 2014, succeeding Jimmy Fallon as Fallon moved to The Tonight Show. Meyers assumed his role on Late Night on February 24, 2014, and his first guest was former SNL castmate and Weekend Update anchor Amy Poehler. He announced that the bandleader for his house band “The 8G Band” would be his former SNL colleague Fred Armisen. He and his Sethmaker Shoemeyers Productions company have signed an overall deal with NBCUniversal. The show has become known for its “Closer Look” segments that parody cable news commentary styles.
Notable Works and Milestones
Beyond his television work, Meyers has pursued various creative projects. In 2004, he won the third season of Bravo’s Celebrity Poker Showdown and donated the $100,000 prize to the Jimmy Fund. Together with SNL castmate Bill Hader, he co-wrote a Spider-Man one-off comic entitled The Short Halloween, illustrated by Kevin Maguire and published in 2009. Along with Mike Shoemaker, he created an animated half-hour series titled The Awesomes, produced by Lorne Michaels’s company Broadway Video, that aired on Hulu beginning August 2013.
Awards Hosting
Meyers has hosted numerous high-profile entertainment events throughout his career. He hosted the Webby Awards twice, in 2008 and 2009. He hosted the ESPY Awards on ESPN in 2010 and 2011. In April 2011, he delivered the keynote address at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. During his remarks, he made jokes about Osama bin Laden and mocked Donald Trump, who was in attendance. In 2014, he hosted the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards. In 2018, he hosted the 75th Golden Globe Awards.
Seth Meyers Family
Seth Meyers’s father is Laurence Meyers Jr., and his mother is Hilary Claire Olson Meyers. His younger brother, Josh Meyers, is an actor and comedian. His paternal grandfather was an Ashkenazi Jewish immigrant from Lithuania. His mother performed in a hospital benefit show in Marblehead, Massachusetts, called Pills A-Poppin’ with fellow SNL co-star John Mulaney’s grandmother Carolyn Stanton.
Personal Life
Meyers married attorney Alexi Ashe in a Jewish wedding on September 1, 2013, on Martha’s Vineyard. They have three children together. Their first son, Ashe Olson Meyers (named after his wife and his mother’s maiden names, respectively), was born on March 27, 2016, at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. Their second son, Axel Strahl Meyers, was born on April 8, 2018, in the lobby of their apartment building. On November 24, 2021, Meyers announced the home birth of their daughter, Adelaide Ruth Meyers, during Late Night’s Corrections segment.
While interviewing Jake Tapper on the December 4, 2018, episode of Late Night, Meyers said that while he does not consider himself Jewish (despite his Ashkenazi Jewish heritage on his paternal side), his wife is Jewish, and their children are being raised in that faith. Axel’s middle name is the surname of Alexi’s Holocaust-survivor grandparents. Alexi worked as an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn assigned to the Sex Crimes Bureau and later joined Sanctuary for Families as an advocate for victims of gender violence.
Meyers is a fan of several sports teams including the Boston Red Sox, Boston Celtics, Pittsburgh Steelers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Pittsburgh Penguins, Northwestern Wildcats, the Netherlands national football team, and Premier League club West Ham United. He is also a fan of comics and has cited Joe Hill’s supernatural Locke and Key as one of his favorite comic book series.