Late Night Talk Show Guests
Why are guests such a big part of late night talk shows?
The problem that exists is, you have to do these shows night in and night out. So you can't do an hour written show. It has to be a show that has been non-written. I mean that they're produced and the interviews are written. However, there have to be a lot of non-written elements so that you can sustain on a nightly basis. Otherwise, you have to have staff of fifty writers to get five shows out. It's hard to do one show a week. You talk to Lorne Michaels, talk to people that do heavily written comedy shows every week such as sitcoms. That's why they're a dying breed. You have to have a lot of writers. You have to really get one out a week. Imagine doing five hours of television a week at a consistently high level.
How are the guests for late night talk shows chosen?
These shows ultimately are promotional vehicles. So we rely on being part of that promotional machine. Guests are picked on circumstances such as whether they have a movie to promote, and if so, they're going to do the rounds. It's the booker's job, and if you're strong enough and successful enough, you have more leverage to get those stars first before they talk about the same thing on every other show. But, we always were cognizant of that and always wanted to go into different areas and do different things and really produce these stars. And ultimately it was the producer's job to decide who got on and who didn't get on.
How do producers prepare material for celebrity guests on talk shows?
I know on most of the shows I've worked, I like to see video tapes. I like to see them on another show. Or I like to read an interview they might have done that's more or less a Question and Answer interview, and which is not heavily edited. I like to see that. So I like to get a sense of what kind of talker they are and mostly how, not self-deprecating, but you want to see how, how well they take a joke, because that was always important on any of these shows, because ultimately they're going to be tough on them. Not tough on them, but they have to play.
How do talk show producers decide what celebrity guests will talk about?
I'm a big proponent of pre-interviewing. I like a producer to prepare, research and really know where they're going with an interview, and to then get on the phone with the star to cue them into what they're going to talk about, and also to extract more jokes, more material and more stories. They're story-driven interviews, and hopefully along the way there are comedic beats in the stories that they tell. A lot of that is prepared. That's not to say that you don't want to leave some room for spontaneity as well.
How do producers prepare guests for their on-camera interview?
I take my hour of conversation, which includes my interjecting and saying, “Hey, if you tell the story this way, it'll get a laugh here rather than telling it the way you've been telling it”. I don't want to say that you should stretch the truth, but a lot of times these stories go nowhere and you have to come up with an ending. That was the job, working out how to understand the story in a six minute or five minute interview. How do I give the star lead-ins that will cue these people to tell those stories?
How do producers and hosts deal with nervous celebrity guests?
A lot of times, guests are very uptight and only want to get out the plug. You've got to prepare a host for that and say, "Hey look, this guest I talked to, they're not very talkative". You've got to really put them at ease. Get the plug out early so that the rest of the eight minutes they're at ease. They've done the business, so there's a lot of real engineering of these pieces to get them done right.
Do celebrity guests frequently have topics they refuse to discuss?
No. Not a lot. Not when I was doing those shows. I haven't done a talk show for a number of years, but when I was doing those shows I had free reign. There were the exceptions with some people who didn't want to talk about certain things. A lot of the times we agreed, and a lot of the times we'd say they can't do the show unless they talk about that. It would be so glaringly an omission that if we don't it would make us look bad.
Is it easier to interview celebrities or 'everyday' people?
It was always fun to interview the everyday guests who had extreme passions. The lady that collected potato chips that looked like people, she was so passionate about it that it was brilliant to talk to her. It was like talking to a piece of art. There are a lot of stars who lack that passion. They could be the biggest stars in the world and they're just boring people. There used to be a woman that we'd have on the show who ran a museum of medical oddities, and she was passionate about collecting medical oddities and would come on the show and come with examples. It was always brilliant because she was so devoted to that one thing. That's not to say that occasionally you don't find stars who feel the same way about their work and about their lives.
What makes a great late-night talk show guest?
Which celebrities are the best late night talk show guests?
Obviously, what you look for on those shows are the ability to tell a story, to gain the trust of the star, the host of the show, and then be able to run with it. A lot of times, people will tell a long story that goes nowhere, and the host has to save it and keep the ball in the air. Then there's a guy, like Tom Hanks, who just knows how to tell a story, knows how to tell it in a funny way, knows that he has to wrap it up and button the piece. There are guys that just think like that and know how to do it instinctively. Those were always the best guys to have. Tom Hanks was always the best.
How can someone give a great talk show interview?
To give a great talk show interview, I think it's just preparing. I think it takes work on both ends. A good guest helps, I mean, to Tom Hanks' credit, he would come prepared. He would get on the phone with the producer and he would say to the producer, "Here's what I'm thinking about doing" and he'd throw out 5 stories. Steve Martin would always come on these shows and say, "I have an idea I'll come and I'll rehearse it early. It's this, that, let's try this." Bill Murray he was always that way, would always prepare and come on. Andy Kaufman used to, in the early days of the Letterman show, work on a 5-10 minute piece, weeks in advance. He would really work for weeks on crafting a piece. So, you know, the best of the best look at these as their jobs. You can't just phone it in. You have got to prepare and work at it.
How was Letterman's approach to guests different from his predecessors?
Letterman approached the guests as just another setup for the comedy, which is the way to do it. He would setup people to deliver comedy, and that was always the main thing we were looking for in a guest. Would they come to play? Will they be comedic?
How have late night talk show guests changed over the years?
Guests used to do shows because: "that's what I do for a living. I am a Comedian, I go on a show to be funny." Guests now do shows because: "alright i have something to promote and i have to promote it." Conceptionally it makes a lot of sense, but in reality you know the publicist have a very tight reign of these people. You know they don't put them on shows where, where they can let their guard down anymore.
