- [voiceover] funding for overheard with evan smith, is provided in part by mfi foundation. improving the quality of life within our community. also, by hillco partners. a texas government affairs consultancy. and by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation. - i'm evan smith. he's a comedian who formally was the head writer on saturday night live and currently co-anchor's the show's iconic weekend update segment. he's colin jost, this is overheard. - [voiceover] let's be honest is this about the ability to learn, or is this about the experience of not having been taught properly. how have you avoided what has befallen other nations in africa... i hate to say that he made his own bed, but you caused him to sleep in it. you saw a problem, and over time took it on... let's start with the sizzle before we get to the steak. are you going to run for president? i think i just got an f from you actually. this is overheard.

- colin jost, welcome. - thank you for having me. - very nice to have you here. so as the story goes, you were 22 when you joined the staff? - when i started snl as writer, yeah. - on the show as a writer, just out of harvard. - i was like ya know probably half a year out of, or year out of harvard, yeah. - right - and i'd worked at a newspaper, actually. i'd worked as an editor overnight on a newspaper back on staten island where i was from. - right, journalism good career. - journalism. - not quite comedy. - no, i got to see, i got out right probably before it started crashing as a print. - it was bad before, let me just tell you. - it was a fun job, even if it's not necessarily lucrative. - yeah, not at all. and so a couple of months and then you get to say... it's inconceivable to me what it must have been like at 22 having grown up presumably aware of the show, watching the show, fan of the show. to walk on there and suddenly be on the staff. - yeah, it's very weird. i mean you kinda have to pretend like it's not weird. 'cause otherwise it's overwhelming. - right, be cool. - yeah, 'cause you just walk in and you see photos

of ya know bill murray, and the whole original cast and the sketches they did that you remember, or dana carvey and phil hartman together. things like that, that you think oh boy what am i gonna do? - so this is 2005? - yeah, 2005. - so who's on the cast at that time? - so, it's an interesting moment because there was a cast that had been there for the last ya know few years. so tina fey was the head writer, so she hired me as a writer. and then the cast was kind of amy poehler, maya rudolph, horatio sanz, chris parnell, rachel dratch,finesse mitchell, kenan thompson who just started. so that was the group that was there. and then i started with andy samberg, kristen wiig, jason sudeikis, and bill hader. - well this is, what a great group of people. - which is a pretty cool. - are they coming or going? - both, both. so it was a really odd moment, so only for a year you had all that overlap, my first year. coming in with those four was such a blessing - yeah - 'cause they're not only are they now good friends, and still make me laugh all the time.

- right - but working with them was a joy. write for them... - had to been amazing. - yeah, and has a new writer, to work for people that are just also trying to prove themselves and all come up as a group is pretty cool. - now i want to talk about that process of writing, but let's go back a little bit. - sure - so you had been at the harvard lampoon. - yes. - a famous producer of awesome people, who go on to do great things in comedy, and in writing. - yeah, and weirdly mostly non-comedy until like the, i mean not non-comedy, but mostly literary people. - right - until ya know the 70's really. - right - and then jim downey, who is a long time writer at snl - right - was kind of the first lampoon writer to go into television. - right - and he went, he was at snl when it started, or right after it started. - did you go to harvard thinking i want to get to work on the lampoon? - no, i didn't know what it was when i went there. i hadn't heard of it. - so what was the path there? how did it happen? - i went to harvard thinking i was going to study economics. it was like that's probably what i want to do. - yeah - and then i got there, and i went to sort of they have introductory meetings at the lampoon.

and i went, and they're in this weird circular library. and everyone in there's smoking and even now, everyone's there smoking all the time. and reading, ya know magazines and they introduce drinking a beer which seemed like the coolest thing in the world to me. - right - as someone who didn't drink all of high school. and they just seemed funny, they seemed like funny people. - yep. - it was people like b.j. novak who's now - from the office? - yes, was there. it was just people that were and a lot of comedy writers who now write for the simpson's or for the office were put. and they were the funniest people that i saw on campus, and it seemed like an island - right - within harvard that was a little bit more countercultural and i don't know, they just seemed like they wanted to make each other laugh. - the very best networking environment if this was gonna be the career that you wanted, right? you couldn't ask for better people. - and that's the odd thing, you don't know that 'til later, but the joy of the place is you kinda go because everyone there cares a lot about comedy. - and it's rare to find people - right. - in freshman, sophomore year

of college that mainly want to do comedy - especially at harvard - yes. - i was about to say, it is harvard right? it was a fact that i had to hide from my parents for a while. - is that right? - ya know, that's what you, that was a cool... - you told them you're still gonna be an economist or whatever that was. - exactly, yeah. i'm gonna be an economist, and a lawyer and a doctor. - this is not the family business. your mother is a doctor. - my mom is a doctor. - and your dad is a educator. - my dad is an engineer. he was an engineer for a long time with proctor & gamble. - right. - and then as a mechanical engineer. - yeah - and then he's taught for the last, he just retired, but he taught for the last 20 years at a public high school on staten island. - now i've heard jimmy fallon and other people who went on to do great things on that program, talk about their own families, again not coming out of a family business. and how they had to essentially persuade their families some of it was easy, some of it was hard. no, really this is gonna be okay that i'm trying this. - well it's, it was kind of the other blessing of saturday night live besides it just being and awesome place to work, is it was probably the one show on television that my parents knew. - oh, right. - you know what i mean?

like they grew up watching it when it started. - right - for them, it was an easier sell in a way. - yeah. - then if i were working on robot chicken as my first job, which i love. - not that robot chicken is bad. - which i would have loved to do, for them they would have been like and what and so it's a chicken and it's a robot? and is that how you go to law school? we don't understand. - right - that was the nice thing. my mom is a doctor, her main job is she works for the fire department in new york. so she runs the whole medical office there. - yep. - and she's done that, and so my grandfather's a fireman, my great grandfather. all of my cousins who all grew up on the same block as me, all firemen. and so she was in a place, a job where i think. firemen, i find very funny generally, and have a good sense of humor. so i think that was what my mom liked being around. - right - and that was what my grandfather liked being around. so i grew up with that kind of vibe. - yep - of always hanging out with people that would make me laugh, and that was always what i liked the idea of in a job. - right, and also being on staten island growing up. - yes. - saturday night live is one of the most iconic new york entertainment properties.

- yeah - it's a new york show, so from your mother's prospective. well it's this thing that's right here too. - yeah, exactly. it was an institution nearby in new york. - right - that they understood. - right - and now it's crazy that there are two people from staten island on it. pete davidson on our show. - right - also from staten island, also fire department family. - also a child of the fire department - yeah, and it's kind of an insane, occasionally we just look at each other like what's happening? - this is staten island's moment - yeah how is lorne letting this happen? - i wanna know what it took to get you from the lampoon or from the paper on staten island, to saturday night live. again, in the realm of stories of how people go to the show, there are people who tried, and tried, and tried. year after year, after year, and finally got on there. people like marc maron, who tried and tried and never got on and are still mad about it. - of course, yeah. - you made a pretty quick path right there. - yeah, ya know obviously i was very lucky on a lot of levels that, that's the way it shook out. - right. - i mean when i applied for the lampoon. it took me a year and a half to get in,

out of college, ya know when i was in college. - yeah. - so that process was writing as much as you possibly could. people who look at it, give you notes, you'd submit, there were different kind of levels that you could get to. and i got really close twice and didn't get in. and then the third time i got in. - yeah. - and so it was kind of similar when you apply to places as a writer, that's the mentality you have to have. - right. - you just have to do it a lot. - more likely not to do it, or not to get it. - you're almost guaranteed to not get it. - right. - so you have to to, it's just a crap shoot. even if you're really talented and really good, it's a crap shoot, it's a luck thing. if they have a spot open, or they don't. but you have to go in with it, into the process thinking i have to be writing constantly. - yep. - so that's what i did at the lampoon, and that's what i did when i graduated. i applied everywhere i could, so i applied to letterman, twice within that year. i applied to conan, i applied to daily show, i applied to, i wrote a spec script for arrested development at the time. ya know, i wrote a pilot about the fire department with a friend of mine. - right.

- and while i was doing the other jobs, because i knew that's what i wanted to do, and i didn't know where anyone would take me. and right when i was finishing harvard, i submitted a packet to snl, also. that i don't know if anyone even read or saw, and i'm sure it was terrible. but then i did another that year later, and was lucky enough to get it. but you realize it's. - were you invited to submit, or did you just do it cold? - i wanted to submit a packet. - did you know anybody there? - so i contacted a person who i'd met who is older, who i didn't know particularly, but i asked hey where can i send this. and then as you're there through the years, you realize if someone's in a range that you want to consider them. you're really happy to tell them to send it in. - really? - yeah, because you want to find new people that are eventually gonna be your friends and are gonna make you laugh. - but it's perceived to be a closed club, maybe that's unfair. and it's also perceived to be harder rather than easier to get anybody's attention there, again, all the stories of people who wanted to get on, and never could really figure out a way in. - right - lorne is such a weird figure in the mind's eye

and hard to access. - oh yeah - and how do i crack the code, sounds like it's more like send stuff in. - well definitely, but even though when you're talking about people like marc maron or people who audition for the show, and they're clearly on his radar. - right. - you know, he might have even auditioned in the studio. - right - as a screen test, ya know? it's getting anywhere in the range that's hard. but when you do submissions, like when i was head writer, we would read 200 submissions every summer. - really. - and these are packets that are. - right - ya know, each packet is say 30 pages - yeah - so you're reading a lot of pages, and you try to do that because occasionally we've hired someone that we have no idea who they are, because they submitted a packet. - yeah - and we really liked it. - so you're 22 and you get there. are you the youngest person ever to be on the writing staff? - i doubt it, i feel like there's a few people that are in that range, i would guess. - right, but among the youngest. - maybe, there's another thing there's a whole history to the show. like in the 80's i don't know what age the writers were. - right - ya know what i mean, like i don't know in the eddie murphy years.

- this is literally before you were alive, there was a show. - there was a show. - right. - i'm told. - you hear it, you see it occasionally. - i've seen clips and photos. - on comedy central, they run reruns. - they do reruns, yeah. but like eddie murphy was 19 or something. - right - when he started in the cast, so i imagine there must be have been people. - did they give you hell, did they razz you? was it the kind of thing where you're the young guy on the totem pole and so you have to do all the scut work. - no. - or they order a bunch of pizzas to your room or whatever it is? - no, in a weird way, that would have seemed more natural. - right. - ya know, but the weird thing is, i was very lucky they treated me well. - yeah. - and i came in there, again all these new people that were also trying to make it. - in the same boat. - same boat, which was awesome. and then people like seth and amy who were there, when amy poehler was there too. it was, they were really, they really took me in, not only helped me with writing. - right - and wrote with me, which is the hardest thing when you're new getting someone to write with you. or read something that you wrote. - right - they were great in that way, but they also took me out socially, like we'd go out after table reads or something. if it went poorly, we'd all go out.

and it was at least fun, and you felt part of a community. - right - so i'm very grateful for that. - so that's how it works. you write on your own, but you also write with other people. - yeah, well it's an interesting, certain people, writers have different approaches. some writers on our show might go and just write on their own in a room, submit it, cast it, who they want in, but don't talk to anyone ahead of time. and do that, and that can totally work. in a way jim downey's been there for a long time, does that. - yeah - he writes a lot of political stuff, and he would do that. and then there are people who really write with cast exclusively. like there are people who really pair up with certain cast members and write with them a lot. and i was always somewhere in between. i liked working with cast a lot, but i also liked having independent. - yeah. - you know something independently that felt like my voice. - right. you were one of how many in the writers room at the time? or on the staff at that time? - i don't know, i feel like it's always somewhere in the 15 people range. - right. - so it's hard because on a table read at snl, we probably have 50 sketches get submitted each week. and so 50 sketches get submitted.

and then about 12 get picked even to go to dress rehearsal. and then maybe 9 or 10 get on air. - right - so 1/5th of the sketches that are written get on, and you're competing against at the time, ya know what tina fey's writing, what seth meyers' is writing. so when you come in, you realize it's very hard to get something on. - yep, well it toughens you up. - the odds are hard. - it's also like facing a really great pitcher. you tend to hit better. - right, and you always want to play against the best competition, that's what makes you better. - right. - seeing them write, seeing how tina would write a sketch, there was so many jokes in it, that it always made you think, why don't i have more jokes in my sketch? - right - ya know, so it drives you to get better. - so how many years between the top, well let me stop before i ask that question. let me ask this, what was the first sketch that you wrote that got on air? - so my first show, the first sketch of the show i wrote. - that's like back to baseball, that's like somebody getting up to play for the first time in the majors, - i didn't know. - home run, right? - i didn't know.

'cause then the next few shows i didn't have anything. - yeah. - so i was like oh this is normal. but it was a sketch i wrote. my first host and musical guest were steve carell and kayne west, which is pretty awesome. - pretty good. - pretty awesome booking. - couldn't have lined that up better. steve carell and amy poehler in the sketch and it was the early days of jet blue airlines and there was a mechanical problem on the plane. and people were watching televison and they were watching coverage of their own eminent plane crash on the. - hilarious - yeah, luckily the plane landed safely. - and it was okay, so you could joke about it. it was this rare moment that people were actually watching it. so it was her watching and freaking out, her watching and freaking out and him being oblivious and watching like a cartoon and being really happy. - yeah. - ya know, it was topical for that week. - right. - and it worked out and it got on, but it was kind of a crazy, shooting the moon for a show. - yeah. so how do you go from being a writer to being the head writer, you were co-head writer

at one point? - yeah, it's crazy when you start you're so anxious. - yeah. - you don't know whether you're gonna make it, and you don't know how it works. and then every year gets more and more anxious. - you think it's gonna get better. - you think it would get easier, like oh my god, at least i know i have a job. it gets more and more, more and more anxiety because each year you have a little more responsibility, you usually get a few more sketches on. - yep. - ya know you might have a sketch every week or maybe eventually two every week or three every week. and that gets really stressful. but it's a slow process of building up the responsibility and getting to that position. so i was a writer for a while and started having more success has a writer, more regularly. and then got promoted to being a writing supervisor. and that's a stage sometimes people go through. because seth was still there. - yep - and andrew steele who was the other writer when i started, who's great, was still there. so i kind of worked up and got that position, and there are two writers now chris kelly and sarah schneider on our show who have that position.

- right. - who are gonna move up at some point. - they're in the shoot. - yeah, who are great writers and that. but it's a way you can - right - step out that and you start going into meetings with lorne and seeing how things are picked. which always seem when you're on the other side, feels like the biggest mystery in the world. - of course. - it's like seeing behind the curtain. - even within our show. - and who makes decisions and how that works. so you start getting glimpses of that, and occasionally he might say, ya know colin what do you think of that sketch? and you'll be like ahh i didn't know i had to have an opinion, it's great, i love it. ahh god i blew it. - yeah. - you don't know what to say. - yep. - and then you get more comfortable in that space and then i probably did that for two years, or three years and then became head writer with seth when he was still there. - right. so seth has been head writer, and seth went on to weekend update, tina had been head writer and went on to weekend update, right? - yeah, they both had different tracks though. like seth was a regular cast member. - right. - he was a featured player, and then he bascially stopped the acting side of it, and just wrote.

- yep. and then became head writer when he did update. - and tina had never been on the show. - tina had never been on the show. - until she became weekend update. - until she did update. - yeah. - she'd been head writer for a couple years i think. - right - then did update, and then started doing more sketches. - yeah. - so it kind of went the other, she started opening up and doing other things after. - you had done performance. you had done comedy, right? but you were never on the program until - very small things. - small things, but you were never even acknowledged as a featured player or cast member. - oh, no. until ofden acknowledged as a featured plone day, y're handr. thkeys to maybe the t franchise within the franchise. - yeah, yeah it was a pretty weird experience. - but isn't it like enormously huge pressure, i have to believe. - of course. - not only because of who came before you immediately, and it was a really hay day of weekend update at that point. - oh it was great. - but if you go back over time, this is really a thing. - yeah, that's, by the way that's what my parents would bring up. - is that right? - they'd be like you know it was amazing from the beginning, the segment was always so good. oh boy.

- right, oh great. sting me up to fail, here it is. - here comes law school. of course it's terrifying on some level, and again it's a thing of you can't think about it too much. - right. - because it becomes overwhelming, but you also have to. even now, you know, i watch the desk get rolled out every week, you know as part of my ritual, i watch it get rolled out past me and there's a reverence for it. - sure - that you still have. - yeah. - because you know lorne always says that our current show is so much built on the backs of that first cast, ya know. - right. - and to never forget that. and even whatever dealings we have now with anyone in the original cast, like we're lucky to see them now. - yep. - but back then, we are lucky to have jobs because of them. - yeah. - and chevy is that same thing with weekend update, i mean he made that what it was. - right. - and so you never, i think it's important to never forget that even though, you know, you always have to move past it too. like that's the thing, you have to, and that's the hardest thing for me when i started

is how to make new. how to make it your own. - so how did you make it new, but even before that though. - sure - tell me was it your idea, or their idea to get you on the set? - i don't know exactly. i mean i had conversations with lorne. - right. - six months before that. - did you go into the show at either 22 or at a later stage thinking god one day i want to be in front of the camera? - yeah, on some level. but i didn't really think about it when i first started. because the job of writing was already so hard... - yeah - to figure out that i just wanted to focus on that. i used to perform a lot, all growing up, and so that was a real joy in my life that as a writer i lost a little bit. but i loved writing too, and i got into that and i felt, i drew a lot of joy from the success of writing. - yeah - but i missed that other element of it. and so as soon as i started on snl, i also was doing stand-up. - yeah. - so i was going to open mics, ya know i was going to try to get into clubs and stuff in new york. - so this other part of yourself was being satisfied. - other part to some extent, yeah.

- yeah. - and then as i did that more and more and did that side and had gone through the process as a writer, i was hungry to do something else. and get back to that part of me that i missed from childhood and high school and college. - did you doubt yourself when they said do this, 'cause this is different from being in sketches and acting, right? this is more of a very specialized skill, fake news. - oh very, very specialized. i was more excited to do this, than i was to do sketches. - yeah. - just because as a stand-up it made more sense to me. - yeah. - and i liked being some version of myself, even if that's a strange version of yourself. like i liked that idea, figuring that out more than. - well you're playing colin jost, you're not playing a character. - that's the strange thing. yes, when you go into it, your name is announced, and that's like well early on, if you're a cast member early on, and people don't like a sketch you're in. they're like oh, i didn't like that character, right? i didn't think his impression was very good. - but if you screw it up, they don't like you. - if i screw it up, i don't like that human. - i say you're a human, your colin jost,

and you're not a character, but in fact, you have become, and maybe it was inevitable, a character of sorts. - of course, but i think in a weird way, i started as more of a character 'cause i didn't know what i was doing. - yeah. - and was not really myself. and now have gotten closer to myself. even though it's still on camera, ya know. and i think that's part of. - tv colin jost has become more like real colin jost, or real colin jost has become like tv colin jost? - tv colin jost has become more like real colin jost, i think. - that's pretty good. - yeah, and then you feel more settled. - yeah. - because you think this is me. - yep. - versus, how do i do me? - right. - ya know that's a really weird feeling. - now go back to when dennis miller did it, go back to when kevin nealon did it, go back to when charles rocket did it, or when individuals, chevy did it. they were by themselves. - yes. - there's been history of weekend update as a sole practitioner deal. - yes. - but then there is the partnership. - yes. - and there have been great partnerships. tina and amy. - yeah. - jimmy and... - jimmy and tina. - tina. - and then tina and amy. - and then tina and amy. - and then amy and seth.

- and then amy and seth. - so you and michael che get thrown together. and i remember michael che briefly as one of the reporters on the daily show. - yeah - and he was terrific and terrifically funny. i don't know if i would have imagined him in this role, but you seemed to have almost instantly, despite what twitter may say occasionally. - sure. - you have a thing, the two of you really work well together as a team. - i mean i love michael, it's great working with him. - did you know him before? - yeah, i knew him as a stand-up, and i brought him in as a writer at snl. - oh great. - only because he was clearly very funny. - right. - i mean anyone would have hired him. i liked his style, i liked his comedy a lot. - yep. - meeting him you could tell that he was just a humble guy, even though he is confident. - yeah - and i don't know, i just liked him. and then he was a great writer at our show. he's still a great writer at our show. - right. - and then he basically just in a summer, he did the daily show when we stopped writing. - it was just a cup of coffee right?

- it was two or three months. and when that happened. - right. - the thing with he and i working together is, he really pushes me, and pushed me from the beginning to make it our own. - yeah. - which was something i think because i had been in that system so long. - yep. - and when i came in, i didn't push as much immediately to say, no this is how i do things. - right. - all the writers were still there. - yeah. - from when seth was doing it. - do the two of you write the segment part yourselves or others write as well? - there we have writers who are great, who write for us, and we write stuff for it too. - yeah. - and sometimes, especially this year, we've been doing more where the two of us will go off and write some of the things that are more back and forth, and we'll talk through it the way we would ya know in real life. - right - and that feels both fun and efficient. - two things occur to me about this show, we have about three minutes left. one is that - wow - i goes by very fast. one is that this year especially the real news is funnier than the fake news.

you must have a hard time trying to top reality on that show. - it is hard, even if i tweet something, i remember i said something during one of the republican debates. i just said something like i can't believe donald trump just called john kasich the n word. and so many people were like i can't believe he did that. i was like no he didn't do that. - oh no it was a joke. - but you don't know! - unbelievable, right. - maybe he did. - yeah. i've said it's got to be hard to think, i need to be funny in a context that isn't just reporting what happened. - right. - right? - yeah you have to have - sometimes i see the political sketches are like often what actually happened. - yeah, and it's part of the joy of that is someone recreating the performance and finding other versions of it, but you think that, but then you look back in time and certain things, ya know tina said as sarah palin, sarah palin didn't really say. but now you think she did, 'cause tina said it. - it's become, yeah. - like with dana carvey, ya know like let me finish, or not gonna do it.

not really things that they said, but then now that's the only thing you remember they said. - well very quickly, the other thing that occurs to me is that you used to have this space the fake news space to yourself, weekend update i mean. - right - and now you've got jon stewart, trevor noah. you've got stephen colbert, you've got larry wilmore, you've got john oliver. - sure. - you've got all the late night guys, who some of whom used to be the weekend update guys. - of course. - so it's salad days for fake news. - there's a lot and so that's the other challenge is during the week, you have to find how to tackle the biggest stories, that they may have also tackled in a way that's different, a different angle. - yeah - a way that's more personal to you guys. you know, whatever it is. that's the other challenge is finding your own space with all these other people out there. - well you've done amazingly well in a short time. you are absolutely part of the history of that show. it's so much fun to watch you. - thank you, thank you very much. - we wish you good and continued success. - oh man, thank you. - colin jost, thank you very much. - thanks for having me here. total pleasure. thank you. - [voiceover] we'd love to have you join us in the studio. visit our website at klru.org/overheard to find

invitations to interviews, q&a's with our audience and guests and an archive of past episodes. - at some point lorne was like let's see what happens, and he called larry and larry picked up the phone and was basically like is this about playing bernie sanders? he's like i'd love to do it, and it was that simple because i think everyone in larry's life had been telling him. - they were saying the same thing. - yeah, you gotta do this guy, you know. and it's pretty rare that that casting comes along. - [voiceover] funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by mfi foundation. improving the quality of life within our community. also, by hillco partners, a texas government affairs consultancy. and by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation.

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