“Let’s Monetize This Friendship”: Will Forte, in Conversation With Seth Meyers

When Saturday Night Live alumni reunite, things tend to get nostalgic, and maybe a little but chaotic. But when Will Forte and Seth Meyers get on the horn last week, there was a rare, lived-in warmth between the two comedians, spun out of two decades of laughter and friendship, cultivated over many late nights in writer’s rooms. Shortly after the show’s 50th reunion special, he two managed to clear some time in their busy schedules to discuss Forte’s role in The Four Seasons, Tina Fey’s latest Netflix series, where he plays someone so loyal he’d do anything to keep his friend’s marriage from unraveling. That’s not totally dissimilar, Meyers pointed out, to how Forte operates in real life. “You strike me as a person who would take that upon yourself when a friend was in need,” he said. In conversation, the two get sappy while talking about the emotional whiplash of the SNL 50th anniversary special, the enduring genius of Tina Fey, and that one Traveling Wilburys song they won’t stop singing.

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SETH MEYERS: I watched the first episode. I thought it was wonderful.

WILL FORTE: Oh, thank you. I don’t love watching stuff I’m in, but my family was in town for the premiere and Netflix sent us advanced screeners. I got outvoted and we had to watch the whole series and I’m so happy we did because I loved it. I’m super proud of it. 

MEYERS: Well, I’m very happy to hear that, Will, because my bounce on you is you’re a very hard audience on yourself.

FORTE: I am, I am. I think if you’re an actor and you watch something you’re in for the first time, you can’t help but do an initial first pass on yourself. But I watched it a while ago and then again at the premiere and, by that point, I had gotten used to seeing myself. It was nice to be able to watch it in a completely different way and just pay attention to the story and get lost in it. Man, it’s really good. I mean, it’s a Tina show.

MEYERS: It’s a Tina show.

FORTE: So you always know the level of quality you’re going to get.

MEYERS: One, I like seeing you in a show with an old friend like Tina. Two, I liked seeing you play an old friend because I’m lucky enough to be an old friend of yours and, Will, I’m going to say something: I think you’re an exceptional friend. This show is about a friend you’re playing who is trying very hard to save his other friend’s marriage, and you strike me as a person in real life who would take that upon yourself when a friend was in need to step in.

FORTE: First of all, thank you for saying that. Your friendship means so much to me. We don’t get to see each other as much as we would like because we’re on different coasts, but I got to go hang out with you and your family for a good chunk of time last summer and it was so nice. I just kind of want to move in with you.

MEYERS: I would love it.

FORTE: But yes, I’ll do anything for a friend. I feel like you would too. You’re so busy and yet you took time to come and do this interview, so thank you.

MEYERS: I don’t know what’s happening, Will, but I’m in a very emotional place. Maybe SNL 50 was a tipping point, but every time I talk about our time on the show, I get choked up thinking about how lucky we were.

FORTE: I mean, we’ve known each other for 23 years now. Jason Sudeikis does this charity thing called Thundergong, and a bunch of comedians and legit singers come out for the show. Every year, we do the Traveling Wilburys song “Handle with Care,” and the three of us get up there. Whenever it’s the three of us together, it is so emotional to think about all the time we’ve spent together. I know that feeling that you’re having, and I think the SNL 50th has really touched it off for me, too.

MEYERS: Does it make it more emotional when you realize that you guys are all now older than everybody in the Traveling Wilburys when they sang that song?

FORTE: You’re exactly right. For some reason, because I was a little shit young kid when that song came out, it does seem like that in my head. Except for Tom Petty, they were all like 85 years old.

MEYERS: Yeah. So you realize they were just 85 years old in accomplishments because they had done the work of 85 year olds.

FORTE: Yes, exactly.

MEYERS: They just were younger than we are now. Tina was on my show and we were talking about you and the fact that not only are you a great friend to people that you collaborated with or spent these long chunks of time with, you’re also maybe the best first day friend a person could meet. The amount of times that you are off to do a charity event for someone you accidentally bumped into in line at the airport is beyond my comprehension.

FORTE: That’s so funny because I’m actually going to do Kelly Clarkson right after this, and I immediately go to a dinner and karaoke with some auction winners from that. Oh, now I’m humble-bragging about all my charity.

MEYERS: That’s all right. I put it on a tee for you.

FORTE: You do a lot of stuff for charity. We are blessed to have gotten success in this business that a lot of people are trying to succeed at, and it’s so easy to go do these things that can help raise good money for these people who really need it. It’s an easy thing to do.

MEYERS: You never regret doing them. With that said, Tina was pointing out you are often learning choreography for a dance that you have to do at a charity event. When you get home you can always say to your daughters, “I’m only here because I said yes to a charity event. It’s not to see you.”

FORTE: Yes, exactly. They know where they stand. It goes: charity, TikTok, kids.

MEYERS: [Laughs] The Four Seasons is a wonderful show. It’s a lot about the ripple effects a divorce has on a whole group dynamic. Have you had that happen yet? 

FORTE: Friends getting divorced?

MEYERS: Yeah.

FORTE: Yes and no. Man, I don’t want to out anybody.

MEYERS: Yeah, I was going to say, “You know what? It’s a dog of a question.” Let’s just move on.

FORTE: I guess I am the child of divorce, so it’s easier for me to talk about the effects of that. Thank god my parents were kind of not friends for a while, and then something brought us all together for some family event. Ever since, they’ve been good. We spent Christmas together and they just came down for the premiere and we all stayed at our place. It’s really nice to have them be able to grandparent together. 

MEYERS: That’s so awesome to hear. I know you as a person who, when you write for yourself, you’re involved really down to every specific detail. In recent years, obviously you’ve still done that for yourself with MacGruber, the TV series, but also you were in Bodkin. How have you enjoyed that versus the full Will Forte efforts?

FORTE: I mean, when you get to do something like this show where the writing is in such incredibly capable hands—I mean, Tina is every bit as meticulous as I would be, maybe even more so. Then you add Tracey Wigfield and Lang Fisher into the mix and it’s just like, these scripts are fantastic. So really, for me, it helps me disassemble the control freak stuff. It’s really fun to get to control every aspect of something, but it’s a ton of work. There are positives to each side, but you don’t always find yourself in a situation like this where you know that you can trust every part of the process to get it over the finish line in an amazing way, like with The Four Seasons. So it’s easy to jump into something like this. I remember they said, “They’re reaching out to see if you would want to be Tina’s husband in the show.” In my head it was, “Oh, immediate yes.” They said, “Do you want to read the script?” It’s like, “I guess, but it’s a yes 100%, no matter what.” I just knew that it was just going to be fantastic because they don’t do anything that’s not.

MEYERS: We know a lot of incredibly talented people, but Tina’s on a short list of immediate yeses. 

FORTE: Yeah. I got to work with her at SNL and watch her the whole time there. Then 30 Rock, it was like literally, anybody could have done the role that I did because the writing was so good and funny that all you really had to do was say the words and it was just great. I follow her to the ends of the earth. She’s as good as it gets.

MEYERS: I have another question I want to ask you. One of my favorite moments in the SNL 50th was you and Sudeikis singing a Les Misérable song with our friend Kristen Wiig, written by Colin Jost. Jost told me, and this comes from your deep well of empathy, that you were concerned maybe there were some other former cast members who didn’t have enough in the show and you went to Jost and said, “Should this person do my part?”

FORTE: Well, there were three chunks of that. There was somebody that I heard was not a part of the festivities, and I said, “Why don’t you give that second part to somebody else?” But it was too late in the game. But there were just so many people that have been a part of this show and everybody, no matter how much you got on the show, everybody deserves that spotlight.

MEYERS: Jost and I were talking about it because we said, “This reflects really two things about Will Forte. One, what a deeply good person is, and two, how crazy he was to think that they would make that switch so late.”

FORTE: I mean, keep in mind, I sacrificed the one that I thought was the less funny of the two. 

MEYERS: [Laughs] Okay, good, good. But I do want to give credit where credit is due. I don’t think there were a lot of people walking around at the SNL 50th thinking as much about other people as you were. 

FORTE: That’s nice.

MEYERS: Again, it’s a tie back to your character in The Four Seasons. This is also a show about friends who are getting older. Is there anything in this business that, as you have gotten older, you focus on less or something you’ve let go of maybe that you were obsessed about earlier in your career?

FORTE: Early in my career, I would get nervous about pretty much everything. I still do get nervous, but because I’ve done this for so long, you realize you have to do something so incredibly offensive to make a big splash. That’s always my fear: What if I say something inappropriate and then I’m blacklisted for the rest of my life? The flip side is like, you can have the funniest segment and nobody really sees it. So it doesn’t matter if you’re boring, you don’t have your A-game for one talk show. In the grand scheme of life, it doesn’t really matter. So that’s helped me loosen up the reins.

MEYERS: I think that’s a very good piece of advice. And when you loosen up the reins, you probably have a better chance of actually being special.

FORTE: Yeah, I think you’re right, because it used to be that I would plan every word of a talk show appearance and really have my stories down. I knew exactly the wording of the story. But you’re so good about making all the stories so funny. I mean, that’s why I love hanging out with you, because coming on your show is just like hanging out with you in person, going to dinner or whatever. We’re just having fun and laughing. [Forte’s phone buzzes] My notifications are still coming up here and I just got a text from Tom Ash.

MEYERS: Just to clarify for whoever’s reading this, Forte gets more texts from my father-in-law than I do. By the way, he and I have to text about when he’s going to pick up my kids, and yet he’s still texting you more.

FORTE: Oh, he said, “Look, who’s on my TV screen,” and sent a picture of The Today Show. 

MEYERS: I have an A-plus level father-in-law, and he’s a lot like you. You know what, I think it’s actually a nice way to end this interview, which is, the way you are a friend is very sticky. I mean, that in the best possible way. Nobody is a friend with you for a short period of time. Do you know that when you make friends, they’re forever?

FORTE: Yes, but sometimes friendships just find you though, right? I love all my friends and I hope that I’m a good friend to them, but I’ll go through my periods of being not as communicative. 

MEYERS: I will say, last summer I saw that you had maybe 1,100 texts you hadn’t responded to on your phone, so maybe you’re not as perfect as I’m making you sound.

FORTE: [Laughs] I’m a caller.

MEYERS: You’re a caller. I just know I’m very lucky to have a father-in-law to whom I am his third favorite SNL cast member from the 2000s. Kristen Wiig would be the other one that’s ahead of me.

FORTE: Wiig is number one.

MEYERS: Then you, and then I’m a comfortable third.

FORTE: Oh, man.

MEYERS: I love you very much, buddy. I loved watching you in the show. It’s fantastic.

FORTE: I love you. You’re not even a friend, you’re just like a brother. So I appreciate you doing this and I love you.

MEYERS: I love doing it too. I’ll take any opportunity to talk to you, even if it’s for public consumption.

FORTE: Let’s monetize this friendship.