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"Colin Jost"

65m 17s

"Colin Jost"

Colin Jost reflects on his journey from a late-talking child to a successful stand-up and SNL writer, highlighting how his early experiences with humor and school life shaped his career. He recounts attending Regis High School on a long, daily ferry commute, which later inspired his co-ownership of a Staten Island ferry. The ferry is now being reimagined as a community-focused entertainment hub, including a swim club and event space, with plans to move it seasonally between locations. Jost credits his shift from economics to Russian literature as a pivot toward comedy, a path fueled by early involvement in student publications and the National Lampoon. His SNL career began through a summer submission, and despite early struggles—especially with the update chair—he eventually found success and confidence, driven by a deep love for comedy. A memorable moment involved Michael Che preventing the audience from laughing at a joke, leading to a chaotic yet hilarious live performance that deeply impacted Jost. The episode also celebrates Jost’s sharp political impressions, particularly his portrayal of Pete Hegseth, which is praised for its accuracy and humor. Throughout, Jost emphasizes the importance of following one’s passion, even when it diverges from traditional career paths, and shares the joy of building a creative life through connection and authenticity.

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13155 Words, 66988 Characters

English
willie uh what kind of shirt you have on what is that uh it's cotton it's cotton what's on the front it's a it's a thing it's a it's a rooster it's a well no it's not it's a it's liver liverpool football club oh what does mine say yeah and yours says out of office yeah where did you get that particular freebie i used to work at listen i can't wait to hear this but let's do an older smart list first welcome to smart list uh sweet sweet willie is um is over on the pond um across the pond is that across the pond i'm in i'm in liverpool wait why are you there my home away from home i'm doing a little thing with the club oh i didn't know that with our friends at uh at tommy hill figure shout out tommy hill figure there it is we've got it and uh was it ever thomas when when did he go shorter with it have you asked him i haven't i haven't asked him uh i'm gonna have dinner with him later and uh sounds like a perfect opportunity which is which is why it's gonna be and um yeah um so shawnee you're back in los angeles oh god yeah after an incredible experience i'm gonna have dinner with him later what a run what a run he's got himself an olivier award already from this thing we will see what our friends over at the tony no no this guy's talent no no no jay the olivier is from good night oscar oh the olivier was for a good night oscar is still receiving awards yeah yeah he sure did no way yeah isn't that crazy um but but shawnee uh yeah so we haven't we haven't started the award circuit yet for the olivier award series we haven't started the award circuit yet for the uh no you the unknown it's called the unknown but but but you can't because it's off broadway so i mean i brought off broadway has no awards it does but and i got nominated for the one that they do which is called the i forget what it's called but um is it called off it was very nice it's off tony yeah are they called the tinnies the tinnies let me ask you a question if you're off broadway do you need to go backstage and say hi to people or no you do not you do not have to do that we uh but but sam sam rockwell we your ears must have been burning sam came backstage i know you're working with sammy rock and roll he's so nice he's the best yeah he's so sweet yeah um and um and yeah i just got back two nights ago it was great and by the way you know the adrenaline dump right after don't you guys feel that after you do a movie or a tv show or play or anything like that when you're done you're just like oh man and and usually you get sick because the body knows it's now now i can be ill right um but you came back and did you what was your illness just basic nausea from all the um saturated fats that yeah i ate so much i i on the plane back i had ordered everything that i could i had you you order food on the plane yeah all the time yeah this is like a menu yes yes yes i had the chicken the beef i had a hot fudge sundae you can't order two entrees on a flight you did and i had like three pretzel roll i was so hungry because i had three pretzel rolls and i had three pretzel rolls and i had three pretzel rolls and i hadn't eaten in three months because of the play i lost all that weight anyway who cares wait why didn't you eat during the play because it's the whole thing i told you you if you're like you have to watch what you eat when you eat and you can't eat before a show because of acid reflux and then you can't talk because then you're constantly clearing your throat it's just something like the whole thing well where does the spaghetti bolognese with a side of swedish fish fit in so that came that comes after got it um after when i get home after like like i texted you guys a two out of the pigs man you don't think the acid reflux would come from a midnight bowl of bolognese no because i stay up long enough for it to not happen oh yeah six or seven hours no no stay up stay up it's not like you're going for a walk when you say stay up you're just sitting on the couch and just letting it sit this is correct why don't you sleep in an upright position that way you can just eat i do sometimes the last possible moment i do you want to get like a you ought to get like a sleepable turlet you know what i mean that has like thing and then you could be sure you remember how like in clockwork orange he had his eyelids um taped open yeah maybe you do that would do that with your valve you know just just a tube right in there with bolognese and just go right to sleep guys my guest today why don't you just throw it in the toilet and cut out the middleman you know what i mean throw it in the toilet i hope your guest understands your dark dark offensive humor he loves it actually which is good yeah he my guest couldn't speak until he was almost four years old we're going to learn about that when he finally did he says he sounded like a member of the soprano family his mom was chief medical officer at the new york city fire department she survived the collapse of the south tower on september 11th oh my god he once went through 12 dumpsters looking for his wife's lost engagement ring they named their son cosmo he co-owns a decommissioned staten island ferry which he has called the single dumbest person in his life please welcome the longest search for the longest search for the longest search for the longest search for the longest search Serving weekend update anchor in Saturday Night Live history. Got it. It's the hilarious and charming Colin Jost. I think I got it first. Colin Jost, what's up? Michael Che, what's up? Michael Che here. Hey, how's it going, guys? What is up? What is up? What's up, guys? That was really, I loved hearing that you guys are setting up. That can't be true. That can't be true. I learned a lot about you guys. Oh, you're, by the way, you're. All of it's unsurprising. You're in your office right now, I can tell by the ceiling. Is that true? Yes, these definitely asbestos ceilings that are still here. Those are the kind of ceilings that you can stand on a chair, lift up one of them and hide stuff up there. Put the square right back down. Definitely. You could have, that's no country for old men. This one you see has a large stain of some kind that's been here since before I moved in. Yeah, something up there is leaking that was hidden. They came to the SNL offices like five years ago and they said, listen, over the summer, you got to clear stuff out. We're removing. We're removing asbestos from all the offices. And I was like, I've been in this office for 15 years. No way. It's too late. Way too late. Yeah. They just found that out. You ought to call one of those commercials that come on late at night with those doctors. You should join a class action. I mean, well, I have that and I've got my vaginal mesh that I've got to call about too. No, no kidding. Yeah, what's the progress on that? Good. The mesh is separating? Yeah, the mesh is. It sounded great at the time, you know, he's like, you want to do this vaginal mesh? It sounds so cool, but then. Right, of course. Yeah. Tell me, what is, just by the way, what is vaginal mesh? Yeah, by the way, I wanted to ask too, but I was afraid I didn't know. By the way, just get more serious on the question. Well, I did want to get back to the asbestos and I wanted to pitch Colin because I think I've pitched you guys before and I don't remember your response, but Colin, could you please let me know if you think this. I'm thinking about getting into. Mold removal, mold removal business based on just the company name that I've, I've got nailed down. It's, it's, it's called adjacent abatement. And I think if I could just go into that business, I'm, I'll do pretty well just based on the name title and just. Just the joke, just the joke alone, the joke alone. The paint on the side of the vans, the bus benches, stuff like that. I'm pretty sure I'll get some nice traffic. Oh, when people have extensive mold in their house, they just want to laugh. They just want a funny, they want to know they can laugh. They're looking for a pun. Honey, I hope we find some mold because I just want to call it Jason abatement. That's good. By the way, I've never heard that. It's pretty good, right? Colin, thanks so much for doing this and being here. Thanks for having me. Colin, it's a busy, what is it? Thursday night. This is a busy time for you. We are, we are off. We're off this week. I just came here because I was doing something nearby and I seemed like a good place to, it's so quiet here. Well, that doesn't. That doesn't sound shady, doing something nearby. I was doing something nearby. What? Edit that out. Are you, are you, are you bugging Lauren's office again? Not in a way he would suspect. Have you seen, have you seen the new Lauren documentary? I did. I just, we went to the, I guess, premiere of it that was at Lincoln Center last week. And have you guys seen it yet? No, I don't want to. I don't think it's out yet. It was very, it was funny. It's, there's people, you know, a lot of people in it are really funny. And I found it kind of. I found it kind of moving. I don't know that I even necessarily learned anything about him. In fact, in some ways he seems less known having seen it. But it was, it was, I found it kind of moving because he is very much him. And it felt like it was of his, in his voice weirdly. I don't know. Yeah. I love that he finally allowed somebody to like kind of dig in, right? Yeah. But I don't, I think the thing that people don't know about Lauren, and you can attest to this, Colin, is that Lauren's really funny. Yeah. He's, he's, Lauren is really, really funny. Yeah. Yeah. And he is, he is funny in it. Like he's funny in it. I bet. But he'll, you know, someone will be talking about an idea on a whatever Friday night and pitch something and he'll just look at them and be like, idiot. Like he'll do things that are very out of character and, and always very surprising and funny. But it is, it's fun. He's funny in it. And, uh, and he should, he lets them go to like his house in Amagansett, his house in Maine. and you see like, not like the, all inside of the house, but like you see where, why he goes to those places to kind of escape and be in the woods and be an agent. It's, it's, I didn't, I was surprised at that. Yeah. He seems very kind of when I, when I worked there or when I did the show, eight, 80, I think 83 years ago, he was always a little, he's scary if you don't know him, you know, because he's a little off putting like, like he doesn't speak much. So you don't know where you stand with him. At least that was my. Yeah. He's kind of, yeah, he's kind of reserved until. And what if Colin, what if Colin's just like, what are you talking about? He talks to everybody. Like he's never, he's like the most outgoing guy. He's like one of the most ton of jokes. And you gotta, you gotta, you gotta slow him down. Colin, you, I think we've, the first time we ever met was only last year at Robert Downey's part, birthday party. Right. I think that was the first time. And you were so kind. I don't know if you remember this. You mailed me the form that you have to fill out to get a face mold on Saturday night live. You mailed it. Do you remember mailing that to me? For Louie to get it to do with Louie? I don't know, but it was like a, it was like a format with my fit, with my Polaroid on it and all my measurements and my head measurements to get like a mold. And you just sent it to me. I was like, Oh, that's so nice. I happened to, yeah. Like see, you know, I think Jody, who does all the wigs and Louie does, I think they had all these things and they were kind of getting rid of them. And I was like, wait, some of these are, they'd be cool. Like they're also, some of them are historic. And everything would be, yeah, they're cool. It's cool. It's like a cool memento to have. Did you, did you, did you go ahead and get the face mold measurement, Sean? Yeah. And, and did you, did you have a couple of spares made up of my face? Yeah. Well, just walk through. Could Jason and I make masks and go as you for Halloween? Or if you wanted to scare the shit out of me, just target practice and stuff like that. Why were you excited about pursuing a face mold? Well, you have to, you did it. You supposed to stand out. Didn't you get a face mold? I don't remember. And I don't think. Doesn't everybody call track down the information on how to get one myself. It's a horrible process. It's. Yeah. You have to get one there with you and Scotty. You, you probably did it and you probably blocked it out because you get, you can't breathe. You know, you you're breathing through just straws in your nose. Cause your mouth has to stay steady. And it's very claustrophobic and. But did Sean, did you get, did you got information from Colin about how you can go ahead and get another face mold of yourself or. Well, all that information is on the form that they make for you. Yeah. Right. So now I have it anyway, let's move on. So we're not going to wait now you have it. And that's a great thing. Yeah. Yeah. Why not? Just in case you might want to make a face mold of yourself. Unless my head is shrunk or grown or something. It should be the same, right? Colin. Oh man. Yep. You got to get a new model every five years. By the way, by the way, right? Con like, as if Colin fucking knows and he keeps tabs on me. He just found a piece of paper and he was like, here's the person that you should talk to. He's not invested. No, no. Then I went back to the files. I compared, I was like, well, these measurements are a little off from the last time I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. All right. So you know, the famous thing about Jeff Daniels got it done, right? When he was hosting. No way. They set the mold in the wrong way. So it stuck fully to his face and he was stuck with just the straws in his nose for like hours. And they had to chisel it off of him and he had like all this sort of scarring, not scarring, but like almost burns from it and then had to host the show. No way. Yeah. That's a nightmare. That's a fucking nightmare, man. You could still, you could still, you could still, you could still sip Coca-Cola through, like he could still drink something. Oh yeah. So he was fine. He was fine. Don't worry Sean, you can still have your sugar sodas, Sean. Yeah. Has anybody ever put Swedish fish in a blender? What's your go-to tackiest, awful snack, Colin? What's, what do you, what do you, what are you ashamed that you still eat? You look like you keep it pretty tight. I'm fine. I eat, I don't eat great. Like I don't, I don't have any discipline to, to eating and drinking, but I, I'll eat Swedish fish actually at, at SNL. Cause there's like a pot, every Tuesday when there's a writing night, they used to come in when you're up all night and just pour a pile of candy, like cover the entire writer's room in candy. And so I would have all Tuesdays, I used to, you know, eat candy all the time. And then being up all night, there was one time in Lauren's office, Wednesday after the table read, where I was having like heart palpitations. I have that in my notes. I thought I was having a heart attack. Yeah. I thought that was from stress or something. It was a combination of stress, not sleeping and also having all the sugar. And I thought I was having a heart attack and like called the doctor in Lauren's office. Was it, was it a-fib? Do you know? Paddles wants to know what, what it was. Well, Jimmy Kimmel calls me paddles cause I've had so much a-fib so many times. It was not, it was not a, it was, it was just a, yeah, it was, it was like a, probably a panic attack essentially that was brought on by- Okay. But you haven't had one since? No. And I, and they were, the doctor I went to, he's like, it'll be, you gotta try to sleep a little and you gotta, you can't have sugar all night like that. Or, you know, I was like, whatever. Sugar doesn't make you, sugar makes me so tired that, that, that, that sugar peak. And then the crash, I go right to sleep. Doesn't affect me. I can run or sleep. It doesn't matter. Here we go. But then I was just at an age where I was like, it didn't matter. And I, and then it caught up with me at some point. I was like, oh. Colin, wait, talk to me about this. I found this fascinating. What do you mean you didn't talk to you when you were four years old? What does that mean? And then, and then I read that it wasn't Tony Soprano that you sounded like. Carmel. 'Cause I was like, oh, he must've compared himself to Tony Soprano when he opened up his mouth. But what do you mean you didn't talk? No, I said Carmela Soprano. Carmela. Oh, Carmela. That's right. Carmela. Like I was, there's videos of me like trying to, like sell a bike that I had that's like, yeah, it's pretty good. It's got two wheels. You know, you can get on it. It breaks, but I'm genuinely talking like that. And I'm six or whatever, seven. Yeah. When does a kid usually talk? I forget with my kids. It was like, what? Like one or like 18 months, something like that. They start to put stuff together. I think it's typically like, yeah, 18 months around that. And I think it's almost always before two or usually. Girls before guys, I think. Yes, yeah. And there's, people are a little later. But I think it was just getting to a little bit of a more extreme place where they didn't know what was going on. My parents. My parents. What were your first words? Will. No shit. Yeah. I'm not just saying that. I mean, I know. Of course, I believe, I'm looking at your face and I know that you're not just saying that. That's incredible. And that's it. And then I didn't say another, anything else for five more years. Why bother? Why bother? And then it was Jason. You said it all. Jason abatement. A Jason abatement. 'Cause there had been so much mold in my brain. And it was nothing, they didn't pursue any sort of reason. There was no diagnosis. It was just, you just weren't ready. Yeah, something. And yeah, my mom said she wasn't worried because it seemed like I was comprehending everything that they were saying. I just wasn't saying anything. A lot of uh-huh. And then I went to like- A lot of uh-huh. A speech specialist at Staten Island University Hospital, which maybe sounds like a setup for a joke, but I, and- I mean, you do your own? Everybody can do their own math on that one. I like the idea you were just nodding along, like you're nodding along and doing a lot of winking. He was winking a lot at people. So we knew he was cool. We knew he was cool. Oh, doctor, no, he's following. He was winking and doing the hands where he makes the curved hourglass of a woman's figure, but he still thinks he's fine. And then walking, there was no pausing in the walking. The walking was- Was he just on time? I was walking so much. Walking, like- Walking was on time. Because I couldn't stop walking. Okay. All night, all through the night. It was basically, they based that horror movie this year, "Weapons" on me, 'cause I would just walk out through the woods. Right. Pissed your arms out like you're flying. Do you know, I remember when my middle son, Abel, was, you know, he wasn't walking, he was like 13 months, he was a little bit later, and you know, his older brother had walked before a year. So I know. So we were nervous, not really, but we were, and I remember my, I remember Amy being like, one day she was like, "He's not walking, he's not walking." And I go, she goes, "He's never gonna," I go, "Look out on the street. "Do you see people dragging themselves by their hands, "pulling themselves along the sidewalk? "He's gonna get it, okay?" He's gonna pick it up, yeah. I mean, you'd ask people like, "What are you doing?" Like, "I never picked up walking." He'd do this. "I never picked it up, I never got it." I mean, in New York, there might be like 20 to 40 of those people. Well, that was just not for them. Yeah, it's just not for them. We'll be right back. And now, back to the show. All right, so I wanna talk about something you're probably so sick of talking about, but I don't know anything about it, which is the Staten Island ferry you bought with Pete Davidson. Because I've seen you tell jokes about it on the show, on Saturday Night Live. And I always laugh because I kind of know the gist of it, but why? and what was the plan and what's the goal and all of that. Because you paid, like, you still have to pay like a dollar. Like, don't you, are you still paying for it? These are like exact questions a financial advisor asks me. What is the plan and what is the. Is it just fun? But was it because of your, because these guys don't, Jason and Will, no, but when I was doing my research about your reading, is the journey you took an hour and a half every single day to go to school from Staten Island to Manhattan and you took the Staten Island ferry? I took this, I actually, this one. Oh, you did? This exact, usually it was this one. Which is, again, I explained to my friends, and they're like, yeah, but you also took the subway. You didn't want to buy one of those. Or a bus. But it was, it's named after JF, it's named, it was commissioned for John F. Kennedy when he, after he died. And it was, it was usually the 7 a.m. ferry that I took, got, because I went up to this high school called Regis High School that's up on the Upper East Side and it's free if you get in. It's a really great school. And so most people that go don't live in Manhattan. Most people come from Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Jersey, even upstate. And it was about an hour and a half every day? Yeah, I took the bus. There and back? Oh, man. Each way, yeah, bus, ferry, subway. How old were you? Up to the sixth. 14, I did it 14 to 18. Oh, my God. It's just high school, they don't have it. But it was so, I mean, now it seems like a lot, but now everything seems like less of a trip. You know, it's like, so, you know, and I was never, you know, and once you're there, you're like in Manhattan with your friends. So it was kind of, it was very fun. You'd use the time for homework and whatnot? Like you wouldn't really feel the, yeah? Yeah, I never did. I really never, rarely did homework at home because it was such a, you know, trip. Jason went to school on an actual bus. The school was on a bus. Which is true. On a bus. Which is true, yeah. On a bus, that's the truth. Yeah, that's true. For a while. How does that work? Uh, not well. A lot of massaging. That's also true. There's some massage. It's also true. Ask him. Please, Colin, follow up. What is the nature, why does massaging get involved? No bus I'm ever on is like, and should we do massages? Yeah. This is one of my favorite areas. Yeah. This is second only to Ernest Borgnine jerking off all over his house. Keep going, Jason, go. It's all true. This was an experimental school, Colin. A friend of my father's, started one of these, um, things in his home out in Calabasas. And, um, it was called Heartlight. One word. Um, Heartlight, like L-I-G-H-T, light? That's right. And, um, and there were, uh, because Calabasas is, as, as you know, you're familiar with the city here. Um, it's a great deal of traffic, about another hour and a half, just like yours. Uh, from Calabasas into the city. And so there were city days and country days, city days, we'd go in and see the museums. Oh my God. Okay. So they thought a good way to take advantage of that traffic time is to run classes in the back of this bus, you know, because there were an incredibly progressive group. And, um, and so we did that. There did be some motion sickness. Um, and then on the country days, uh, that's when we'd get into all the fun electives like massage, um, TP building. Um, it wasn't an accredited school. Yeah. Colin, I don't want to paint an accurate picture here, but, um, it was fun. I've never seen Will laugh harder. Oh God, it's the most fun. I love, I love Jakey Bates so much. And I paid for it. Out of my own pocket, I was forced to pay for the school. And not like regular bus fare, like school fare. No, I did do some bus riding. Did you have to pay for the massages extra and did you tip? Did they pay you? It depends if I'm giving or receiving on that on Tuesdays and Thursdays, um, was the massaging. So Colin, what a great, it sounds like such a great idea concept. Like, well, might as well use the journey for the school. Sure. By the way, that part makes kind of sense in that way, right? Like that. Yeah. You'll have to applaud them for the idea, but, um, and then you're sitting so long on the bus, you got to provide massages. It starts getting. Away from it pretty quick. The donut they had to give each kid to sit on. You know, there's so much class time on the bus. It's not great. Anyway, Colin. Well, so anyway, we bought, so I texted Pete, which is the, is the wrong person to text with when you're having an idea like this. And I was like, should we buy this? Right. Cause he's going to say yes. The city was auctioning it and he was, yeah, he was immediately, it was like, fuck yeah, we got to do this. So, and, um, I texted my dad who's a teacher on Staten Island and he, he, he literally was like, did you do your homework? Which is such a teacher thing to say. And I was like, dad, I'm just sort of texting you as a formality. I already bought the boat. I texted Scarlett like, guess what? We, we own a ferry now. And she was like, we, uh, what did it stay in operation? It, it was an operation until they, until they, there was a new boat that came in and the new boat costs like 300 million to build. So I was like, I'm getting an old one for only 280,000. That's all the ferry cost was $280,000. Yeah. And I thought as a real, I thought I was thinking in a real estate way, if you put it somewhere, it's 70,000 square feet. Oh my gosh. So I was like, if you put that on a dock in Manhattan, you've suddenly got basically a building on the waterfront and on that square footage value. Was that the pitch to Scarlett? That could be a school. That could be like three schools. That'd be a great school. Kindergarten and elementary school and a high school. Did you ever explore that opportunity? Like that you could actually park it there on the East river and, and kind of have yourself a little, uh, a little, not a little, a house, right? Yes, we are. We are in the, in the process of doing that. And it's just, it's a long process because all the waterfront stuff is just, there's environmental there's. So we're in that process. And I think we're actually getting close to that process, having a dedicated spot. No. Wow. Yes. Which I joke about it a lot, but it is. And we've done some events. We've done some events on it where we really have already made back the money we've invested and, and, and the money we've spent on stuff to dock it and all that. So it's, it's very misreported that it is some sort of crazy money pit. Hey man, I'm not your dad. I'm not your dad. You don't have to. It's going to be fine. Is this, is this a good financial sign where you're like, it's fine. What's going to be, what's, what's a home run? What's, what's the goal with it? What's its park there? I think the goal, a home run for me is like, it's, it's a thing that could be used for an event space, but also has like a norm, like an everyday purpose of like two, two versions of it to me are like, it could be an operating entertainment, like club, like a place where you can go, like you could have parties or there's regular parties on it. Bottle service or whatever. And then like I grew up, growing up in Staten Island, I went to this place that was called the Great Hill Swim Club. That was like a swim club where people would just go and the kids could all hang out. The adults could hang out. And I could imagine creating a place like that. That's not like a weird fancy members club, but it's actually more like middle-class in Manhattan. You can just pay as you go, you can go pay to use it. Yeah, and you play it and like there's a pool on the top and a diving board off the top and you have these crazy views. Sure, you can just dive into the East River and enjoy yourself. Really enjoy yourself. Really swept down the, out to sea. Are you really pitching a swim club on the East River? Yes, like, but a pool on the roof deck. But the pool. Diving board into the pool, not into the river. It's like a cruise ship. A cruise ship that doesn't leave. A cruise ship that doesn't leave, but for families and it would be actually a great, like people would spend summers there and then it's also movable. So then half the year would be Miami and it would be, you'd have that in the winter when it's cold here and you'd have summer there and I think it would be a great thing. And then you move it to Miami. Now I'm seeing that Carmela Soprano in you. This is your pitching. Then we go to Miami, we take over the high lie racket. Oh my God. I gotta say, I'm kind of sold on this, Colin. You kind of got me. You got me a little bit. And then you'd have weddings and like people already want to rent it out and we, which we, we will do, we've done it a couple of times, but we'll do it when we have a permanent spot. It just makes the economics way better. Yeah. Yeah. And this is all about economics ultimately. Sure. And then, and then you registered in Liberia. What's the? Yes, we're very open to pirates if anyone wants to know. I can't wait. I'm going to approach it on a Zodiac with a mouthful of, "Cat, QAT." Are we, I feel like the cat, the cat used to just fall. Have you been doing any recently? I feel like we've not. What is cat? What is cat, Will? It's the cat. It's like a plant you chew that has like a crate, almost a combo of cocaine and hallucinogenic. QAT. Yeah, QAT. The thing I read about it, that it makes you, it's the phrase I read was it makes you immune to atrocities, which is such a great description. I think they use it a lot. There was a lot of usage of it sort of in the Horn of Africa. Right? Am I right about that? Yes. And, and so, and a lot of, they accused a lot of these, these pirates of, who would go and commit piracy to, of chewing on it. And it makes, yeah, it makes you just do crazy shit. Wow. It's an appetite suppressant as well. It could give you, it's like a, you know, Jason. You know. This sounds like a fucking silver bullet. Where does one, you do you need to be in the, on the southern tip of, of Africa to find it? No, up in, like up, up near sort of Somalia, Ethiopia. up in there. - Oh, good. - Eritrea. - So it's closer. - Uh-huh. - Yeah. Eritrea, yeah, like right on the… It's very private. You see these huge bushels of it. It's terrific. I got a guy. I'll get you a number. Are you on WhatsApp? All right. Colin, first question for our guest today. Wait, Colin, let me take it. So, Colin, you go to this school. You go to this great school because you're really smart. Well, no. Well, say the school is Harvard. No, I'm talking about the school you went to. Oh, that one. Oh, sorry. For Regis. Yeah, yeah. From there, you get into Harvard evidently based on your academic merits, I'm guessing. As opposed to… What do you mean? I'm not a traditional athlete? Yeah, like… I'm not a D1 athlete in your mind. Well, you don't have your… A name on a building is what I'm saying. That's true. Yeah. Not even on my own ferry. Right. So, at Harvard… Go ahead, Will. No, no. I was going to say you go take it over to Harvard. No, no, no. I was just going to say, you know… You got involved with Lampoon, right? Yeah. Yeah? And then you wrote 80 pieces before you got one accepted. What's so funny? Yeah, trying out for it. Tell me. I mean, there was a time, Colin, five years ago where Sean… Sean was nominated for best interviewer on… You think the follow-up from Cat… Anywhere… You think the follow-up from Cat was deep. He's the best. The follow-up for him and his questions has been… And since that nomination… He's gotten tight and he can't spit it out. No. No, you be quiet. No, because I wrote down a bunch of stuff that I actually want to know. I know you did, baby girl. You get it. Give him your best one. Take some time. Find the best one in there and you give it to him. Well, wait. 80 sketches, none of them picked up, right? Which is… I would stop at two. 80 failures. But I would stop at two. Like, you really wanted to be a writer. How did you get into… I got involved in Lampoon. Oh, that's so much better. I didn't know about it. Did you guys have any awareness? Like, had you ever heard of it? I mean, I had heard of the National Lampoon. Yeah, I mean, but I didn't know what it meant. I didn't understand what it was until I started knowing some of those SNL guys who'd come out of it. Right? So, for Tracy, it is literally a magazine there at the school? Like a… Yeah, it's just a magazine that has been there. It's actually the… The 150th anniversary is coming up in, like, a week. So, we're going back, like, Conan and a bunch of people are all going to go back for this thing. Oh, that's cool. But it just was, like, a student magazine. And then… Like a precursor to, like, kind of, like, something like The Onion or even, like, Mad Magazine, right? Something like that. Yeah, yeah. And they started… People from there started, like, Spy Magazine back in the day, which I never… Yeah, I remember that. But that was… And they started… They did, like, Lampoon magazines and yearbooks. And then… Spy Magazine was… I remember it in New York in the 90s. Spy Magazine was phenomenal. Yeah, I loved it. It was so good. It was… And there were so many people. You mentioned Conan. So many incredible comedy minds, sort of big, sort of icons of comedy. You included have come out of the Lampoon. A lot of people… A lot of… It was, like, back in the day, it was a lot of writers, like, literary writers, you know? Like, John Updike and George Plimpton and George Santayana. And all these, like, people… And also business… Like, William Randolph Hearst was a member. There's a business board. So he… A lot of… He helped fund the building that's there, like, this Lampoon Castle. And he and Isabel are Stuart Gardner, who has the museum… Who had the museum in Boston. She collected a lot of stuff that went to that museum on the same trip with him. And he… A lot of the stuff he got went to the Lampoon, which is pretty cool. And it's a bit of a feeder for SNL, too, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, so, like, around the 70s, 80s… A lot of… A lot of it was this guy, Jim Downey, who I'm sure you guys have met through these. But he went to SNL in the… He was a writer the first year at SNL, of SNL. And then after that, people kind of saw that you could write in comedy instead of necessarily only writing novels. And then people started getting into it there. But I didn't… So I didn't know, have any awareness of it when I went… Like, I went to school for economics, weirdly, and I didn't have any idea that there was, like, a humor magazine or anything like that. And I'd always done comedy things, but you didn't know it was really a job. You just did it with your friends. It wasn't a destination for you to get into comedy, necessarily. It just didn't… Yeah, I didn't know you could, really. Like, it didn't seem like a real thing. And so that was the first place where I went, and people just were really funny, and I wanted to hang out there. And then I started learning that people would graduate and go apply and work at different shows. And so did you just apply for SNL? How did that happen? Yeah, you just cold submitted. That's… I actually submitted a packet. Yeah. And then it was just the wrong time of year. I submitted it, and so no one read it. No agent, no nothing. You just did it yourself. No. You mailed it in yourself. No, no agent, nothing. And I submitted, and no one looked at it because it was the wrong time of year. And then the next time, you know, it was, like, the next summer, and then I ran into someone who had been in the Lampoon who was like, I heard you have to submit in the summer, in, like, June or July, whatever the deadline was. And so I put together another packet and submitted it then. And I was, you know, I was just lucky there was a ton of turnover. I wrote, like, six sketches. Okay. And there was a bunch of writers that left, and then I got, like, Tina was one of the head writers, Harper Steele, and they liked some, you know, something that was in there and brought me an interview, and then I interviewed with Lorne, which was insane. And then just was very lucky that there was an extra spot. And I was probably the last, the last person hired, and I got hired with Sandberg, and Sandberg and Sudeikis and Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig, and then the Lonely Island guys, Yorma and Akiva, and a guy, Brian Tucker, who came from. Yeah, Tucker, and Sudeikis was just hired as a writer first, for that first season. Yeah. Yeah, that was, he just started, he had just got hired into the cast when I started. So that was the eight of us that all. That's amazing. That all started. And how old were you when you started? 22. That's amazing. And so, so you go into school to study economics. Was there ever a thought that there would be a career in economics? Or was it just, I gotta declare a major and let's have it be this? I think it was, I thought I could maybe work. I mean, I interned at like Merrill Lynch when I was in high school. Wow. And I just thought that was, in Staten Island, like there were certain, all my family was firefighters. Like my whole mom, like my mom was in the fire department, my grandpa, my great grandpa. So that was like a clear path I knew. And then from Staten Island, like people would go take the ferry to Wall Street. There were people that worked in finance. And then obviously there was a, I knew about being a doctor or being a lawyer. Like those were the kind of jobs that I understood. And so I sort of thought I would do something in that range. Like I would do work in finance or I would try to be a doctor someday or try to be a lawyer or something. And then, so then, so then you start to get the kind of this be in your bonnet for comedy. Did you like talk to me about, about the calculation you were making at your, so you're sitting at Harvard, where you really, whatever field you decide to study and get your diploma in, get your degree in, you've got a pretty good sort of base salary to assume there. And so like picking what you're going to get your degree in is kind of, you're declaring what your life is going to be. And it's gonna be, gonna be pretty good. And so you're thinking, I can do comedy, economics, or I can study this and that. At what point were you kind of like all in, it's gonna be, I'm gonna go into comedy writing, or did you, did you, did you mitigate that risk by, by minoring in something else? Like, just walk me through that. I, you know, my parents definitely were worried, you know, just once I was, once I was going down a comedy path. I mean, when I was there, I switched. So I switched from economics to when I declare, I declare I was gonna be in economics, but then, when you actually had to declare, I studied Russian literature. Like I went. That's lucrative. I was reading a bunch of books in, and so I was like, and then at some point I had to learn Russian. I had to live in St. Petersburg for a summer. And I was going down that path, but not, I didn't. Let's pause there for one sec. Yeah. Why, why Russian literature? What, what was, what was super interesting? Are you a Russian asset? I wish. You have a great cover. I'm open to it. Are they asking? I just love, like the books. I just liked reading. I read in high school. I read some Nabokov and Tolstoy and Dostoevsky books and senior year. I liked them. So I wanted to read more. And then it just kept going down that line. Like I didn't have a plan for it. I certainly wasn't assuming it was gonna be a career. Right. Can you speak Russian? I was, yeah. Fluent in Russian. Wow. That's crazy. Wow. That's awesome. Okay. All right. So then, so then. Yeah. So then I, sorry. Then I, I realized, I guess when I was at the Lampoon, that most of the things I did in my life leading up to that were kind of comedy versions of what I did. Like I ran the school newspaper, but I did the comedy, you know, wrote comedy for it rather than like regular news. I was working at a newspaper, but I mostly wanted to write comedy there. I performed in plays and musicals, but I really only cared about the comedy part of it, not the serious part of it. I did speech and debate, but I only did, funny, like, oratories that I wrote that were kind of versions of comics or performed funny things and didn't do any, you know. So I just, I started realizing that that was probably where my interest was even if I was doing it in these other ways and that there's not really a funny version of finance. Right. Again, along with abatements, it's not, yeah. Unless you buy a Staten Island fair. Yes, then it is. There's certainly some more predictable financial security in the lane of economics as opposed to the world of comedy. You're talking about it, you're talking about it like taking, making the bet on it and going all in. Yeah. Yeah, I did. I just did, I didn't have another plan and I didn't, I honestly don't know that I could have imagined then going to law school or after that, I think I just decided that whatever version of it it was going to end up being, I was going to enjoy being around people that were funny and doing things that I tried, things that were funny. And the lifestyle didn't necessarily matter. It's so great. I mean, I'm sorry, a reason I keep hammering on this because, you know, I've got a daughter that's in her first year of college and even my youngest, the 14-year-old, she's, you know, they're both sort of like, you know, as kids do, wondering about, you know, am I doing the things that I should be doing to set myself up for the best possible, you know, life? Am I making the right decisions? And I keep saying, well, as long as you're pointed at something, a lot of opportunity comes your way. And so you're going to see some forks in the road that might not necessarily be, you know, be the right thing to do. You know, the lane you're on right now. And that's good. That's okay. But you're not going to find those forks unless you're driven in some direction on something. It doesn't matter what that is. And so I guess you're sort of a great example of that, that you're driving towards economics and you found comedy. Yeah, and for her too, like, I mean, I think the peer element of it is so important to me. You know, you find people that are serious about something, even if it's comedy, and are really driven or are really, you know, you know, and then you learn from them, you're competitive in a healthy way with them, you're, you know, you're hearing about opportunities from them eventually, you know, like when you're trying to do things, or I think that's so important too. And so that you have a, you're not doing it in a vacuum. Right. We'll be right back. All right, back to the show. So you go to SNL that year that you mentioned with all those dudes. So how long was it before you got the update chair? Yeah, did you go with the intention of wanting to do update or did you go, or did it just happen? Or like- No, no, no, I was, I wouldn't even, I wouldn't have conceived of that. I think I- You know, Colin, I called you in here because I think you're ready. What? Was it kind of like that? He did call me, yes, he, he called me. I didn't even know why he was calling me in. Yeah, yeah. And he's like, so you think you could do update? Like asking me. Yeah. And I was like- Meanwhile, you had only been a writer on the show for a year or two or three? No, no, I'd been there for a long, so I, I mean, I'd been there for a long time. I was there, I was probably there eight years or something, seven or eight years. Yeah, that's what I was getting at, yeah. And cause I- Not on camera. So I got SNL, all I would, I would have been happy to have any job in comedy, right? Like I applied everywhere that had a job. I wrote a, I wrote a Arrested Development spec script when I, when I was- I feel like you told me this once. And this, maybe I did, maybe I did tell you that, yeah. And it was- That sounds familiar. Oh my God, I want to read that. What was Job's story? It doesn't, sorry, well, it doesn't matter. It was Job A story or B story. It doesn't matter, who cares? Job, I'm pretty sure he was in it. Yeah, Job, when I have a real Job episode. So, so even though you had done- Wait, I mean, the one, can I tell you the one thing I remember about it, which was now, which is that it was for, for George Michael was self-conscious and wanted to lose weight. And so he- He tried, he tried joining a, what he saw was a recreation society, but it was a recreation society. And he got cast as Ben Franklin and so ended up gaining a bunch of weight. That's really funny. That's a great bit. So dumb. Oh my God, Mitch Hurwitz would have loved that. That's a great bit. So I wrote, I wrote Applied All These Places and I was very, you know, very lucky to get hired at SNL. And I felt like then I just wanted to be good at that. And figure it out and, and enjoy it. I loved, I loved it. No on-camera aspirations. No, no, not, I mean, but I did, I had performing aspirations. I just didn't think of it always as SNL related. Like I did stand up. Right. So, so while that time I'm doing standup in New York. Oh, you are. Okay. Yeah. While I'm writing, I would go after, when there's nights that you can get out and I would go do standup like three or four times a week. Like at the Cellar or whatever. Did you, did you ever, were there ever any summer, like end of seasons of SNL, and you can be as honest as you want to be, where you were like, you know what? I'm going to move. I'm going to leave. I want to do something else. Like, did you ever have one of those moments in those eight years before you got the update chair? Yes. Not, like not, because there was sort of a little bit of a, like, you know, I had a journey as a writer there where I got promoted to like a writing supervisor and then I got promoted to be head writer. And that was like a real honor that I loved the idea of getting to do that. To do that someday. So that was, that was really important to me. And I felt excited about that. It was, I found it to be a really nightmarish job in a lot of ways because you're suddenly doing the same job you're doing, but you're also having to manage everyone you're working with. Right. And I'm, that was a very weird period of time for me because it also coincided with getting update. Like it almost exactly coincided. So I suddenly, yeah, it was like maybe a year or half a year that I was, I was a head writer and then got update. And, but I had my only, as I was there for a little longer, I did like performing. I did like doing standup. And honestly, I wanted to do some version of acting, not necessarily acting like in a serious way, but performing in some way in a comedy way. And I thought I've done this as a writer now. I thought maybe after a few years, if I, of being head writer, maybe there would just be something else I'd want to do or create a show as a writer or do something. - Yeah. - Right. - Different. - Yeah. - And then got this opportunity to do update. And then it was, it kind of went so badly at first for a while that I then thought I was going to lose both jobs, that I was going to be so bad at update that I was also not going to be a writer. - Really, did it not start well? - Why did it go bad? What do you mean? - It just was, I mean, I think Seth was leaving. He was, you know, very loved doing the job. You know, I came in, I started with Cecily Strong. We only, we did like six episodes together. - That's right. - That's it. That's it at the end of the year. - Yeah. - And, you know, I think I just wasn't very good at it. It's very, it's a hard thing to come in and do. And I don't, I think I was like really nervous. And I probably that, I probably smiled or laughed in a way that made people think I was kind of cocky about it when I actually felt very much at sea and panicking. People were giving me all kinds of advice that was contradictory and I didn't know how to do it. And then, - Right. - And then basically in the summer, I got told after those six episodes, I got told like, you might get to audition for it. And I was like, which seems like a bad job, it's signed to audition for the job you currently have. And then they tried me with different combinations of people also. So like I did an audition with Leslie Jones. I did an audition with Vanessa Bayer. I did an audition with Chris Kelly, who's a really funny writer at our show. - Yeah. - And I did, and I auditioned with Che, who I knew from, from standup from before he came to SNL as a writer. And, you know, I love the idea of getting to do with him 'cause he's really funny, but I had no idea what, you know, what they were gonna go with. And they also brought in Anthony Jeselnik just to audition on his own, like just to go in a totally different direction, bring someone else in. - No shit. - And I'm sure he would have been very funny at it. And, and then they, they did these auditions and then I didn't even know what was happening. And suddenly, so I was involved in all these processes of cast and hiring, and then suddenly I was completely cut off really from like all my friends for, for periods of time where everyone was probably nervous for me or didn't know whether I should do the job genuinely. Like not, not that they were being bad friends, just probably were like, I don't know if he's right for it. And then they picked me and Che. And then for like the first two years, at least we thought we were gonna get fired every summer. Like we were, we were put on suspension kind of, or put on extension. And we didn't know whether we were gonna get it or not. And we, we, and then something sort of just started clicking. - Yeah. - Really just, we gave, Lorne was, we were lucky that he gave us enough time to start figuring it out. And then, and then it started feeling okay. And then it started feeling better and not like a huge existential crisis. - Well, it's so fun to watch you guys do it. - Yeah, you guys have such a great dynamic. You're so, so good at it. - One of the funniest things I've ever seen was, and I couldn't believe I was watching it and I can't believe it happened, which is Michael told the audience before you showed up to not laugh at one joke you said. And that was the joke. And I'm watching it going, oh my God, this is horrible to watch. Like, did you, what was going through your head? - Oh, I was like, it's all over. It's all over, truly. 'Cause it was so perfect. It was so perfect because I changed the joke between dress and air early on. And so he had told, he met, by the way, This is the most proactive Che has ever been about anything. He went and met with the audience before they loaded in, like looked them in the eyes and were like, listen, you're not laughing. I don't care. You do not laugh at anything Colin says. This is while they're still downstairs? This is while I'm waiting. Yeah, they're still waiting downstairs to get loaded in. And he goes down, meets them, tells them this. That is so, I remember watching it. I couldn't believe it. And then, so I changed one joke early on between dress and air. And it, so on air, it bombs. And in my head, I'm like, oh, I shouldn't have, I shouldn't have taken that swing. But it's perfect because I don't, I could still believe it's, you know. Then, then, then he goes and he crushes. He kills. He does two jokes, crushes. Then it comes back to me and I tell the next one, which worked really well at dress and it bombs. And I'm like, oh my God. Because at first I was like, oh, maybe it's a bad crowd. Then he crushes. So I'm like, oh no. Meanwhile, he keeps looking at you like, oh boy. Yeah, just not leading. And then the fourth joke bombs. And I'm truly thinking like my, my career is over. Like something's, I've, it's a turned, I'm never getting it back. It's over. Yeah. And someone in the, he had a plant in the audience that he had yell out, you stink. After, so simple, so simple, so dumb. Yeah, so good. John Higgins, he just goes, you stink. Like old timey heckling. Not you suck, you stink. You bomb, you're a bomb. And I, and I heard that and I was like in full, you can tell if you look at it, in shock. And then Shay's like, dude, I gotta tell, I gotta tell you, I told him not to laugh at anything. And I was like, you motherfucker. Yeah, it's so good. So angry. So, such a good, so angry. Is this, is this live? Is this on, is this on an episode? Live, yes, live. What a great bit. Yeah, you can YouTube it. You can YouTube it. It is so horrifying. Now you know and you'll look and you'll be like, you know, and it's. Your face. I was, I was genuinely traumatized for like two more shows. Because then the next show back, I didn't know what to, I didn't know what was coming. Did you immediately start thinking about payback? Are you, are you a prankster? Of course. By the way, did Shay run it by Lorne? No, he just did it, he went rogue. He did and I think basically Lorne talked him into eventually telling me versus never telling me. Right, right, right, right. And, and, which was, which made it much better. Actually that he did tell me and otherwise would have been perhaps. No, it's better to get your reaction on camera and see it dawn on you. I mean, that's, but it's amazing. That's amazing. And then, and now what I love, Colin, is you're appearing more and more as Pete Hegseth, which is so brilliant. Oh, it's so good. It's so good. It's such a gift. But does any part of you get nervous about, you know, doing that at all? Well, on a couple levels. I mean, I, first of all, I still, I get nervous even within an, in an SNL, because it's suddenly a new thing and a new rhythm. Like, even though I've been there for so long, coming out in the cold open is, is its own weird feeling. And after all these years, it's nerve wracking. You got to, you don't have to admit to this, but you've got to privately just be like, so excited to go out there and show off a little bit. 'Cause you're so goddamn good at what you do, whether you're doing the update or, or doing Hegseth. I mean, it's just, you gotta be, I'd love to see more, more, doing your thing. I think it, I think it's one of my, I think it's one of my favorite politician impressions. Yeah, yeah, it's really funny. That I can remember in the long, I, and I'm not just saying that 'cause you're here. It's so good. Yeah. But, but there is also the added, because I mean, obviously he's the, he's the secretary of war. And officially, right? That's a, that's official, that was passed by him, yeah. It's the only country in the world where we call that department the, the Department of War. As opposed to Department of Defense. I think it's fun that we've now let, like, they're obviously letting school kids just name departments. Is that what's going on? So, they're just taking letters. War. Yeah, war. You can tell the generals are just like, ugh, God. Yeah. But, but is there, to Sean's question, like, is there an added, is there another layer of trepidation as you've been, as, as much as you're comfortable telling us, has there been pushback in a weird way? I don't, I mean, I'm definitely like a little nervous about, I kind of just think it's not, it's such, in the scheme of things, like, probably, I hope, barely on his radar. Like, it really does feel like there should be bigger, bigger issues. But there's so much satire on SNL, politically, always has been. So, like, how is this gonna make any big, huge wave? People are conditioned to look for satire, politically, on that show. I don't know, this guy could end up having a big night. He's got a couple of cocktails under his belt, and he might start, he might start calling you. There could be some vindictiveness in this show. I'll bet he loves it, I'll bet he loves it. I mean, when it was, the first time I did it, my brother, my, I have a younger brother, and my brother, my younger brother was like, "It's just so great that America finally gets to see the real you." Well, that's what I was gonna ask, was like, so like, you know, what, would you like to do more, I would love to see you do more acting, whether it be on SNL or not. Is it, was there, do you think you'd ever carve out some time to do more of that? Well, you got a movie coming up. I would love it. Yeah. I did this, I'm doing, I did this movie with Nate, with Nate Bergetzi, who I love, and he, yeah. Called The Breadwinner. Breadwinner, that's coming out, May 29th. Also, 29th. Yay. Is what I'm told, and I have a, I think I have a fun part, like, Nate's basically forced to be a stay-at-home dad, because his wife goes on Shark Tank, and hits, like, gets a lot of traction, and the sharks, the Shark Tank scene is so funny, and you really, it's so, so funny, and the sharks basically make Nate agree to be a stay-at-home dad, so his wife, on camera, I'm the only other stay-at-home dad in the neighborhood, and I'm really, I'm really scared that he's taking over my territory, I guess. That's fun. And he's, like, a really funny dad that comes in, and it was so, and I was, I loved the script, and he sent it to, you know, I was, people, I never think people really think of me for things, so I was very grateful they, that they thought of me for it, and it was really fun to do, and I gotta say, getting to perform not live is even more liberating, because you can just take, Oh, yeah, of course, you can fuck up. take, swim, and do things, and, you know, it's, I never get a second chance at things, it's so liberating. If you could, if you could, if you could, if you could wiggle your nose and have full success come as a writer or as an actor, let's say, in the next five or 10 years, like, let's say, go the route of, like, you know, let's say, Will Ferrell, or go the route of, like, Mike Schur. It's tough, right? Very, yeah, good options. I mean, I would, I would really love to do, get to perform in something outside, you know, a thing that's my own voice and, and, and get to create, I mean, you know it well, like, it's, you know, it's, that would be really satisfying. I think that would be really, really fun. You're saying do both in the same project? Yeah, maybe, or, I mean, I don't need to be, I don't need to be, I would rather be, perform, get to perform. Yeah. But I would like, I would obviously be involved in some way, I don't think I would not be able to, but I would, I would like to figure out an idea, maybe ideally both, where it's a world that's my own, in my, from my own mind, too. I would love that. And to think we almost lost you to, to Bear Stearns or something like that. Yeah. But you're doing so much better. I could be long retired, really. Exactly. But what about you also? If you got a Bear Stearns, it would have been a disaster, let's be honest. Oh yeah, that was, yeah, that's not the one I go to. You could have become, you could have, you could have become Dan Dees, you know? Oh, the great Dan Dees. I love Dan Dees. He's the great Dan Dees. He's the best. Colin, you also do Pop Culture Jeopardy, which is fantastic. Fantastic. Wait, is that the one that's on Netflix? Yes. Yeah. Okay. That's coming out on Netflix on May 11th. Season two, right? Yeah, season two, yeah. It's, it's, it's really fun. Like the, I cannot believe the level of knowledge that, that all these teams have about pop culture. It's very, it's really scary and fun. Well, I have a, this is, I have a surprise for these guys, which is a clip, if Bennett can play it or Rob can play it. Really? Oh. Yeah. Wait, I don't think we've ever run a clip before. This is outstanding. We've never done a clip. Let's go to the clip. Oh my God. In the category of So Help Me Pod, the SmartLess Podcast is hosted by this trio of funny guys. Anna Marie. Who is Sean Hayes? That is one. Alex. Who is Eric McCormick? Oh, Jesus Christ. No, I'm sorry. Steve. Who is Will Arnett? That is the second. And Ashley. Who is Fred Armisen? That is a person, but no. Justin. Who is Hayes? I'm sorry. This is hurtful. The one we were missing, Jason Bateman. But the other two are going to be very happy to throw it in Jason's face. Copy. Got it. It's going to hurt in the renegotiations, but thanks for running the clip. So, let's go first reactions. Let's go around the horn. We'll start with you, Jason. I thought that was so great. Hey, you know what? That Jason Abateman is starting to look pretty good, huh? Yeah. Nice. Bold doesn't sound so bad. I know. So, this was not Tournament of Champions, I guess. These weren't the world beaters. No. These were the most knowledgeable. Come on. Wow. God damn it. I think I was the only answer wrong in that whole game. Jesus. That cuts deep. Which you never see. Almost. The point is, but the point is breadwinner, celebrity, SNL, like all of it. You have so much going on and you have kids and you have Scarlett and you have like just a whole, I mean, you have a ton of stuff going on. It's unbelievable. Yeah. You're kicking into high gear right now and it's fun to watch, man. It's really fun to watch. It's fun. - Instead of swing a golf club on top of it all. I know. We've threatened to play. We got to, let's do it. Maybe this summer you'll be out a little bit and we'll do it. Yeah. We're going to be on Long Island. Do you guys do, do you ever go to do the Tahoe event or anything like that? No, I'm not into the fucking rock and roll with the boats on the fairway and fucking what? Well, now he's never going, but. I mean, what's happening? Unplug the speakers. And these filthy people in Tahoe. I just, I don't understand how it's just. We did, we've done a couple of them before. We did the Pebble Beach back in the day. No, that's a tournament. That must have been fun, right? We did that and we did, we've done the Genesis a few times. Oh yeah, because in LA that's fun. Yes, in LA. But let's start our own golf tournament, you guys. Yeah, let's do that. What do you say, Colin? Yeah, just the three of us. Yeah, we'll play nines. Out on Long Island. I'm in. Keep it real. I'm in. We've taken up so much of your time. Oh my God, we could talk forever to this guy. This is unbelievable. Yeah, Colin. I can stay. I've, like, a lot of time. Oh, let's do it. No problem. Don't even feel like you gotta wrap it up. I gotta go. I'm gonna have dinner with Tommy Hilfiger right now. That's a true story. Talk to him. He did, Tommy Hilfiger did an event on our Staten Island Ferry. I got to hang out with him there. I'm gonna talk to him right now. What I'm gonna say is we drag it out to Sag Harbor for the summer. Yes, please. Right? Let's start talking about that. That's what every neighbor wants to look up and see in our large orange vessel. All those billionaires, they're not gonna be mad at that. No, they love it. It's fun. It's kitschy. Colin, thank you for being here. Your pleasure, as usual. Thank you for bringing me in, Sean. Yeah, I appreciate it. Sean, I'm sorry that we were abusive towards you and your question-asking talents. Did you get to, did you, were you able to ask our guests the things you wanted to ask? There was some other thing. There was many other things, but that's okay. We'll get it next time. I'm sorry, Sean. That's all right. Will brings out the worst in me. That's, why is it me? Sorry. It's Will's fault. Okay. Well, get back to work, Colin. I know you have a lot of work there with it, especially cleaning up that asbestos above your head. Yeah. Because I can still see it. That's amazing. I'll let you know what I find. Thank you, my friend. Thank you guys very much. And I would love to play this summer if you guys want to play anytime. I'm gonna hit you up. We're gonna finally do it. Yes, please. Okay. Bye, guys. Bye, buddy. Bye, Colin Jost. Good to see you. I'm waving. I'm waving like that's gonna register. Audio wave, audio wave, audio wave. Thanks, dude. Sean, what a great guest. What a lovely man and a funny, funny talent. I really like Colin. He's such a funny guy. I really, every time I'm with him, he's just like easy. Well, but isn't it amazing? He's the longest, I don't know if you heard in the intro, the longest, what am I saying, of Weekend Update, the guy who's been there the longest of anybody. Longest tenured? Yes. Isn't that a word, right? A host or something? Did you not sleep last night? What happened? I'm still catching up. Is your CPAP hose clogged? Just purge your hose. Isn't that wild, though, to just be, to know, like he just submitted to SNL. It makes sense. He's so good. He's so good. And Jay, too. And Michael, whom I don't know. Yeah, Michael Jay is hilarious. Hilarious. Those guys are so funny. Yeah. What was the joke somebody reminded me of that they did this last weekend? It played like a clip of, Trump's saying, you know, look, we're holding all the cards. And then, and then they come back to call and he's like, they're literally holding a straight. Yes, I saw that. Yeah. Yeah, I thought that was funny. That's a good joke. It was a pun. It was a pun. It's a pun, you know. Guys, there's, you know, there's a lot of purchases we've all made in our life. And, you know, what started out as this. Some are good buys and some are bad buys. Is that what it is? Bye. Okay, so, okay. But you're going to back into it. No, you finish it. Well, why don't you. Why don't you give it a little bit of a head, like, talk about the ferry. Yeah, the Staten Island Ferry. And then in the middle, talk about sometimes there's good, you know, purchases. Yeah, I mean, yeah, the Staten Island. What an interesting thing to learn about that he, what drew him to buy that Staten Island Ferry when he was a kid. So you've already spent, you spent it right there. You can't say buy until the end. So still rolling. Okay. It was an interesting thing that he purchased that Staten Island Ferry with, with Pete Davidson because it brought, you know, because he took it when he was a kid to go to school. Yeah. So, you know, we've all kind of, we've all made interesting purchases. Some are, some are good, some are bad, but that started out as a, as a seemingly bad purchase, but in the end it was a good. I know what he's getting. Bye. I like this goodbye. That's really long. I like this goodbye. I got to take a leak so fucking bad. Okay. Love you. Think of me when you hold it. Smart. Less. Smart. Less. Smart. Less. is 100% organic and artisanally handcrafted by Michael Grant Terry, Rob Armjarv and Bennett Barbico. Smart. Less.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Colin Jost shares a humorous and personal backstory about his early life, including his speech delay and childhood fascination with comedy.
  2. He attended Regis High School in Manhattan, where he experienced the long commute via ferry and bus, which influenced his later interest in Staten Island ferry ownership.
  3. The Staten Island ferry he co-owned with Pete Davidson is being developed into a multi-use entertainment space, including a swim club and event venue, with plans to relocate it seasonally.
  4. Jost had a long journey into comedy, starting with student publications and the National Lampoon, before being hired at SNL through a summer submission process.
  5. He transitioned from economics to Russian literature, recognizing comedy as his true passion despite family and financial concerns.
  6. His early years at SNL were marked by anxiety and uncertainty, especially when taking on the update chair, which initially felt overwhelming and led to moments of self-doubt.
  7. A standout moment was when Michael Che stopped the audience from laughing at a joke, leading to a powerful and chaotic live performance that left Jost deeply traumatized.
  8. Jost’s political impersonations, especially of Pete Hegseth, are praised as hilarious and well-executed, reflecting his sharp comedic timing and versatility.

Summary:

Colin Jost reflects on his journey from a late-talking child to a successful stand-up and SNL writer, highlighting how his early experiences with humor and school life shaped his career. He recounts attending Regis High School on a long, daily ferry commute, which later inspired his co-ownership of a Staten Island ferry. The ferry is now being reimagined as a community-focused entertainment hub, including a swim club and event space, with plans to move it seasonally between locations.

Jost credits his shift from economics to Russian literature as a pivot toward comedy, a path fueled by early involvement in student publications and the National Lampoon. His SNL career began through a summer submission, and despite early struggles—especially with the update chair—he eventually found success and confidence, driven by a deep love for comedy. A memorable moment involved Michael Che preventing the audience from laughing at a joke, leading to a chaotic yet hilarious live performance that deeply impacted Jost.

The episode also celebrates Jost’s sharp political impressions, particularly his portrayal of Pete Hegseth, which is praised for its accuracy and humor. Throughout, Jost emphasizes the importance of following one’s passion, even when it diverges from traditional career paths, and shares the joy of building a creative life through connection and authenticity.

FAQs

Colin Jost didn't speak until he was around four years old, and when he finally started speaking, he said things that sounded like Carmela Soprano from The Sopranos.

Colin and Pete bought a decommissioned Staten Island ferry for $280,000, with plans to use it as a community space, event venue, or even a swim club with a pool and diving board on the roof deck.

He initially studied economics but joined the National Lampoon magazine, where he wrote comedy sketches. His success there led to a writing opportunity at SNL after submitting a packet of work during the summer.

The update chair role is a major feature of SNL's show, where a performer delivers a comedic monologue between skits. Colin was promoted to this role after a period of struggle and development, eventually becoming a key part of the show's success.

Yes, during a late-night writing session at Lauren's office, Colin experienced heart palpitations and thought he was having a heart attack, which was later attributed to stress and high sugar intake.

Colin was involved with the National Lampoon magazine during his time at Regis High School, which helped shape his comedic writing style and later led to his career at SNL.

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