The Deadbolt Interview - Jimmy Fallon Talks Late Night 'In the Year' 2009

Jimmy Fallon Talks Late Night 'In the Year' 2009
by Troy Rogers

Every decade or so the late night talk show arena gets shaken up by newcomers, retiring hosts, or established late night personalities who go on to work on other projects. With Jay Leno leaving the long running Tonight Show and Conan O'Brien stepping in to take his place on June 1, 2009, former Saturday Night Live regular Jimmy Fallon is jumping behind Conan's old desk to become the host of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, which premieres on NBC, March 2 at 12:30a.m.

Now that Jimmy Fallon is throwing his hat into the late night ring, with The Roots as his house band, fans can expect the newly revamped Late Night to be more interactive and contemporary with a web-savvy approach TV viewers will be familiar with, especially anyone who spends their days chattin' it up on Twitter and Facebook. Since Fallon lives in New York, where he'll be traveling to work each night, Jimmy has lined up fellow New Yorker and Hollywood A-lister Robert DeNiro as his very first guest along with the great Van Morrison to kick off his Late Night career.

From there, Jimmy welcomes a slew of celebs, stars and personalities, which includes Rachael Ray, Tina Fey, Jon Bon Jovi, Jane Krakowski, and more.

After staying tuned to Late Night to watch the last few episodes of Conan at 12:30a.m., we woke up early this week to jump on a conference call with Jimmy Fallon to find out what advice he's recived from the guy who created "In the Year 2000," whether he'll keep the tradition, and how his show will be different.

THE DEADBOLT: What type of advice did Conan give you?

JIMMY FALLON: He gave me a bunch of advice. I think the most thing he’s repeated is that you've just got to do it. Just do it to keep doing it, and that’s how you learn how to do it. Just get up there and just start swinging and you’ll figure it out, which is good advice. After the first two test shows, I can tell you he’s right.

You can prepare and get the great writers, the great set, and the great director, but if you don’t get these interviews down it can get weird. And even a writer can’t save you on those things. So I think the more I do it the more comfortable I’ll be with talking to people, and I thought that was great advice. And he’s been really helpful and really nice.

THE DEADBOLT: You mentioned that you’re going to be interactive and into trying new things. Are you going to continue the tradition of "In the Year 2000"?

FALLON: [laughs] Yeah, I love that. It’s not quite as interactive, we’re going to go further than that. Probably to the year 2001, at least. But yeah, I mean, we’re going to have our own signature pieces. I don’t know what they are, and I don’t think Conan knew what they were when he started. I mean, he did one "In the Year 2000" and it worked. I mean he’s obviously still doing it now and he did that sketch before it was the year 2000.

So, I mean, once you find something you just stick with it and ride it into the ground, and I think that’s where we’re going to have the same thing. But we’re working on great bits. We’re trying stuff and hopefully we’ll have a couple of things float to the top and that’ll be the ones we use. There's going to be ones that are going to stink and be terrible. And I think that’s half the fun of having a show at 12:30a.m., you get to try that stuff.

Other Conference Call Highlights:

Jimmy Fallon on what type of show he wants to make:

"I think ours will be different in the fact that we’re younger. We’re into like tech stuff, gadgets, phones, video games. We’ll treat a video game premiere like a movie premiere. And I’m just going to be honest with what I like and what I do, what I enjoy. We’re not going to hide the fact that people are on the internet all day, you know? I think a lot of shows don’t really mention that. They barely touch on it. But, I mean, most kids come home from school [and] they don’t go to their TVs first, they go to the internet and check their e-mails or some blogs or some sites and then they go watch TV. And other people are at work all day 9-5 in front of the computer and they see clips. So I like that. And we’re not going to hide the fact that people use the internet and we’re going to try and be as interactive as possible with our fans.

"I’m currently on Twitter and Facebook and Flickr and Digg. I’m on all of that stuff and I want to be as interactive as possible. I know we tape at 5:30p.m., we air at 12:30a.m., but I think my fans are smart enough to know we tape early. So we’ll figure out some way to keep it interactive either through Tweets ... You know, I still have to figure out how that’s going to work and the fun thing is if it doesn’t work it’s still fun to experiment and try stuff it’s 12:30a.m. at night. I mean, honestly, I just want to kind of keep people awake or at least give you one good joke to go to bed with."

Fallon on lining up Robert DeNiro and Van Morrison as his first guests:

"Well, DeNiro was my first choice. I think he’s the quintessential New Yorker. He’s a legendary actor. I love him. I worked with him once on Saturday Night Live in a couple of things here and there. We’re not friends, per se, you know? We like each other, but we’re not buddies. I don’t hang out at his house or anything; he never invited me over for coffee. If you get that Godfather reference, I’m sorry about that.

"But he’s just so cool and I always liked working with him because he’s a really nice guy to work with. And he also comes off as a tough interview and I thought that it would be kind of good to have my first guy be, probably, one of the toughest people you can interview. "Jump into the fire," as Harry Nilsson put it. It could be kind of fun to see if we can get anything out of him. I don’t know. It might be terrible. It might be awful. But I’m excited. I think he represents New York more than anyone and I was honored that he said yes. He’s a great guy and hopefully that’ll come off when we talk.

"With Van Morrison, I just lucked out because he’s in the city. He’s performing the full album of Astral Weeks. And if you’re an audiophile, if you love any music, you know that that’s a phenomenal record. But I also grew up an Irish kid and he comes on your iPod in your brain when you’re born. He’s just one of my favorites of all time. So the fact that he was in town was just pure luck. I think Astral Weeks is a phenomenal record, so double whammy on that one."

Jimmy Fallon on getting The Roots as his house band:

"I was talking to my friend, Neil Brennan, who worked on The Chappelle Show, and he said, "Hey, you know who you should get to be your house band? You should get The Roots." And I go, "Great! Do you think they would do it?" And he goes, "Oh, no, they wouldn’t. But maybe they know someone who would steer you in the right direction." So I just figured, why not? All they can say is [say] no. I called them and said, "Hey, I’d love to talk to you guys about being my house band." I didn’t hear back for two weeks, so I figured that’s my 'no,' I guess.

"Then their manager called me back and said they were in Europe and they got my message and would like to talk to me. So I set up a meeting with Loren’s office with me and my producers, Mike Shoemaker and Gavin Purcell, who are smart because [Purcell] came from a show on the G4 network called Attack of the Show and Shoemaker came from Saturday Night Live. And we met ... So I pitched them my big spiel and said, "Look, number one, you’re going to raise the bar on what a house band could ever be. I mean, you are a band already. You’re The Roots. I don’t know who to compare you to," because they can play with Tony Bennett and they can play with Jay-Z and it sounds great, and they’re that talented that they can do that. I don’t know who to compare them to. I don’t know who else could do that."

"And then, number two, they’re from Philly. It’s only an hour-and-a-half on the train, so it’s kind of a close gig. And number three, we’re in New York. So if you want to play after the show, there are endless clubs and places you can play in New York City. So (?)Questlove looked at me and said, "I have one question. What if someone like Herbie Hancock comes to town, can we have him play with us?" And I was like, "What?" I thought he was going ask if they could only work Wednesdays and Fridays. So I was like, "Sure. Herbie Hancock? Yeah, that’s cool. Of course." So both him and Tariq both nodded their heads and were like, "Well, we think we want to do this." Plus, on top of that, they’re funny as hell. So they’re going to do sketches, it’s going to be good."

-- Troy Rogers