John Mulaney stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live on Tuesday night and opened up about his surprising new job as a staff writer for Late Night with Seth Meyers. As Mulaney describes it (around 13:45 above), the whole thing happened rather quickly after he hosted Saturday Night Live on Halloween. The comedian noticed that he enjoyed going into an office and accomplishing a task, which was something that was missing from his life since the pandemic hit. He also noticed that the lack of structure was making him engage in some odd behavior around the house.
“During quarantine, I was like, ‘Why am I going totally crazy?’” Mulaney explained to Kimmel. “And, like, why I am telling my own wife my accomplishments? You know, like, ‘I had a Comedy Central Presents when I was 23 years old!’”
Mulaney then spoke to his psychiatrist, who encouraged him to get a job with a boss and tasks in a pretty blunt way. “She said to me without external structure I don’t have any confidence in you thriving. And she would know because I told her everything about my brain.”
From there, Mulaney approached Meyers about working for him, which made him very nervous despite the two being best friends. However, while Mulaney got the job, he readily admits that he’s not very good at it particularly when it comes to writing monologues, which are kind of important for a late night talk show. “I’m not that valuable,” he joked to Kimmel. “There’s a rhythm and a brevity to monologues, which you know, and I’m so bad it.”