Seth Meyers is seriously enjoying his third dream job as Late Night host

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Seth Meyers worked on Saturday Night Live for a dozen years, first as a cast member, then in stints as the show's head writer and anchor and co-anchor of the show's Weekend Update segment.

Since the 40-year-old funnyman took over as host of NBC's Late Night slot earlier this year, he has weekends free, which allows him to appear as one of the headliners of JFL 42 (Toronto's major comedy festival from the people at Just for Laughs) on Sept. 27.

We spoke with Meyers over the phone, live from New York.

You recently said that your dream job was as a Saturday Night Live Weekend Update anchor. Is hosting Late Night not as dreamy as you expected?

Well, I always dreamed of SNL. And then when I got on SNL, I always dreamed of Weekend Update. So, once you get your dream job twice, you feel like it would be rude to start thinking of a third dream job. I was delighted with my job at SNL. I never thought ahead to something like Late Night.

It might not have been planned or dreamed of, but Weekend Update did lead to Late Night. Going to Hollywood and making movies wasn't going to be your path, right?

Yeah. By being around SNL, I saw that other people were good at being characters, and I was very good at being myself. That's one of the splits that happens when you leave SNL. I was always a version of myself, which is why I think hosting a talk show is such a good fit.

Political humour has always been a big part of Weekend Update and late-night talk-show monologues. What's the role of political satire, as you see it?

You're not going to change policy. I think the one thing you can do is educate, to some degree. If people share your frustration, that's one thing. But what shows like The Colbert Report and The Daily Show and Weekend Update do really well is to help people focus where they should be disappointed in what the government is doing. Ultimately, if you can have an educated electorate, they're the ones who can change things.

That focus, I think, is important, even if it looks like you're picking sides. Otherwise, if you're just broadly painting all politicians as corrupt or inept, you're not educating people, you're demoralizing them, aren't you?

Your job is to go after the people who deserve to be gone after. I think when people end up on the wrong side of jokes, it's very easy for them to blame the politics of the person telling the joke. But anyone expressing themselves as a writer or a comedian is using their own standards of what is right and wrong. The job isn't to evenly hand out zingers. The job is to express what you think, in a comic way.

Reading Live from New York, a book on Saturday Night Live by Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller, there seems to a lot of pressure and neurosis with that show. When it comes to comics fighting for minutes and writers fighting for their sketches, how bad is it there?

There have been volumes written about how intense it is to work there, but the era I was there was not a time where it was backstab-y. It was a meritocracy.

What about the pressure involved with living up to the show's legacy?

There would be pressure even if it wasn't a legacy show. But the added pressure of SNL is that you always are aware that people think there was a better era than the one you're working in. You're constantly running into people who say they stopped watching it 10 years ago. But really, the burden you have to fulfill every week of writing yourself into the show takes centre stage. The best people at SNL are the ones living in the present.

How does the pressure of SNL compare to the pressure of having your own show?Being the head writer at SNL, I was always living in fear that I would be guilty of ruining it. Now, with Late Night, I enjoy getting to make my own decisions and going with what I like the most. At SNL, there are 100 different opinions. At Late Night, it's kind of nice for yours to be the last word.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

Seth Meyers is at JFL 42 on Sept. 27, 7 p.m. and 10 p.m., at the Sony Centre in Toronto; jfl42.com.