Watch Seth Meyers and His ‘Late Night’ Team Explain How ‘A Closer Look’ Became Their Signature Segment

A new late night show’s first task is to figure out its own unique voice and then find a way to bottle it into the genre’s familiar format. Even if every show starts with a monologue before finding its way to celebrity interviews and ending with a performance, the nuances of how you do those things is what makes or breaks a late night career.

There’s no better example of this than “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” which gradually figured out how to channel its host’s strengths into a clever, modern take on the format. Much like his “Saturday Night Live” days, Meyers sits behind a desk as he offers his takes on the increasingly absurd of the day.

But the show isn’t a Weekend Update copy either. Segments like “A Closer Look” combine cerebral political satire with its own distinct brand of whimsy, often highlighting the personalities of Meyers’ correspondents and band members alongside the biggest news of the day. It’s a place where you wouldn’t feel remotely surprised to see Mr. Met appear in a segment about the Trump administration’s immigration policy.

During a recent USG University panel moderated by IndieWire, Meyers and “Late Night” writer/producer Sal Gentile and director Alex Vietmeier broke down the chaos and creative alchemy that go into producing the show’s signature segment.

“I wanted to write a longer form thing about the Greek debt crisis. And we didn’t at the time even call it A Closer Look, it was only once we started doing it more often that we gave it a name,” Meyers said of the segment’s origins. “And it’s a moment that happens when you’re making a new show, where all of a sudden that’s the thing that people say they saw. You just feel like you might be onto something, because after six months, after a year, people say to you on the street ‘Hey, I loved you on SNL.’ And then they say ‘Hey, I loved that Closer Look thing.’”

Gentile, who serves as the primary writer for the segment, explained that “A Closer Look” is designed to cut through the onslaught of daily news stories by focusing on a single topic. As he tells it, narrowing the focus actually expands the possibilities for the segment by freeing them of the obligation to cover everything that happened in the world.

“I think of it as, what’s one thing that we can chew off of the news today. It’s providing a little more context about the news that day rather than just rattling through a bunch of things Trump said,” Gentile said. “I’m trying to find a balance in the morning between staying focused on the thesis, but I might just also have ideas for stuff that would be funny.”

Watch the complete conversation with the team in the video above.

“Late Night with Seth Meyers” is produced by Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group. It airs nightly on NBC and streams exclusively on Peacock the following day.

IndieWire partnered with Universal Studio Group for USG University, a series of panels celebrating the outstanding artistry and artisans behind the 2025–2026 television season across NBCUniversal’s portfolio of shows. USG University, a Universal Studio Group program, is presented in partnership with the Motion Picture & Television Fund.