Just hours after news broke that Robin Williams had died on Monday, Late Night host Seth Meyers sat down with BuzzFeed founder and CEO Jonah Peretti for a BuzzFeed Brews event with CBS This Morning. Before things got underway, Peretti asked Meyers, a longtime cast member and head writer on Saturday Night Live, about the loss of Williams.
"I never worked with him. I was lucky enough to meet him," Meyers said, before noting he'd address Williams' death on tomorrow's Late Night. "He was such an important person to myself and a lot of the people who work on my show, everyone in comedy."
Meyers, who also remembered renting VHS tapes of Williams' stand-up routines from the video store he worked at growing up, said he met the actor-comedian twice: once at the improv theater Upright Citizens Brigade and another time when he made a cameo at Saturday Night Live. "He was really lovely. It's really sad. It's really heartbreaking," Meyers added.
With reports that Williams had been suffering from depression, Peretti asked Meyers if he thought comedy and depression went hand-in-hand. "Look, not everyone's had perfect lives, but there's so many people that I've worked with who come from the most lovely, caring families and that makes them the most lovely, caring people," Meyers said. "So, I don't know if I completely buy into that comedy has to come from a dark place."
Meyers said he thinks it's a stereotype that many comedians have demons, adding, "I think there are a lot of ways to do comedy and I think there have been some great comedians who historically have...made comedy from their pain, but I think there are other people who take the joy in their lives and make comedy out of that. So I don't think there's just one way to do it."
