STIMY 51.2 - Nick Bernstein - Senior Vice President, Late Night Programming (West Coast), ViacomCBS

Nick Bernstein: So like the first three months that we were there before we'd even started on the show, I was out of the office for some reason, I'm not even sure why. And James left a note on my desk and it said, let me jump out of a plane. It'll be amazing. This is before he even got on the air.

I'm like, you can't, you can't jump out of a plane. Like no one's going to let you do that. Like, the things that could go wrong are just exponential. Please stay on the ground.

And uh, you know, cut to, I guess four years later, Tom Cruise says, let's jump out of a plane. It's kind of hard to say no to that.

And James still wanted to do it and they had to vet it through safety. My bosses joked that the only way they'd let that happen is if I also jumped out of the plane with them and I was like, I didn't sign up for that. That was never going to happen anyway.

But once production got on board, once the higher-ups of the studio production facility. And all of the right paperwork was signed, then it was just off to the races and it, I mean, it is like incredible footage and it's just like a tremendous piece of content. And he's, I mean, there might not be a single guest that is more willing to do things then Tom Cruise. I mean, he really goes, he goes for it.

Ling Yah: Hey everyone! Welcome to episode 51 part two of the So This Is My Why podcast. I'm your host and producer, Ling Yah, and today's guest is Nick Bernstein. Senior vice president of late night programming west coast at CBS, and the executive in charge of the Late Late Show with James Corden.

If you haven't listened to part one, I'd recommend scrolling back and giving it a listen. While in this part of Nick's story, we hear about how Nick ended up leaving his first job at NBC before he eventually becoming the executive producer of the Pete Holmes show. And then we spend the next half discussing all things related to the Late, Late show.

His conversation with Nina Tassler, then President of CBS, the madness that led to the launch of the show and how the show has evolved over time, particularly in light of the global pandemic.

Are you ready for part two of Nick's story?

Let's go.

We were talking about how Comcast was taking over. And I think that was quite a significant moment because Rick was replaced, Conan left. Could you share a bit about what sounds like a very challenging period of time?

Nick Bernstein: Yeah, it was pretty challenging.

When they made all these changes and Jay took The Tonight Show back and Conan left, it's wild how close and how familial, like family, these shows can become. And, you know, Rick certainly, and me as well, like you became part of those communities, but on both shows.

So not just having a show essentially leave and like we, we lost a hundred friends in like a day. It was like, you know, it happens a lot in corporate America, unfortunately, where, you know, there are mass budget constrictions and layoffs, and it had a similar feeling to that. When there's so many people that are uh, no longer there and don't know how long they'll be out of work. And so, you know, you feel for all of them.

And at the same time, like there's 150 people on this other show that I'm also very good friends with. They had nothing to do with this. They are told what to do by their bosses as well.

And so them coming to work to sort of re-configure the 10 o'clock show that they had spent a year working on, or if not longer, and then trying to figure out, all right, well, now we're doing an 1130 show again. What does that supposed to look like?

It's a weird way to think about it, but like, do we have a new motivation? That's how I thought about it. Like, is there a new motivation to do this show?

Now it'd just be the same thing we just did. People didn't actually like what we just did not much. And so we've been trying to change that there. We have to change again now. Do we do some of the same things we did before?

Like there's just a lot happening all at once.

Meanwhile, at Comcast they're making decisions as to what their new units are going to look like. Who's in charge of what, and it's not necessarily all the same people who were making the decisions in that 2010 period of time.

But ultimately once the Comcast deal came together, there was a, as often happens, like new structure. New people in charge.

The way that they wanted to structure all the divisions changed as well. So they merged the late-night department into the alternative and reality department. So there was a new person that took over for Rick. And they didn't need me anymore either because they have 10 or 11 other executives in the reality wing.

They're gonna figure out what they want to do.

However for me, like the stresses of that year were really not particularly healthy and it took a little bit of the fun out of what I enjoyed most about working in late at night. So it's scary when I've worked in the same place for 11 or 12 years, to not be there anymore. To have only worked at one place as an adult which in entertainment, you might have five or six jobs in the same year.

There's a lot of people who move from show to show and wait for that next opportunity and hope that you get along well with people so that they want to work with you again. But I was in a position where like, I wasn't exactly sure what my next role was going to be, but I knew the things that I hadn't done yet and that I wanted to do.

And the big blind spot for me was I'd never worked on a production before. It was one of the things that I valued most with Rick and his eye was what he could see that I could not see. Like physically, like he could tell, I've said this before to people, that he could tell when a couch was an inch off from where it was supposed to be next to the desk.

And I was like, what are you crazy? And even the stage manager would be like, are you sure? Let me go and measure and be like, yeah, that was, it's off. Thanks, Rick.

I did end up getting to work in production. I still don't have that eye. It's just was uh, you know, that was very unique to the Rick. But I did want to know what it was like.

I thought I had an opportunity to work on a show in a different way and just concentrate solely on one show.

And I thought that there was, having gotten a chance to develop late night shows, especially with the Jimmy Fallon show which I had a, a small role in. I mean, it was Jimmy and he had producers and he had Lorne Michaels and like, they had a real sense of what they wanted to do. But they were really generous in terms of looking at writers who I thought would be good there, and producers who would be good there. And, you know, we looked at directors together and, and, you know, they wanted to know my thoughts and more often they wanted to know Rick's thoughts really on test shows and then on the early weeks of shows and, what that progress was going to be like.

So I have sort of like a cadre of people I thought I would like to work with. And people I thought were really good and people that were on the come up and I also had maintained really good relationships with the Conan group. And by then, they were on CBS and they were looking to expand in late night also.

They were on at 11 o'clock at night and they did an hour long show there, but they were given an opportunity to do a midnight show. And so I pitched an idea for a midnight show, which delved sort of, even further into the social media universe in terms of like how we watch things, how we absorb information. Just sort of a younger skewing and even younger skewing show then for cable, especially could I thought have an opportunity to really respond with viewers.

And it wouldn't have to be quite as massive a show because they could hone in on, sort of the youth demo.

So I worked with a comedian who I had seen do standup before, but really got exposed to through his podcast called you made it weird. And his name's Pete Holmes. And I didn't know him personally, but I met him through a mutual friend and talked to him to gauge whether or not he was interested in potentially hosting a show.

And he was. The Conan group knew him. I pitched my idea. Pete talked about his philosophy of hosting and everybody clicked really well. And so, you know, we got to pitch that show. I got very lucky once again, like knowing the right people, being around at the right time for even the opportunity to pitch a late night show.

And then because of TBS's relationship with Conan, not really because of me at all, they gave him a chance to make a pilot. And so that's how I got to move into producing, which was great. And I basically spent about two years working on the pilot and then we got picked up and we made a year's worth of shows, which for us was, it was like 80 something episodes.

We got to be on the Warner brothers lot and we basically got to do everything that we wanted to do in that window. And it was, I talk about it now, then I'm back to being an executive working at CBS, I can speak two languages now. Like I can speak executive and I can speak production. There's a lot of crossover, but it's much different when you're exposed to how a show physically actually works.

Whether that is sitting in an edit bay and watching an interview or watching a sketch and knowing what to cut. Reacting on the day when a guests drops out, I'm sure you've experienced this before where you have to figure out what to do which, you can't panic. You just have to keep going forward and figure out the next step and doing your best to prepare as much as you can and leaving enough space for those wild moments where, you know, where something happens in the audience , with like one of the great moments that happened on with Pete. He talked about his parents a lot and he invited them to the show once.

And uh, Pete was interviewing a, another comedian. And in the audience you could hear his dad say, who's that guy?

And Pete then stopped the interview. And he told his guest, did you hear that? My dad just said who's that guy? And that became the next seven minutes of conversation.

And uh, you know, those are like the fun moments that happen on these shows that sort of still unique to late at night.

But just the idea of like rolling with punches a little bit and making sure that you know, a lot of it is I kind of harken back to being a camp counselor a little bit. Dealing with a bunch of 12 year olds or 13 year olds and the awkwardness of being a teen and sort of growing up.

And the same thing with the 18 or 19 year olds that you're also in charge of, even if you're a year older than them. Keeping those trains moving, making sure everyone is more or less happy or as happy as they can be. And when they're not figuring out how to mediate? A lot of that happens in production as well.

And so, being a good listener is a good trait, I think, period. Certainly for talk show hosts, but definitely for a producer also.

Ling Yah: You mentioned much earlier on about pitching. You pitched to Jeff Ross and Conan O'Brien, I wonder what that conversation was like, and you shot the pilot with Kyrie.

You said before, that's the reason the show got picked up.

Nick Bernstein: Yeah.

So for Conan and Jeff, that conversation was earlier on. So getting them on board was more about them trusting me as a producer, them trusting Pete as a host and both of us knowing Pete and I, that we could rely on Jeff and Conan when we had questions and needed a little bit of help.

They had a great infrastructure for us. So it was like, they held our hands until we could walk essentially.

While we were figuring out what we wanted to do on the pilot on that first episode, we were trying to take advantage as much as we could of what was around us and what Pete was doing in his standup comedy life that was sort of coexisting at the same time as we were shooting our pilot.

One of that included going to um, like Montreal for the Just For Laughs comedy festival, which we were like, if Pete's going there and he already has to be there, let's send a camera crew with them. Let's send a couple of producers and comedy writers, like a small crew, so that maybe we can get a couple of interviews with people and maybe he can do a, sort of a man on the streets piece and let's see.

If it's good, we'll use it. And if not, like he was already going there anyway, so we didn't lose any time.

The other place he was going was Cleveland, which he was doing a standup set there. And again, Jeff and Conan were really nice and allowed us to also use the producers and segment producers and talent bookers who worked on the Conan set for while we were shooting the Pete Holmes pilot.

I knew all those people from the NBC days. So my working relationship was really strong with them. And uh, Britt Con, she was the person who often booked the sports guests for Conan.

I was very confident that Kyrie Irving, who was the rookie of the year and on the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team, would be a great talk show guest based on interviews I'd seen that he had done on sports talk or just in print interviews. That he was just a fascinating guy who I thought had a really fun sense of humor.

And I thought like, I bet no one's asked him. I bet no one's asked him yet to do this.

And so Britt helped us connect with Kyrie and they let us go to Cleveland to shoot an interview at like the Cleveland Cavaliers practice facility, which, Pete is six feet tall. Oh, sorry. He's six, six. He's a very tall man.

He's taller than Kyrie Irving, but he is not a basketball player. And doesn't really care about sports that much. He's enamored with athleticism and excellence, but he's not a guy who watches the game every weekend.

And so, I was trying to be an efficient, cost efficient producer.

So I did not go to Cleveland, even though I love basketball and I would've loved to meet Kyrie. We sent other people and said he was completely game for it.

Of everything that we did in the pilot, it stood out so much because it was sort of next generation talk show host, and next generation athlete in that you are seeing in a completely different way than you'd ever seen him before.

And I think if you were going to point to one thing that we did, that you could say, there's the potential uh, it was that interview. And the fact that the network also TBS and TNT had a strong relationship with the NBA.

And so once we got the pickup, we were able to go to the NBA all-star game also.

And it was in New Orleans that year. And we ended up interviewing like almost a dozen NBA players that we ended up using throughout the year where they also would have Pete on inside the NBA, which is a big show that they run on TNT, which is the sister station for TBS. And so we just were like exposed to a completely new audience of people who watch sports more than they necessarily watch entertainment.

But if they saw these people interacting across the way, then I think you get like, the hope was, maybe they'll tune in. Maybe they'll want to see Pete interview more people.

Ling Yah: When you feature sports stars, they are quite interesting because they are not actually in entertainment.

So it doesn't necessarily translate to them being superstars on the court and also great interviewees as well.

Nick Bernstein: Yeah.

You know, I think but I don't know if, I don't know if it is just access or exposure to all the social media that you can interact with people, but the younger players now are so ready for that moment.

It is remarkable how good they are. How fast they are.

And so I like it even more now, when you get you know, whether they're coming from the Olympics or the WNBA or the NFL, like this generation is absolutely ready for late night. It's exciting when we get them on, because it was once again, like they'll do something that you don't normally expect to see.

And oftentimes you know, they have a lot of fun and they don't necessarily get to do fun things all year round when they're concentrating on their actual job and their performance. So yeah, it's great when we get to do that.

Ling Yah: And so after the Pete Holmes show, what was your plan?

Cause I noticed you worked on the E pilot humps night and Broadband pilot.

Nick Bernstein: Yeah, the pilots that I worked on after the Pete Holmes show were both late night adjacent. So they had elements of things that we did in late night, but even more of a pop culture, like pop culture news of the week bend.

And on both of those shows, I got to work with some really good friends, which was I think at this point in my career, like always the goal is work with as many nice people as possible and try to have fun because something's going to hit the fan at some point. And if you're in your bunker with your people, like it makes it a little bit easier.

So I was just open to meeting and working with different people. Different networks and different cable networks. Particularly if I got to work with people that I really enjoyed spending time with.

But for me, I think at that point, the most exciting and interesting thing that happened outside of my world was when CBS announced that James Corden was going to take over the 1230 show, which, you know, I think I probably said it now too many times, your audience is gonna get annoyed with me.

But I just really love that win. I love that time period. I love what you can do at 1230. And I didn't know, James as a host necessarily. I knew, I knew him more as an actor for shows that he'd done in the UK. But as soon as he was announced, I think like a lot of us we did sort of deep dives into what else had he done?

And there were a couple of things that I saw, he did these sort of hour long documentary style interviews with two different members of Take That. The pop band. And they were both just so nuanced. They were fun. Sometimes they got serious. He had just sort of like this great energy and enthusiasm and, and I was like, wow, this is something.

And then I watched him host the Brits. The British version of the Grammys. And um, that was exciting. I'd seen that he'd done an interview with the prime minister at the time. And I think that was for a newspaper. But I saw him talk about it and then I read about it and I was like, well, this is exactly what I was excited about.

Like the, varied amount of interests and ability to listen and ask interesting questions and, let alone, he's a Tony winning actor and he has the voice of an angel. So this is a lot of arrows in the quiver, as they say.

And I didn't really know that many people at CBS.

So I was just like, how, how do I figure out how to even meet these guys?

And then I got really lucky where I got a call from Nina Tassler, who was the president of CBS at the time. And she's now a producer. Has her own production company. And she told me that they were looking for an executive to oversee late night on the west coast.

And is that something I'd be interested in?

Honestly, I had to think about it for a minute, which in retrospect is incredibly stupid of me because it was an unbelievable opportunity to work on a show that I was interested in and directly report to the people who ran the network, which I'd never done before.

But I was weighed down a little bit by my most recent prior experience as being in network executive, which came with some baggage that I hadn't maybe necessarily talked through yet or accessed all of my feelings about.

But I really enjoyed my meeting with Nina. I thought that she would be someone that would be great to work with but more importantly work for.

And David Staff who is the president of the CBS studios, I would also be working for him and I met him and just almost immediately was like, well, these are two of the warmest, most generous people that I've met in television.

And this is just a drastically different situation than where I had come from. And they were really honest with me and that, like, they hadn't had somebody for awhile on the west coast, who had the type of experience and late night that I had. And so they were going to give me quite a lot of rope to help them know, I think how to help shape and how to let that show have the runway that it needs to be successful.

And so it ended up being a pretty easy yes to be like, yes, I want to do this. And this sounds great. And because now I know what production is like, and I know what being an executive is.

Like, I think I might be able to handle this in a different way and treat it a little bit differently than I did before.

And then it was just a mad dash to getting the show on the air because I got hired right around the end of November of 2014. Nobody else was working on the show yet in any significant way, because they were wrapping up their other things where like Rob Crabbe is an executive producer of the Corden show, but he was still working on the Jimmy Fallon show at the time.

James was doing publicity and press for Into The Woods. So he hadn't moved to LA yet. And Ben Winston, who's the other executive producer and the head of Falwell's 73, which is the production company that along with CBS makes the show, he was working on the X-Factor in London at the time and he hadn't moved yet.

So when I talk about a mad dash, like they had to do everything basically in a three-month window to make it on the air in March of 2015, which was one of the show started. And that is both the like terrifying and exciting part of making television is at a certain point, it's just gotta go on the air.

And you hope that you have a couple of those things that you feel strongly about that you have conviction that you think like this could turn into something. And for, for James and Ben and Rob, you know, that was carpool karaoke, which the first one aired in week one of the show and roll call, which was when they do, you know, they have a giant star on and they perform snippets of every movie they've ever done in like a five to seven minute window.

Ling Yah: Tom Hanks.

Nick Bernstein: Oh yeah. For someone like Tom Hanks to say yes to an idea like that is such a vote of confidence. And a lot of that credit goes to Sheila Rogers. She's the head of the talent department for Corden. She worked on the Letterman show for many years before that.

And so, a lot of that was her explaining to talent, like come. You'll like this. You'll like James, you'll like the show. Something's happening over here.

And then for Tom Hanks to be like, all right. That's giving the green light to every other giant star in Hollywood to be like, oh, okay. If Hanks is doing this, I gotta take a look at Corden also.

And yeah, I mean like Tom Hanks and there was a lot of friends did a lot of great favors and gave a boost to the show in those early days which, You know, a lot, a lot of these talk shows have to rely on friends in those early days and people who were willing to take the chance.

But the Tom Hanks, the Mariah Careys, the David Beckhams, the Simon Cowles. Like it was some real heavy hitters. And then James and Ben and Rob talk about this a lot, but one of the wildest things that they had pitched that they were like, they were ready to give me like a 45 minute pitch about why it was a good idea, which they wanted to take their show and do it in someone's house for a night.

Ling Yah: Which they did in the second week!

Nick Bernstein: They did it in the second week. They shot it in the first week, but they needed the week to edit it.

So they were like, here's what we do. And this is why we should do it. We got to keep people surprised. And I was like, you had me on the first sentence, I'm a hundred percent on board. I will explain to anyone else what this will look like and what this will be.

This is late night to me. Like, these are the fun things that you get to do. And that was, like incredible like back and who else is on that one? Jeff Goldblu m. It was like this who's who of people? Animals. We were like, we, this poor person's house we just took over for the, basically the day and it was all real.

And it was absolutely joyous. And like, you don't know, I don't think you know, until you're in it, how much energy you can get from that type of a show and experience and use to figure out what's the next thing you want to do. And yeah, I mean, like that's a memory forever.

Ling Yah: You mentioned carpool karaoke, which is one of its most trademark things. How did that whole idea come about? And the execution itself.

Nick Bernstein: That was really Ben and James. The only thing I contributed to carpool karaoke is maybe you hear my laugh every once in a while once they run it for the audience, but even that is a tenuous at best.

There was uh, in London they have something called Red Nose Day, which they also have in the U S now. But it's a much bigger and more established thing there.

One of the characters that James played in the series, he used that character to do sketches on Red Nose Day.

And in one of the sketches, he was driving in a car with George Michael, and they started singing George Michael's songs in the car. And it wasn't a carpool karaoke in name, but it was a carpool karaoke sort of in gestation. And they used that piece of footage to show Mariah Carey, what a carpool karaoke would look like.

And they got that name basically once they moved to LA how you can get around easier is in the carpool lane, but you needed somebody to drive with you and that's, you know, that's the whole setup. And so. I think Mariah saw that George Michael clip or they showed Mariah Carey and her team that clip and that helped to convince them to do it.

And then there was this, you know, slowly but surely more people did it. The one that really exploded after Mariah, Mariah was massive. And especially like for a show that young, like, I think both Mariah and Ron Collin ended up having like close to 10 million views in the first week each.

And that is like an unprecedented late night situation, especially for someone who was so new to America. But then they had Justin Bieber do a carpool and they saved that one. Or they scheduled that one I should say to air on the night of the David Letterman finale. His series finale.

And this is where like, if it sounds like I know what I'm talking about every once in a while, like I don't always. You know, I talked to Ben and Rob and James, I was like, are you sure you want to air this Bieber thing on the night of the Letterman finale? Like they're going to be showing all these great classic clips and then, you know, there's so much sentimentality to it. And I'm not sure that necessarily is the, like the, is the audience prime to watch Justin Bieber singing in the car right after that? Or should we, maybe there's something else that we should do?

And they're like, no, we, we, we like it. We want to do it. I was like, all right. And then it's the biggest YouTube video that they've ever had at that point.

And I'm like, okay uh, it's also the most, the highest rated show that they've ever done. I think it was I remember, second highest rated they've ever had was uh, the show that aired after Letterman and I humbly bow to their uh, their tastes. They definitely knew what they were doing. And I was wrong on that one.

Ling Yah: Why do you think he exploded it? Was it because they appealed to different demographics?

Nick Bernstein: James says this a lot and it's very true. Like the intimacy that happens in a car. In the type of conversation that happens and how artists are able to present themselves and sort of expose a, a softer side, sometimes an honest side, have conversations you never hear them say before.

And then you still get to see them do really big fun songs, sing all their classic hits, sing uh, their new songs. It hits every button. And I think for Bieber, especially at that point, I had never been exposed to that side of Justin Bieber.

And it's not calculated.

It's two guys hanging out in a car. Two people hanging out, sometimes five people hanging out in the car. But it's just like the longer you're hanging, the more fun everyone's having. And then, you know, ultimately ends up being 12 to 15 minutes on television that's like sometimes iconic and sometimes like borderline historic when it comes to something like Adele and the Paul McCartney ones, like I just- honestly like everybody pinches themselves on some of these pieces that they're able to be witness to it. It feels like just a little piece of magic.

And some of it is um, I mean, these people have like, they're incredible. Their voices are incredible, their willingness have fun. Have fun at their own expense sometimes, or just have fun on a date with James. Like all of that is uh, it's just fun to see people having fun.

Ling Yah: It sounds very much like right from the start, it was seeing so much success. At what point did you feel that this was a show that had made it? James said that he was convinced he was going to be sacked within weeks. He didn't even buy any furniture. And it was only until that Stevie Wonder carpool karaoke that he felt that he made it.

Nick Bernstein: I, you know I have felt pretty good about it pretty early on. So we had like a really interesting, window of time when this show iswasstarting. Because it was only a little over six years ago now.

But you know, we premiered during a time where like the NCAA basketball tournament was happening. So it was big college basketball tournament, CBS shows a lot of these games. So it's the first bit of exposure was kind of big and happening during a time where there's a lot of eyeballs and not necessarily the people who watch CBS all the time. It's people who come in and watch this thing.

So that was a big deal.

Then two months later, you've got this Letterman finale, which has a massive audience. It's people want to see how the show ends and there's a nostalgia element too. And so you get to sort of a second hit of, hey, if you've only checked out our first night or a video here or there, like, this is what we're doing.

But then we had the summer where they weren't running repeats of Letterman. At 1130 at night, they were running repeats of their primetime dramas.

So it was shows like CSI Miami, or maybe not CSI Miami, Miami, the CSI it was NCIS, it was the Mentalist. But we still had original shows, Corden at 1230, but we felt like, well, we're no holds barred right now. Like, this is just crazy freedom. We're going to just really weird stuff. uh, they did whole bits where they would just like uh, pretend to do that they were just the after show for the repeat of the Mentalist that just aired. And so it was like a round table with a black backdrop where they're just goofing on uh, the show that aired before then. Just a bunch of insanity.

And then in September Steven Colbert debuted and by then, like, we're a well-oiled machine. We're six months in.

So the Corden shows got momentum and confidence. So then you're still getting like a third hit of new exposure of people who are maybe have not been tuning in on any regular basis or as quite a regular basis. And so then here we are again. And when you have these sort of tent poles where in that first year or so, which went all the way up into you know, we aired an episode after the super bowl in I think it was that first year, maybe it was even the second year.

It was close enough to it, but it was just a really big piece of exposure one again. And they just like writing funny things. James is, his confidence has grown as a host.

It's that 10,000 hours again where like you just get confident in your skills and you know, that goes all the way through I'd say just like, you just enjoy the stuff that you're making. It might not hit a home run every night but I think that you know, that you've connected often and then you've done it for a while and it's like, okay, what else can we do? What else can we do?

That's when he started looking for those other tent poles. So I would say like, I've always loved when shows are able to travel. And sometimes that's like a one-off, but my favorite shows have always been like, when I was at Conan with the Conan group, like, they went to Toronto for a week and they went to Chicago for a week and they went to San Francisco for a week.

And like- the Leno show went to Vegas, like the energy that came from there, the audiences, the type of remote driven comedy that we did, where they'd go to different places that you'd never get to go. They were all so great. Uh, The cordon show went to London, which is going back home. And um, they've done that three times and like those just have this unbelievable energy that, I don't know.

You almost, you almost have to experience it. I think you can. I think you can feel it when you're watching it. But being in that room, in that church, literally it was the church. It's the culmination of the things that you hope you get to do on these shows.

Ling Yah: And what was the energy like when James wanted to jump off a plane with Tom Cruise. You mentioned that that was really difficult to get through.

Nick Bernstein: So like the first three months that we were there before we'd even started on the show, I was out of the office for some reason, I'm not even sure why. And James left a note on my desk and it said, let me jump out of a plane. It'll be amazing. This is before he even got on the air.

I'm like, you can't, you can't jump out of a plane. Like no one's going to let you do that. Like, the things that could go wrong are just exponential. Please stay on the ground.

And uh, you know, cut to, I guess four years later, Tom Cruise says, let's jump out of a plane. It's kind of hard to say no to that.

And James still wanted to do it and they had to vet it through safety. My bosses joked that the only way they'd let that happen is if I also jumped out of the plane with them and I was like, I didn't sign up for that. That was never going to happen anyway.

But once production got on board, once the higher-ups of the studio production facility. And all of the right paperwork was signed, then it was just off to the races and it, I mean, it is like incredible footage and it's just like a tremendous piece of content. And he's, I mean, there might not be a single guest that is more willing to do things then Tom Cruise. I mean, he really goes, he goes for it.

Ling Yah: I've noticed the show is very popular on YouTube and there are so many comments all the time. But when you first started your career, this didn't happen.

So at what point did you start seeing that sort of almost direct relationship with the people listening to this show and you could hear what they were all thinking,

Nick Bernstein: That's a good question. I think about it this way a little bit.

For late-night in general, if the internet existed in the eighties and in the nineties, everything that we thought was funny about Letterman and Conan, Arsenio, SNL, like, they all would've been supernova, viral hits. Triumph the insult comic dog would have been a massive, massive hit.

But because that didn't happen, like the way that the shows knew about it and what was working, what wasn't, was the audience reaction in the studio when they would bring someone like a triumph back.

He's a dog puppet that speaks with a Russian accent. He's like a roast comedian. So he just makes fun of other guests when they come on or he'll go now, like, he'll travel. I say, he like he's a real figure. It's like Robert Smigle is the comedian writer, actor who voices Triumph and created Triumph, but he'll even go to like, he'll make fun of politicians in Washington, DC with this puppet.

And nothing looks weirder than watching you know, Ted Cruz looking at a puppet who is making fun of him you know, and this, and he's one of hundreds of people who've gotten the uh, brunt of Triumph's insults.

So that is how like that exposure happened that way sort of organically. People on the streets would say something or people in the audience will react.

And then I happened to be in New York when Saturday Night Live did what ended up being one of the first true YouTube viral videos. And again, I didn't have anything to do with it. I just happened to be there that week and like recognized and realized.

Uh, it was a sketch called lazy Sunday. It was an original rap uh, that Andy Sandberg and Chris Cornell did.

And it was a rap that sounded like it had a hardcore vibe to it, but it was about the Chronicles of Narnia. And that was a thing that really exploded on the internet from the late night space. And so that was the first time where we were like, we gotta put things online.

That's the way to do things now.

But there was a bit of a push and pull with how YouTube was being used from the networks. Broadcast networks. Fallon was the first of the NBC shows, Kimmel might've done it before Fallon. But Fallon was the first of the internet of the NBC shows that was adamant about YouTube and using YouTube in that way and creating a relationship online with viewers and fans.

And even they had like some push and pull about things like, can we have Twitter account? Can Jimmy have his own Twitter account? Like, can he re tweet his own things?

It's only five, six years later, basically that like once we established Corden, we've now all come from, like me being at Pete Holmes and working on a show that had a relatively small viewership, but like a massive online fan base and YouTube viewership comparatively.

So I knew the value of it.

Rob Crabbe coming from Fallon show knew it as well. Ben and James having seen how those Red Nose Day videos that they had made did online, let alone you know, there's many, many other people who also had similar experiences. Like we all knew the value but we were creating something from a whole cloth because I wasn't necessarily how late night was done at CBS at the time.

So we created like a really strong and robust, small, but robust digital footprint with dedicated producers who only worked on the digital aspect of the show. Uh, created the voice online and still to this day, and even probably more now than ever, interacts with that fan base.

And yeah, there's a real awareness of what people are talking about online about the show and, hopefully that's mostly good. But you know, I think like we found that a lot more recently with the way that the show has been produced in this time period.

Once they've gone back into the studio during the pandemic, I should say we're still in it a little bit.

Ling Yah: Would you say that YouTube is the main platform for you to connect with the people and to what extent does it influence what you do? Cause I noticed that even to this day, people keep on saying kidnap One Direction. Kidnap One Direction. And James even referenced it in a segment.

Nick Bernstein: Yeah. I think that it is, you know, the interaction, I think largely happens with our digital unit. Our digital producers who are there. But that's not to say that any of us have a lack of awareness of what's going on.

We're all exposed now to people tweeting at us about one direction.

You know, Ben worked with them a lot of that's obviously how a lot of it started, but he directed a lot of the one direction music videos then we've had everybody basically on the show. Harry Styles is certainly like a very good friend of the show and of Ben and James.

So yeah, there's certainly like awareness of fan bases. BTS's fan base especially um, we have a great relationship with them and have loved it every time those guys come on the show. Little mix, you know, I mean, pop fan bases, I think are the, the most rabid.

And we also have a lot of fun working with them when they do something on the show and-

I think the show, well, I'm sure that they would say their priority is to make a good show first. And they hope that people like it, and they are aware when people do like it.

And when things go well, but they also have, I think, conviction of their own that like even if something's a little bit weirder then you might expect from the show, like it might still turn it into something. I think that's a little bit of a where we're at now also.

Ling Yah: So where we're at now is that COVID happened last year.

And I wonder when you first heard of it and realized that this would actually impact what we are doing here.

Nick Bernstein: I mean, it happened that week in March. I want to say it was like the week of March 9th for us is when the last tapings that we did with an audience was during that week. We had, speaking of one direction, Niall Horan was the guest all week long, doing music and comedy.

We ended up taping four shows over three days. So we double taped on the last day. Had we not done that? We double taped on a Wednesday. They wouldn't let us have a audience on a Thursday, thankfully, because uh, it was hard to know how fast it was spreading. We're all still kind of getting up to speed on it.

I was really nervous about too many people being in a room together at that point. We didn't even know like that Friday, whether we would do shows the next week or not. Whether it was safe to do that because the number of people who had been infected seemed like it was concentrated more in New York than it was in Los Angeles.

And there were pockets that were white hot and some that had less exposure. But we made thankfully the right decision to be cautious.

Then this was really once again, the show and the production team far more than me, who were really adamant about wanting to do a show that looked and felt different and unique than just immediately going back however possible they could do it.

They wanted to set it up right. And make it look as sharp as they could. Although I don't think any of us had ever been on Zoom before March. And then we were watching shows and making shows through it. But they, you know, figuring out how to create a small studio for James in his garage.

And he spent basically April, May and June doing shows there.

The thing about late night that also happens time and again, where the real world hits you and it's not a time to make jokes. It's the time to really have thoughtful conversations and uh, speak to what's happening in the country or in the world.

Not having a lot over the last spring and continues to happen.

You know, the first thing that they wanted to make though and was I think the impetus for going to the garage was they did a special called #Home Fest, which was speaking about even though we're all separate apart right now, we are experiencing something globally.

And so they invited Dua Lipa and BTS and Andrea Bocelli and just artists from Billie Eilish all over the world and all these different places. People were doing really, really intimate performances and speaking to what was happening in the places that they were.

And it was a really powerful hour and some of that came together very quickly and had a real sort of late night spirit, but it was just, I think, spoke to the moment in I thought quite the thoughtful way.

And then we got to do shows also from there, but I think it's trying, it's hard to do anything in a vacuum. I think, I think we're all in this place where hopefully I mean, we're just coming out of it. Like I, last month was the first month that I had really gotten to spend any significant time out of my house.

And and it's, you know, it's a sea change to get back out into the world. And you know, the show moves faster in getting out of the garage and finding a way to get back into the studio.

But in order to do that, they had to create essentially a new version of their studio. They're still in 56, studio 56, but they retrofitted it so that there was enough space for cameras and social distancing.

We weren't going to have an audience for any of those shows. So they. took some of the audience seating out so that they could have more room for producers if they were needed to be in the studio or grips or anybody on the production side and also the camera ops but still felt closer to what we were doing before the pandemic.

I mean, just an immense amount of credit to uh, the producers and staff for staying safe and keeping exposures to the absolute bare minimum. And being able to continue doing shows without a break essentially because everyone really valued their colleagues and working and wanting to continue doing shows and, so they just were very, very smart about it. About this last nine months really of doing, of being in the studio and and being careful.

And so that has allowed them to continue doing more and more things which, you know, that includes having guests in the studio now when they can. It's being really comfortable being on zoom, but still from the studio and having guests zoom in.

They've been able to do some pretty big comedy pieces with talent. Prince Harry, which is this incredible piece of video that they were able to do and safely earlier this year which again, like I just get to watch it like everybody else. I had nothing to do with that one except just stare at amazement at the like relationships that Ben and Robin and this group have built with someone like Prince Harry to trust them enough to do this really fun, funny and thoughtful piece.

That was great. And same thing with like Meghan Stallion to the big Santa Claus piece with us. We've had just a pretty consistent group of people that want to do remotes and want to come back. And the more people that got vaccinated, the more people that want to come into the studio.

And you know, that included me also like getting a chance to go back into the studio was like just an absolute joy for me.

Ling Yah: So you go back into the studio on 4th of May after 14 months working from home. How'd you end up in the show itself?

Nick Bernstein: I don't know. Don't know.

Um, basically uh, so there was one day and I'm pretty sure that this got cut out of a show, where James just asked Rob, like, where's Nick? Why, why isn't he in here? And I really, I couldn't, I wasn't allowed back. Uh, We were still in a work from home situation, but I was always hoping to go back and, over the course of you know, from March of 2020 through now, we see each other on zoom, so they know what I looked like.

I didn't always look like this. I had much shorter hair when this all started. And James mentioned sort of just off the cuff, like, it'd be funny if like, when he gets here, let's put him by the bar.

And I oftentimes I texted Rob during the show, but the things that I would text are like, you probably can't talk about this product as much as you are, or you can't say this word 20 times, like you got to cut that out.

But at that point, I said to Rob, I said, I just said, like, I'll go wherever you want to go.

This wasn't something I ever wanted. I never wanted to be on television and it wasn't something that was of any interest to me. But I recognize the value of all of these behind the scenes people that I've been watching. That I know, but I've been watching on the show having a blast. Pete, the camera guy, Ian the writer, Hagar and Guillermo and the band. Susan who does audio, like there's this whole group of people who now are characters and it's a blast to watch.

And so if they want another character and they think that I can provide something for them, fine. I go off and I'll do, I'll do whatever you want.

But then like the day before I I started, they just wanted me to not just be behind the bar, but on this really tall chair. I was like, okay, I guess it would look funny. It definitely did look funny.

And then every day they're like, well, let's just keep raising it. So throughout the week, I literally, I wouldn't know what it would look like until I got into the studio, but then I just was on this like huge platform way above the ground, which I'm not even sure it was really that safe. And they just kept on putting me up there and they got a real kick out of it and I didn't fall.

So I guess everything's okay.

And then it really took on a very natural life of its own because I recognize that it's fun to poke fun at the big cheese as they like to say, even though I'm, I am a little cheese.

But they just can ask me all sorts of questions that I often am very, truly uncomfortable answering and sometimes get in trouble for answering.

I like being honest and I don't want to like- I'm not going to say something that isn't true. I just probably don't need to say as much on the air as I have been.

And I definitely wasn't sure what was going to happen after that first week was over, but they just keep having me sitting in like with the rest of the gang.

To the point where like it is now somehow a natural thing for me to get there and get a mic put on my clothes.

And they sit me in a chair with this like giant, real professional light on me. And so I always think the funniest thing is when there's a guest in the studio now, and they walk over to James. If they look out into the audience, I think the only thing they can see is me. Because I've got this giant light on me, but I got this crazy head of hair and they don't know- none of these people know me.

So I don't know what they're possibly thinking when that's happening.

But we're all having fun. So hopefully they are too.

Ling Yah: And how fun was it when they were talking about all the things they shouldn't be like the GAP clothes, the Carnival Cruise. I think everyone is still waiting for updates on those.

Nick Bernstein: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. They are. They are. I mean, hopefully, hopefully sometimes soon I can provide it, but some of this is better done off the air than on the air if we're really going to make something happen.

I was very, very surprised by um, everybody wearing Athleisure wear one day. They brought me into a meeting like five minutes before the show started, which ended up being like a normal meeting or, you know, we, there's a lot of things we have talked about about the show.

And so I'm having this normal meeting and then I go into the studio and they're ready to start. So I'm not really looking around. So I am noticing absolutely nothing.

So when Ian gets up and he's wearing head to toe, athleisure wear and then James gets up and he's also wearing it. And then even looking around, I didn't even notice Reggie's wearing it too.

I just thought like, this is, this is just really funny. This is really funny. I'm- I have nothing. I got nothing right now. And I just hope that uh, no one gets too mad at me, which I think, I've skated along okay. So far.

Ling Yah: I think it skates on that, you know, that danger line, if you will, that you've talked about, because then there was this one episode after where they had that talking to with the big cheeses and you could see everyone was a bit salty.

Nick Bernstein: Yeah. That was a little, that was, yeah. There's a lot of elements of real in the way that these things are playing out on television. Where I think day to day, you know, nothing is planned. That whole segment. I think it's palpable.

No one's planning any of that. So I don't know what James is going to ask me.

I don't know what he's going to want to talk about. Clearly, sometimes I don't even know what he's wearing. And I think we all just do our best to stay in the moment and be a part of it. And I think we go a little bit longer than what ends up airing on TV. And surely I don't think that they would let me or anyone go completely unprotected out there.

But I also think like we're smart enough to know that this will air on television, even if I occasionally forget something like reminding people that I'm married because someone but I, I just didn't expect that someone was going to text one of the writers, CC, and tell them something really flattering about me.

So that just sort of, this is not something that I was built for. I like behind the scenes. I like helping them develop the show and it's my own fault, because like I said, and you just said it, like, I enjoy the danger elements. Those are the parts that are really fun.

So I think I, I have to sort of just like strap in and hold on tight. Hope that everything goes well or at least they accept my apology afterwards.

Ling Yah: So it sounds promising that you will be a somewhat permanent feature then. Cause that's what everyone in YouTube is saying.

Nick Bernstein: Well I don't know. Honestly, like I really have enjoyed the moment and being around everybody and being part of it. And I think that like the enthusiasm that's happening in the studio in part for me certainly is like, it's just so much fun to see everybody again in person like that is very special.

So, I don't know what happens once we go back to sort of a more normal routine. I know that Ben and James and Rob, and I think certainly the a large portion of the audience, definitely YouTube and me, like, we all like how act one plays right now. And so I hope that we are able to continue doing some of this fun loose place. Whether I'm in it or not really doesn't matter. Really it's fine.

But now, you know, now they know that they can throw it at me. I think it's just the thing that's cool is, there's so many people that they can talk to. He has so many people that are fun and quirky and silly and that is pretty rare.

That's not something that necessarily happened in, in any late night show before. So this feels really fun.

Ling Yah: is there anything that we can expect from the show at this point?

Nick Bernstein: I think, I don't think so. I think that we all really do enjoy when the crew gets to be part of the show and how James interacts with them. I think that we'll figure out a way to continue doing something.

But how it looks and how it's different than what it is now, part of the joy of late night, I think is sometimes you just, you find it. You find your way there. You can't plan it too much.

The thing that works, you do that as much as you can and you know, if one day we all get on a cruise together, like all the better.

Ling Yah: And speaking of the joy of late night, for those who are listening, who would love to do what you're doing, what kind of advice do you have?

Nick Bernstein: Uh, I just think entertainment is such a weird space that is unlike other jobs in that it's a little hard to plan for, and it's a little hard to go after something too specific. And part of that is in order to know what you want to do, I think you have to get exposed to a lot of different things. I've heard a lot of people say sometimes the best internship they had was at a place that they didn't like, because they realized that they didn't enjoy that element of the job or the industry.

And so they knew not to go there and sort of that helps them to hone in on what they wanted to do.

I think if people like late night, there's a lot of late night adjacent things. There's not that many late night shows. There's certainly more now than there used to be, but there's not that many, but there's a lot of late-night adjacent things.

And so the more places that are like late night that they can look at that sometimes is YouTube channels. Sometimes it's podcasts. Sometimes it is once the world opens up again, there are uh, sketch comedy performance places like second city and the Groundlings and UCB, and even there's a place called boom Chicago in Amsterdam that a lot of really top level comedians started at, and you kind of have to find your, your people and your place.

And a lot of that is just taking that first step, which is being adventurous enough to try it. And I think the regret you have is when you want it and you don't try it. But if you have the ability and the sort of willingness to recognise like, you might not get that job right away but if you stick around, you will find your friend base, you might have a job that is a day job that allows you to try something a little more creative in your off hours.

And you have enough energy uh, that you get to do both those things, I think that's the way that you start.

And then the more again that you are exposed to different elements of the industry, the more you think like, oh, there's a lot of things that I could do and that I like, and I want to do.

And yeah, maybe it's late night, maybe it's something else. Maybe I really like radio. Maybe I love podcasts. And you know, having a little bit of that sort of entrepreneurial sense also is that kind of helps you to do that because oftentimes in order to, well, again, pre pandemic you had to move to one of these big cities in order to work in this industry.

And just having the confidence to do that. Like that's a big step and you shouldn't dismiss that also as a thing. But you know, give yourself some time and don't expect it right away. It's really hard for that to happen for anyone too soon.

And when you see articles uh, I mean, I used to be like, when I was 25, it was all like Seth McFarland has a deal with Fox to make, you know, Family Guy and build an empire and I'm like, he's only 25 and he got that done. That's crazy.

And I was like, well, yeah, it's crazy. And the reason we write so much about it is, it's so rare for someone that young to have that opportunity. So you gotta put in your time a little bit in order to sort of get to the places that you want.

Ling Yah: And since you becoming such a fixture on the show, what kind of common misconception would you like to clear that people might have of you.

Nick Bernstein: I think, I don't know if I don't, I'm actually not sure what the common misconceptions of me might be, I think.

Ling Yah: Or just something that you wish people knew about you.

Nick Bernstein: All right. I guess if there's anything, if there's people that are watching the show and they see me and think that I look miserable, I am not miserable.

I'm really, I probably never loved working at a place more than I love working at CBS with the late, late show and Matt Grove. They're like some of my greatest colleagues that I've gotten a chance to work with. And a lot of this is in jest and fun and they enjoy watching me squirm, but in a, the most loving way, like you would with your family.

And so I think that's probably the best takeaway that like as much fun as it looks, it really is that fun. Like this is a really good group that I think values themselves, values each other even more now than they did before because of how hard we've had to work to stay together this way.

Ling Yah: Well, thank you so much, Nick, for so much time you've spent here. I normally like to wrap up all of my interviews with these questions. So the first one is this, do you feel that you have found your why?

Nick Bernstein: Yes, but I will just say, I think there's more than one why. And so I'd hate to think that I'm done finding it.

Ling Yah: And what kind of legacy would you like to leave behind?

Nick Bernstein: The thing that I think is my biggest legacy is probably camp once again, and like helping younger kids get a chance to experience this and expose themselves to comedy and performance and creating something that they thought of on their own. That they think is funny and helping them sort of execute that.

And I think that teaching is the best legacy you could possibly leave.

Ling Yah: And what do you think are the most important qualities of a successful person?

Nick Bernstein: I think the most successful people that I admire the most are great listeners. They are hard workers. They have an incredible level of commitment. And I guess in addition to just listening to others, they are willing to seek help when they need it. Say that they don't know when they really don't know an answer and take advice or even at the very least listen to advice and acknowledge other people around them.

I do think that like those are the leaders that you want to, follow for forever.

Ling Yah: I think you tend to write hundreds of cards as well to everybody, right?

Nick Bernstein: I do. I love it. I love, I love writing letters. I think I think it's an art form that I just hope it doesn't get lost. It's something that's tangible, I think is still really nice to have.

Ling Yah: And where can people go to connect with you, find out what you're doing and the Late Late Show as well?

Nick Bernstein: Um, I mean, if I'm going to promote anything, it's just that you should watch the late, late show as often as you can. However you do it, whether it's on paramount plus as a streaming network, whether it's on YouTube, whether it's on CBS proper and the Late Late Show on Twitter and Tik Tok and Instagram, which is all basically the Late Late show. They're really fun.

Uh, And if you, uh, if you really want to talk to me online, I am at Bernstein Nick, and occasionally I tweet.

Ling Yah: They don't need to look for your LinkedIn.

Nick Bernstein: You can always find me there. The great email that I got from you, which I really appreciated was, well, you said if you're saying yes to everything, not a bad way to go every once in awhile.

Ling Yah: And that was the end of part two of episode 51.

The show notes and transcript can be found at www.sothisismywhy.com/51-2.

And if you could spare a moment, I'd love it if you could leave a review of this show on any of the platforms that you listen to your podcasts on.

And stay tuned for next Sunday. Because we'll be meeting a former trading and securities lawyer turned founder of one of the top equity crowdfunding platforms in the States on his path to making private investing accessible to all, such that anyone can invest in the next potential Uber or Airbnb for as little as $10.

Want to hear more? See you next Sunday.