Seth Meyers recalls awkward “Saturday Night Live” elevator ride with Robert De Niro: 'Just a long, slow elevator'

Live from New York, it’s… one very awkward elevator ride between Seth Meyers and Robert De Niro. 

During Monday’s episode of Late Night, the talk show host, 51, revealed he once found himself taking a long and painfully quiet elevator with the two-time Oscar winner, 81, during his first year at Saturday Night Live. 

“I remember the first time [De Niro] hosted SNL and had a wonderful time with him. It was, I think, my first year on the show, and I got in an elevator — sort of ran to catch an elevator — not realizing he was the only other person in the elevator,” Meyers explained to guest Graham Norton. “That was not, uh, as exciting as that seemed, because he’s so comfortable being quiet.”

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To his credit, Meyers noted that De Niro did at least try engage some elevator pleasantries. “We’re on the 17th floor and it’s just a long, slow elevator,” he continued. “And at one point he goes, ‘Did you write that sketch?’ And I was like, ‘I did.’ He goes, ‘Pretty good.’ And then just [silence].” 

It's safe to say Meyers was relieved when the elevator doors finally opened and he could make his escape. “When I got off, I’m like, ‘That’s either the best or worst thing that ever happened to me,’” Meyers remarked. “I’ll go with best.”

De Niro hosted SNL for the first time in December 2002, a little over a year after Meyers joined the sketch comedy show's cast in 2001. The Irishman actor has hosted the show two times since in 2004 and 2010, respectively.

Norton, who helms his own eponymous BBC One chat show, could sympathize with Meyers’ elevator plight. “I really like Robert De Niro, but he’s not that chatty,” he said earlier in their interview. “He’s been on a number of times and I’ve discovered, as you know, that he’s a benign presence. It’s not like he’s having a horrible time, he’s having a nice time, he just doesn’t like to talk very much.”

Norton then recalled an incident that he said occurred “about the fourth time” that De Niro visited his show. “He was having such a nice time, he started to tell an anecdote,” he said. “And we were like, ‘Oh my God, Robert De Niro’s telling an anecdote!’”

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However, Norton noted that it soon became “clear” why De Niro prefers to keep mum. “It was properly like one of those old [ladies] going, ‘And it was on a Wednesday. No, I tell a lie. It was a Thursday. No, it would have been a Wednesday because I took the bins out the night before,’” Norton recalled as Meyers laughed. “It was going on for some time and then, bless him, he could tell that, ‘Oh, this is spaghetti in my head,’ and then he looked at me and went, ‘Why am I telling this?’”

Meyers quipped back, “He’s like, ‘I just came here to have a nice time.’”

The story did not make the broadcast. “We cut it out,” Norton added, to which Meyers replied, “That’s very kind.”

Watch Meyers and Norton trade De Niro stories in the clip above.

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