THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 56 AUGUST 21, 2019
WOJCICKI: TAYLOR HILL/FILMMAGIC FOR YOUTUBE.UNICORN: COURTESY OF MILLS ENTERTAINMENT. JOHNSON: @LILLY/INSTAGRAM.better to create sketches that go
viral than a star who grew up on
the internet? “We felt like she had
the kind of voice that we could
build a show around,” says Cheeks.
“We weren’t even sure whether
she’d be interested, but the
moment we sat down, it became
clear her talent transcends what-
ever platform she’s on.”
Singh initially wasn’t inter-
ested. She was already burned
out by her existing workload, and
through her production shingle,
she was starting to line up proj-
ects with producers like Barris
and Paul Feig that, if they moved
forward, would offer the oppor-
tunity to do more acting. “The
doubt wasn’t whether this was
exciting for me, it was whether
this was a puzzle piece that would
fit well in my existing life,” she
says. But after NBC came back to
her, she sought the advice of pal
Johnson (“You can create your
own path,” he counseled) and
Hasan Minhaj, who in the midst
of prepping his own Netflix talk
show, Patriot Act, told her that
late night would only raise her
profile, not pigeonhole her. “Don’t
think of it as a stepping stone,”
he recalls telling her. “If it works,
great, but if it doesn’t you still
have millions around the world
you can communicate with.”
In the end, her negotiations
with NBC boiled down to her
desire to give late night her all
while also continuing to make
videos for YouTube and pursue
other off-network opportunities.
NBC ultimately agreed to retain
only talk-show exclusivity and
to let her block-shoot the 96-epi-
sode first season during the fall,
which would free her to focus
on other projects the rest of the
year. Singh’s personal YouTube
presence, meanwhile, is seen by
the network as a valuable market-
ing tool to help build an audience
for A Little Late. “I didn’t want to
sign up for it and then be like, ‘I
can only make a little time for
it,’ ” she says. “I’m very much all or
nothing.” So she went all in.
On March 14, Singh flew to New
York t o a n nou nc e A Little Late
on The Tonight Show alongside
new network colleague Jimmy
Fallon. “Your girl is getting her
own NBC late night show — and
to clarify, it’s not Jimmy’s slot,”
she joked with Fallon before Late
Night’s Seth Meyers turned up
and surprised her onstage with
champagne. She’s been texting
Fallon ever since and has found
other comedians equally welcom-
ing. Amy Schumer offered writer
suggestions and, when Singh ran
into Trevor Noah at the Met Gala
this spring, he gave her tips on
how to survive her first year.
In the meantime, there have
been hundreds of decisions to
make. Does she want a desk? “Yes.
It’s actually a very functional
thing,” she explains. “You can
store things behind it and you feel
more comfortable because you
don’t have to sit pretty.” Will she
do a monologue? Absolutely. In
fact, she has to write 25 of them
before she even begins shoot-
ing in early September. There
also will be preproduced comedy
sketches and interviews.
One of the biggest decisions, of
course, has been assembling her
team of writers, a particularly
daunting task for somebody who
has spent years scripting and
delivering her own lines from
her living room. In addition to
exec producers Irwin and Polly
Auritt, the head of development at
Singh’s shingle, she has appointedprove lucrative. Already, NBC has
received interest from brands
that want to be in business with
Singh, and Starbucks has signed
on as an official launch partner.
While the block shooting sched-
ule — two episodes a day in front
of a studio audience for three
months — means that A Little
Late’s four episodes a week run
the risk of feeling stale in an era
when the news cycle operates at
the speed of a presidential tweet,
the hope is that a show focused
more on comedy than current
affairs will be a refreshing break.
“There’s a million places to get
that information,” says Irwin.
“Our goal is to do half an hour of
comedy. We’re going to stay away
from politics. Her stuff is going to
be a little more personal, a little
more based in her experiences.”BACK IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM
in Hollywood — which Singh has
made just a smidge less drab by
hanging framed prints of cheesy-
cheery sayings (“Stop tweeting
boring shit,” and, “Nothing good
comes from hitting Reply All”)
— her pitch meeting with the
writers is winding down. She
has more ideas she’d like to dis-
cuss, but she’s also got segment
producers to interview and set
designs to look over.
The whole process of starting
a new talk show has forced her to
think a lot about the version of
herself that she wants to put out
in the world. And even though
there are millions of people who
already feel like they know her,
she hopes that when she walks
out onstage Sept. 16, they’ll meet
someone new, too. “When I cre-
ated my YouTube channel, I was,
like, call me Superwoman,” Singh
says just a few days before she’ll
change her social media handles
to her first name (her YouTube
channel remains unchanged).
“More and more, I would like to
call myself Lilly.”“We will be totally fine if the
audience discovers A Little Late
on YouTube versus NBC.”
NBC’S GEORGE CHEEKSlongtime reality producer Aliyah
Silverstein (The Writers’ Room,
Hollywood Game Night) as her
showrunner. The rest of the room
is made up of veterans of The
Late Late Show With James Corden,
Kroll Show, Alternatino and The
Tonight Show. “I want them to feel
comfortable bringing their point
of view because that’s why they’re
in the room,” she says of the half-
female, predominantly diverse
team. She’s also learning the not-
so-subtle art of encouragement;
she brings a money gun filled
with fake $100 bills and sprays
the room whenever she hears a
joke she likes.
Not at all surprisingly, Singh’s
been hands-on when it comes
to her show’s social strategy,
including the upcoming launch of
its YouTube channel, where clips
from the previous night’s epi-
sode will live alongside web-only
sketches. “I think of the show as
launching at 1:30 and then it has
a life for the next 24 hours,” she
explains. NBC — which is plan-
ning a primetime special to boost
awareness for the show following
the Sept. 18 finale of America’s
Got Talent — is cool with that
plan: “We will be totally fine if
the audience discovers A Little
Late on YouTube versus NBC,”
says Cheeks. Digital ads may still
get pennies compared with TV
dollars, but the opportunity to
sell deeper sponsorships couldLeft: Singh with YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki in New York in 2015. Center: A promotional image for Singh’s 2015 world tour, A Trip to
Unicorn Island, which hit 27 cities. Right: Singh has starred in multiple YouTube videos alongside childhood idol Dwayne Johnson.