Last weekend, Pete Davidson went to a Pennsylvania amusement park with Nicholas Hoult. They were in the area to film an action thriller movie called How to Rob a Bank. Pete was back in New York last week, though. On Wednesday, he appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers to promote his new movie, The Pickup, a heist/action comedy co-starring Eddie Murphy and Keke Palmer. While chatting with Seth, they talked about how he feels about becoming a father, what it was like working with Eddie, and, of course, about Saturday Night Live. As they were talking about SNL50, Seth asked Pete, who did both a live sketch and a pre-taped sketch, which one was worse in terms of seeing the live audience’s reactions. Pete’s response? The audience was terrible in general because it was made up of famous people who “only like themselves.”

“Saturday Night Live’s” 50th anniversary special in February may have been attended by everyone from Robert De Niro to Kim Kardashian, but according to “SNL” alum Pete Davidson, the audience inside the room was “terrible.”

In an appearance on “Late Night With Seth Meyers” on Wednesday, Davidson — who stars in the new comedy “The Pickup” with Eddie Murphy — revealed that there weren’t as many laughs during the live show as one would expect.

“Well, as you know from ‘SNL40,’ terrible audience,” Davidson told Meyers. “It’s a terrible audience. It’s just famous people, and famous people only like themselves.”

However, Davidson admitted that he’s “guilty of this” as well, with Meyers joking: “I remember when the pre-tape was playing, you were the only one laughing. We were like, ‘Oh, he’s coming in way too hot.’”

For the special, Davidson reprised his famous Chad character in a pre-taped sketch with original cast member Laraine Newman. “It’s my one character that I got to do. In eight years of ‘SNL,’ I had one character,” Davidson said with a laugh. “But it’s not a very flattering character. Everyone was so excited to see Laraine, and then I just have my shirt off.”

Despite the lack of enthusiasm, Davidson admitted that the audience wasn’t all bad — he even got to sit next to Meryl Streep.

“Meryl rules,” Davidson said of the Oscar winner. “I get to my seat and I just look and I’m like, ‘This can’t be right.’ And it was Meryl Streep and I just sat down and I was like, ‘I’m so sorry that I’m sitting next to you. You’re the best.’ And she was very nice.”

[From Variety]

LMAO, I love that he took the time to praise Meryl for being amazing but then totally dropped pretense and roasted the famous people in the audience. I’m sure that there was plenty of audience participation but there were likely just as many people on their phones or just not paying attention once the cameras weren’t on the audience. Seth did a great job of helping Pete play it off and then moving the subject over to the pretaped sketch he did with Loraine Newman. Pete talked about the origins of his Chad character, which is the one who always deadpans, ”Okay. Cool.” to every question. It was written as a joke about him! For years, that would be the response that he’d give anyone who gave him any notes, which inspired Mikey Day and Streeter Seidell to write it into a character. Pete is such a good sport.

Seth also asked Pete about the decommissioned Staten Island ferry that he and Colin Jost bought in 2022. As of right now, only one out of four floors has been renovated and it’s being rented out to host small events. I’m glad he did because there have been rumors over the last year that Pete and Colin had a falling out over it. It sounds like it definitely was a bigger project than they thought they were taking on. I wonder how long it’ll be before they completely cut their losses and sell it.

Here’s Pete’s full interview with Seth:

Photos credit: Faye’s Vision/Cover Images, Todd Williamson/January Images/BACKGRID