Jimmy Fallon: I Wasn’t Prepared For The Hate… It Was Brutal. I Was Starving, Living on $7.25!

Jimmy Fallon (0:00)

I was just breaking down mentally of like, what have I done? I don't know what else to do with my life, and I think I wrote a letter to my best friend, like, I'm losing it, dude.

Steven Bartlett (0:10)

What did it say?

Jimmy Fallon (0:12)

It's a deep one.

SPEAKER_3 (0:13)

Jesus.

Steven Bartlett (0:19)

Jimmy, I was reading through your business portfolio, and it's extremely extensive. You founded a production company, a ride, shoes. You got the ice cream, the tonight dough. But the through line here is about making people happy.

Jimmy Fallon (0:30)

I've always wanted to please people since I was a kid.

Steven Bartlett (0:32)

And in your eighth grade class, you were voted most likely to replace David Letterman on The Late Night Show.

Jimmy Fallon (0:36)

Is that crazy? Because I ended up doing that.

Steven Bartlett (0:38)

Well, it does feel like you pulled that into existence somehow.

Jimmy Fallon (0:41)

Well, I was beyond obsessed. I wanted to be on Saturday Night Live, so I worked at the improv, where I think the paycheck was $7.25.

We didn't really eat much. Like, I would turn cardboard boxes on the street into tables. It's tough. It's a lot of rejection. But the stage time was priceless.

Steven Bartlett (0:57)

And eventually, you got a phone call.

Jimmy Fallon (0:59)

I got an audition for Saturday Night Live. This was my big opportunity. I remember going on stage. I did my first impression, and I blew it. That was probably my lowest moment. It was very depressing.

Steven Bartlett (1:10)

You'd said that if you didn't make it on SNL before the age of 25...

Jimmy Fallon (1:14)

I was gonna kill myself.

Steven Bartlett (1:15)

Did you mean that?

Jimmy Fallon (1:17)

Yeah, but I just knew that I would be on SNL. It was going to happen. Against all odds, I did it.

Steven Bartlett (1:22)

How old were you?

Jimmy Fallon (1:23)

23

Steven Bartlett (1:24)

So crazy. Jimmy, I found some photos. Can you tell me about this one?

Jimmy Fallon (1:29)

Oh my God.

Steven Bartlett (1:41)

What do I need to know about you to understand the man that you are? And when I asked that question, I'm specifically trying to understand your earliest context because you're in many respects an anomaly, but you're an anomaly that was very, very clear on where you wanted to go in your life from a shockingly young age. So I'm wondering what gave you such clarity and what the context was that made you the unique way that you are.

Jimmy Fallon (2:08)

Gosh, that's a great question. That's going to be the whole show right here, because I want to find out.

Maybe entertaining or being funny is probably, or wanting to satisfy people. I think wanting to please people. I've always wanted to please people since I was a kid. I don't know if it was my parents or my grandparents, or I wanted to make people feel good and give everyone. If I'm at a party, I want to make sure it's the, it's the best party, and I'm giving everything. I want to make sure it's so pleasing or appeasing, one of those words. But I think I've always wanted to do that. And that's kind of what I do now.

Steven Bartlett (2:53)

Do you have like an earliest memory of that behavior?

Jimmy Fallon (2:57)

I think wanting to do good in like, I don't know, at sports maybe, or in grade school, or I remember I was an ultra boy.

You know, so I was, at one point in my life I wanted to be a priest. Yeah, which I thought, I think I'd be a pretty good priest. I think it would be funny, you know. I could have good delivery, you know. Someone said to me once, they said, maybe you've got your first taste of wanting to be an entertainer from being an ultra boy because you're up on stage kind of, technically, and there's an audience, and you're up kind of performing. I mean, walking around and you're wearing an outfit kind of, you know, wearing costume and, you know, so it's kind of theater in a weird way. But I remember just kind of wanting to do good for like, be like, make my parents proud or my grandparents proud or there was a kind of, I mean, it all happened so fast that I don't have problems with it or go back to it and go like, that was traumatic. You know, I just think that I was always like a people pleaser.

Steven Bartlett (4:08)

Your parents were very strict.