Lorne Michaels has tapped Late Night veteran Amy Ozols to lead the upcoming Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, NBC announced Tuesday.
Ozols has been a writer for Fallon’s Late Night since the show’s inception in 2009. She has written and produced many of the show’s popular parodies, including those on the Real Housewives, Glee and the epic Game of Thrones parody "Game of Desks." She also penned Fallon’s opening from the 2010 Emmy Awards.
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“Amy Ozols has been with Jimmy since the very beginning of Late Night. She is brilliant. I think she is the right choice to lead The Tonight Show into the future,” Michaels said in a statement.
Added Fallon: “It’s been so fun working with Amy these past four years — she's been a standout writer and producer since we started Late Night. She puts so much thought and care into everything she does, and we share the same vision about making the best television that we can produce. I know she'll put that same intelligence, cleverness and care into The Tonight Show. This is exciting.”
Like he has on Late Night, Michaels will serve as executive producer of The Tonight Show when it moves to New York in 2014. The program will keep its band, The Roots, and also remain in Studio 6B at 30 Rockefeller Center. But the space will get a $5 million renovation after plans for a $25 million studio that would have combined 6B and 8A were scrapped. Nevertheless, the refurbished Studio 6B will have capacity for at least 200, up from Late Night's 189. And that will allow Tonight to take advantage of a state tax credit that could potentially save the show $20 million.
Fallon will take over The Tonight Show from Jay Leno next spring. Ozols is a graduate of Harvard, where she wrote for The Lampoon. She also continues to pen essays for The New Yorker's "Shouts & Murmurs" humor column.
