On the evening of June 1, Jimmy Fallon sat behind a well-worn table in a corner of the Sagaponack, N.Y., farmhouse that has become the substitute studio of “The Tonight Show.”The atmosphere was palpably tense for this typically lighthearted late-night comedy program; Fallon was wearing a sweater and clasping his hands together as he looked into the camera lens of an iPhone held by his wife, Nancy Juvonen. Though nothing has been normal lately, he told his audience, “I’m not going to have a normal show tonight.”In a sometimes quavering voice, Fallon said he was sorry for wearing blackface in an old “Saturday Night Live” sketch that had recently been recirculating online. He did not specifically mention the death of George Floyd — that would come later in the program, in conversations with Derrick Johnson, the president and chief executive of the N.A.A.C.P., the CNN anchor Don Lemon and the anti-racism educator Jane Elliott. But Fallon broadly acknowledged the days of civil unrest still transpiring and the “senseless violence that erupts and disrupts the entire country and now the world.”He also said he had been scrutinizing himself, trying to understand what he could do better and how he could use his voice to help break the cycle of anger, sadness and fear.

Source: New York Times June 11, 2020 14:48 UTC