SNL History w/ Jason Reitman

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Speaker 1 Jason Reitman, Dana, jason rightman who is a uh i would say a friend of mine and uh smart guy a director writer uh

Speaker 1 just did this snl movie which sort of fell in our lap because it's right up our alley what do you mean by that i don't understand well you used to be on snl and

Speaker 3 1947 no yeah it was so we got a advanced copy of the movie or i was so we could watch it at home because we were running around and um it was very very interesting having been in 8H for seven years.

Speaker 3 And they made a set that looked like I thought they were filming in 8H.

Speaker 1 Yeah, me too.

Speaker 2 It was so accurate.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he did a great job with that staircases, the actually hallway, the page desk, that whole thing. And then when we went back to the show, or I did recently, I just saw that again.

Speaker 1 I was like, God, it was exactly right.

Speaker 1 He's done some great stuff. That movie is very interesting, worth the watch.
And then he's done Ghostbusters,

Speaker 1 Juno, which was a smash, up in the air with George Clooney. I think maybe Andy Kendrick.

Speaker 1 And so he's just high quality. I worked on something with him once, or at least we talked about something and love to get involved with this guy.
He's just a smart, good guy to hit your wagon to.

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 3 you know, it was interesting because of all his resume and all the stuff he's done.

Speaker 3 He's very successful, but just never lost his fascination for this live, wacky, crazy idea of a TV show that Lauren Michaels invented, basically, you know, going on live at 11:30, under-rehearsed, under everything.

Speaker 3 You know, like Lauren's famous quote: the show does not go on because it's ready, it's because it's 11:30.

Speaker 3 So, Jason has a fascination with it, and he tried to capture the spirit of that first show, the crazy, chaotic spirit. And so, we talk all about that.
We break it down, David.

Speaker 1 We break it into little microscopic pieces. So, here he is, Jason Jason Reitman

Speaker 1 David are you still around the corner from me no I actually moved from that mansion to another one oh

Speaker 2 okay

Speaker 1 no you live in the nice area and I

Speaker 1 listen I've hit the skids I was gonna email you about this

Speaker 1 oh I'm sorry yeah I moved about a mile away it's not great okay it's not like

Speaker 9 you should you should crowdsource something

Speaker 9 I think people would spend money on seeing you in a nice place.

Speaker 1 See, Dana doesn't care.

Speaker 6 It's David's world.

Speaker 10 We just live in it.

Speaker 11 I'll just say it.

Speaker 6 I know it's a hackney cliche. So how are you today, Jason?

Speaker 6 Here's the most trite thing I could say to you. Are you looking forward to the holidays?

Speaker 9 Are you? Actually, I mean,

Speaker 9 I'm in that place where the movie's out and there's nothing left to do with it. And now I have to think of something else to do.

Speaker 6 Okay, the good news is I saw it last night. I was mesmerized by it.
I thought, oh, thank God, I love it.

Speaker 9 By the way, this is the scariest fucking podcast I could go on because I haven't done anything yet with two SNLers. I'm on with two legends, two real deal who know the fucking show.
So I'm

Speaker 9 I'm not trying to shine you on. I'm genuinely intimidated by this.

Speaker 6 No, I've never seen a movie like this where I was so,

Speaker 6 you know, it was so familiar and I got goosebumps at times. I was got emotional at times.

Speaker 6 So I was realizing that David and I are in a different lane. We're experientially,

Speaker 6 it's so familiar, it's different, but it's, and you really captured it, though, the chaos of it. It still is just chaotic as fuck.

Speaker 9 So here's the common thing that I keep on hearing back from

Speaker 9 anyone who worked at SNL. I mean, crew cast anything.

Speaker 9 The stairwell, the stairwell between the eighth and ninth floor.

Speaker 9 And we literally, we got that down to like the exact details, like the handrail, everything,

Speaker 9 where anyone who's ever worked there has smoked in there, cried in there, broken up with their boyfriend in there,

Speaker 9 because there's no privacy at SNL. And every time there's a character would walk in the stairwell, they said they would fuck him up.

Speaker 6 There's a co-ed bathroom now,

Speaker 6 you know,

Speaker 6 and it's just one one small bathroom for everybody, and it's down the hall. Yeah, you so you have to.

Speaker 1 Where is it down by Lauren's office?

Speaker 6 No, the other way, it's on 8H, but just around the corner. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6 But yeah, your point, yeah, there's no real privacy, and um, sometimes in the stairwell, you'll see a writer that you've been wanting to see for a sec, and then you'll have a little powwow right there in the stairwell.

Speaker 6 Some writing happens there as well. Was that in the movie, Jason?

Speaker 15 Oh, no.

Speaker 1 You know what, Jason? I will tell you, just to bore everyone, on 8H, when you go down toward the elevators, you can take a left and there's a men's room, but it's bigger. You know, it's got a couple.

Speaker 1 I would go into the stall, close it in my suit or whatever for weekend update and just go over it, go over it during the commercial and then run back.

Speaker 1 Because I had to get one minute of silence because everyone's grabbing you and there's noise and there's music and there's crowds and there's other casts. So you go, I just have to focus.

Speaker 1 You don't want to get out there and look at the cards and go, oh my god i don't know this as well as i thought i did or something you know same thing with sketches so you go over there and cram and then come out and go okay more distractions but they they do i do the same thing while i'm directing you need a side

Speaker 9 yeah because if you're a director everyone is reaching out to you at any given moment and they everyone has a question they're looking at you and they're always trying to measure whether this is a time to ask you a question and they can't do that when you're in the bathroom so

Speaker 9 I

Speaker 9 use my few bathroom breaks during the day as the moment to like, I pull out the sides and I go, what the hell am I making it?

Speaker 2 And you forget to go to the bathroom because I go, wait, wait, why did I come in here?

Speaker 1 I just came in to study.

Speaker 1 But I will say,

Speaker 10 go ahead, Dave.

Speaker 15 Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 6 Well, just that Lorne Michaels in the movie and in real life is just, yeah, he's that person you want to get a moment with.

Speaker 6 And so when Kamala Harris was on the sound stage, which was such an intense thing with all the Secret Service and all the energy around that moment a couple of weeks ago,

Speaker 6 they ran it and everyone was so, there was a tension because Secret Service and Armymen were there, you know, flak jacket, helmet, and nine gospels with machine guns.

Speaker 6 And I came out of the makeup room on eight and I saw them lined up, like six or eight on both sides, holding machine guns. I said, Can I go? Yeah, you can go.
And I'm in the Biden outfit.

Speaker 6 And I literally saluted them.

Speaker 6 Not as a joke. It was just like kind of nervous energy.

Speaker 6 But we just thought, a cast member, I thought, well, we should kind of laugh a little bit while they rehearse this because everyone was dead quiet because it got laughs, you know. And I said to him,

Speaker 6 I don't know if we should ask Lauren. I'm going to ask him.
But Lauren was so deep into the whole thing, he didn't want to hear any notes at that moment. Right.

Speaker 6 Because he had a lot, a lot of stuff to think about. That was an intense night.
So you really, I think you did a really good job capturing Lauren's obsession with the show, you know, basically.

Speaker 7 Especially then.

Speaker 10 Yeah.

Speaker 6 But still now.

Speaker 1 And not knowing what it was. And not, you know,

Speaker 1 I thought, you know, you could have, I had no idea what to expect.

Speaker 1 And there's not a lot of just like set shot. It really moves, which is an understatement.
There's tons of throwaway lines and there's laughs all the way through, but they're so run over.

Speaker 1 You got to pay attention. And there's just, it's just all movement.
There's no like real static, not that many static shots.

Speaker 1 I did love Willem Defoe and Lauren in an elevator, just a side, just a side two shot.

Speaker 1 I like that sometimes when directors don't

Speaker 1 not waste time, but go in for like this shot. That's just so typical over, over, close up, close up, close up, back and forth.
I like things playing like you have to just pay attention because that's.

Speaker 1 You're like really watching people talk and you can understand it. You don't need to be close up with them, close up with them.
So that I liked. And I liked

Speaker 1 just seeing every cast member played and who's playing them and sort of forgetting it and just thinking it's the real Chevy. It's the real

Speaker 1 everybody. Very cool, though.
Very cool.

Speaker 11 Thanks.

Speaker 1 I didn't know 90% of that. You know, that first show, it all takes place if people don't know.
What is it? The hour and a half before the show.

Speaker 9 How obsessed were you both with SNL before you auditioned?

Speaker 1 Finally, a question for us. Thank you.

Speaker 6 When I look at it now, like I met Lauren in in 86. So he'd done five years, he had his sabbatical and came back.

Speaker 6 But it still seemed like it was 100 years in my mind because of my college years watching the original Saturday Night Live. And so it was still like this monumental thing to actually try to get on.

Speaker 6 And I auditioned. A couple of times.
I auditioned once at the comedy store, a cattle call with comedians doing five minutes with no MC. And I followed Sam Kennison

Speaker 6 at midnight in Kennison Kennison Prime. I

Speaker 6 died a thousand deaths. Wasn't that special? What I was going to see as a director, you must, you know, it's very, it's difficult, but you landed it.

Speaker 6 You're doing actors or comic actors improvising, throwaway, doing comedy for film, you know, there's that to try to get it integrated so it feels really poppy. But there were some.

Speaker 6 some ones that I really noticed that just like felt real, felt spontaneous. That was all just the you yelling at them or just one camera.

Speaker 9 I'll tell you how we made it

Speaker 9 and how we even got into this in the first place. You know,

Speaker 9 I look, I, I, I grew up obsessed with SNL and I also grew up around some of those actors because my dad was obviously directing some of them.

Speaker 9 And, but when I was a kid and I would watch it, every once in a while, there would be these bumpers where you would see the crew for a second. A sketch would end, the camera would pull back.
And

Speaker 9 sometimes

Speaker 9 you would even hear the director from the control control room and it would be like, you know, this actor go here, this actor, go here. And you'd see the crew and you'd see them moving a set.

Speaker 9 And the moment that happened, I went, I want to know who the fuck those people are. Like, I want to, how is this thing being made?

Speaker 9 Because I was obsessed with the concept that on Tuesday, you start with nothing and by Saturday, you have a finished show. And

Speaker 9 right after I directed Juno,

Speaker 9 My agent asked me, what do you want to do next? And I told him, I said, look, I had two dreams as a kid.

Speaker 9 One was to direct movies and the other was to be a writer for Saturday Night Live.

Speaker 9 And I said, you asked Lauren if there's any chance he'd let me come and write, even for like a week. And Lauren was really kind and he said, yeah, yeah, you can come to Space Camp.

Speaker 9 And so I went, I spent one week there. And it was one of the greatest weeks of my life.
And I think it was coming off of that. I thought, all right,

Speaker 9 I want to make a movie. It's not.
It's not as much like a celebration of the comedy, but like a celebration of how this show is actually made and the fact that it came so close to not ever existing.

Speaker 6 Yeah. Yes.
It is. I'm doing it now just sort of a guest, I suppose, doing Biden and stuff.
And yeah, you just, you still, you can't prepare for it.

Speaker 6 You go, I'm going to do a lot of stand-up or whatever. You can't really prepare for it because.
It's changing every second. They throw you out there.
You're kind of like, there's the cards.

Speaker 6 You're trying to be loose, trying not to push, trying to land it. So it's,

Speaker 6 it's, it's emotional, it's intense. It's just still really intense.

Speaker 9 Well, I mean, that's actually, I was really curious because when I was, when I've been watching you do this recently, I go, I wonder if you feel like you're falling back into how comfortable you were back in the day.

Speaker 9 Does it feel like day one for you? Or does it even feel further out of reach?

Speaker 9 Because it's something you used to feel comfortable doing and now you have to jump, jump right in with a new cast, new set of writers?

Speaker 6 That's, that's a good question. I'm actually podcasting on my side.
I'm on your podcast, Nova.

Speaker 6 That I'm, I'm, it, if, to me, it's always solving the puzzle in the moment. If it's my character, like, what is the musicality or rhythms I have to hit? What are the chops? What are the, and, um,

Speaker 6 the first time I went out there, it felt familiar, but it still was

Speaker 6 right as you're about to, they're going to push you out, you're going to enter a scene. There still is, okay, I'm not on camera to 10 million people.
I'll be on it in a second.

Speaker 10 Right.

Speaker 6 I've got this little moment. Don't push, have fun.
So I fell into it

Speaker 6 pretty quickly, but I still have,

Speaker 6 I'm not completely where I was when I stepped off in 93. That was another level because you're doing four or five sketches a show.
You know, it's hard to target.

Speaker 2 Did you ever get to the point where?

Speaker 9 Oh, I can't even imagine. Like, you have to go an hour waiting for your one month.

Speaker 2 A week, you know,

Speaker 1 Dana's waiting. Like, if you come back to host, it's the opposite.
You're in. I think the first time I hosted, I was in 13.

Speaker 1 i've never been in more than three sketches i think when i was on the show or maybe four but that's awesome dana was always packed in a lot but i was sort of used sparingly and so 13 overwhelmed me and now dana's waiting for one so all week you and it's maybe one paragraph you go jesus i got a nail there's no second take if that show i always say if it had second takes it would be so much better because

Speaker 1 if if you could just pick from one of these sometimes you walk into a sketch and you're like like on a scene in a movie sometimes you go you know what can i come in again you know i just

Speaker 1 right space. I came in a little early.
Let me, and on those, you just go in and go, oh, fuck, it's not going right. And we just, this is the one.

Speaker 9 Let me ask you. So, would you rather

Speaker 9 kill a rehearsal, a kill at dress, and know, oh my God, somehow I have to replicate how well that worked. I don't know exactly why the magic happened.

Speaker 9 Or would you rather hit it at like 70% at dress and go, oh, I know exactly how to take it to 100 now?

Speaker 6 Definitely the second one. 70%.

Speaker 6 It's a horrible feeling when it goes just perfect at dress because you know, it's never going to be that good again.

Speaker 1 It's more than horrible. It's sickening.

Speaker 1 Also, you want to be good enough at dress to where you get on the show because you don't want to save too much because then it gets cut and you're like, oh, fuck, I really laid down on that.

Speaker 1 But you know, some of these sketches you know we're going to get on.

Speaker 1 There's some that just kill, but you're like, oh my God, I just hope it does table read, kill, rehearsal with the crew, and then dress, and then air.

Speaker 1 And it's hard to keep it going every single one and have it work.

Speaker 6 And, you know, for me, it's like I try to tell myself it's not literal.

Speaker 6 The cue cards are just suggestions because when you get out there and you have this part you have to do, you can kind of just sort of rush just slightly and not really connect with the audience.

Speaker 6 It's, it's, it's sort of a ballsy move to take a moment or extenuate a beat just a little bit because that keeps it alive and the audience senses it. when you're having fun and surprising yourself.

Speaker 9 Do you get to have fun now when you're doing it, Dana? Because I have to imagine first time around when you're a cast member and you're,

Speaker 9 you have no idea what this guy is. Like you don't know yet that you're going to have success in films.

Speaker 9 You don't know yet all the other things are going to happen, that you're going to be like an all-timer.

Speaker 9 So that's always going in the back of your head of like, oh, like, is this going to work or not? I'm wondering for both of you, like, to go back now, does it feel like

Speaker 9 I am who I am now? I can go out and have fun.

Speaker 9 Or is it just as high pressure? I need to get a win. I need to crush it.

Speaker 6 I would say it's both. It's a little bit I'm playing with house money.
I understand that.

Speaker 6 In the beginning, I didn't know I was with Phil Hartman, the Phil Hartman, or the Jan Hook. So we didn't know where it was going.
By 93, it was feeling pretty good. But now it's still the thing.

Speaker 6 If I'm doing Biden, I'm trying to get the language and the.

Speaker 6 and sort of ride the wave if it comes to me. If I'm doing, no joke, I'm not getting around here.
My eyes get big and I hold that, then it's still kind of the same process. So, both things are true.

Speaker 6 Playing with house money, no, I'm way down the other side of it. It's kind of like you would say to Steven Spielberg, is it any better now? Is it any easier now?

Speaker 6 He's still just trying to solve problems. Is that what the directors do?

Speaker 9 How often, David, how often do you miss it?

Speaker 2 Uh, you know,

Speaker 1 everything is so different than SNL that I liked. Uh, I liked it because I had a good fun batch of people, and I'm glad I kind of stayed close with them.
But

Speaker 1 I don't miss as much because it was,

Speaker 1 it just, I just remember sort of the hard parts and I also remember the great parts. You know, you forget, it's like surgery.
You're like happy after, but during it, you go, God, it was tough.

Speaker 1 But I'm just happy it happened and I got six great years out of it. And then it got me on something else.

Speaker 1 And I, then trying to stay afloat is the next big challenge, you know, because you could do your own show and it doesn't work. And then suddenly all your heat's gone and you're not doing anything.

Speaker 1 And it just, it's tough, it's hard not to fall off a cliff after.

Speaker 9 How often are you talking to current cast members about that? How often do they reach out and go, hey, it's all going well. I'm on the show.
I feel confident. I'm getting on every week.

Speaker 9 What happens from here?

Speaker 1 I think Dana gets it more because they ask him about impressions and what to expect and these kind of things.

Speaker 10 But when we have him on the show, people that are really young.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Right now he's just people that are really young that are

Speaker 1 some haven't even on a sketch yet. They're just like, what am I doing here? Because there's so many casts.
You know, it's very,

Speaker 1 very frustrating for sure. I'm sure I feel for them sometimes.

Speaker 6 50 years in, you know, you got 200 cast members before you or whatever. When I was on it, was really, it was the original, which is probably the best or whatever the best means or the most potent.

Speaker 6 And then, of course, Eddie's years in Piscopo, and then the Billy Crystal year,

Speaker 6 then the stranger.

Speaker 6 So it seems young and it's history when I was there now, but

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Speaker 6 I was going to ask you, like, because what's interesting to to me is, okay, now we got to cast these people, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 6 And I wonder when, what, when was it down to like three people, or was it instant? Like the gentleman who I, you know, it's hard for me to connect the names. Like a gentleman who plays Dan Aykroyd

Speaker 6 landed so well. A lot, they all did, really.
I mean, I was laughing. Oh, that's Billy Crystal.

Speaker 10 Yeah, that's kind of

Speaker 10 like a

Speaker 6 whole time.

Speaker 9 You know, so, I mean, look, a few things are happening. I mean, one, I'm approaching this as a movie.
And

Speaker 9 I'm thinking about this as this, this is a movie specifically about the 90 minutes leading up to the first episode.

Speaker 9 So the movie, like a concept from the original concept, which is always the movie starts at 10 p.m. with Lauren Michaels out on 50th Street looking for Andy Kaufman.

Speaker 9 The movie's going to end last line of the movie, 11.30, live from New York on Saturday night. So in knowing that, it's not about how do we tell the whole history of SNL.

Speaker 9 It's not, oh, how do we recapture Chevy Chase? It's going, okay, who is Dan Aykroyd at 11 p.m.?

Speaker 9 How vulnerable he is? How scared is he?

Speaker 2 How confident is he?

Speaker 1 On the first show. Where is he right in this moment in time?

Speaker 9 Right before the world changes. There's a moment where SNL doesn't exist, and then there's a moment where it does exist.
It's like it's a shuttle launch. It's like it's the first walk on the moon.

Speaker 9 Where is everyone's heart at? Where is Lorne Michaels when he's actually vulnerable for maybe the last time before he becomes as confident as he is?

Speaker 9 And what is this strange group of people, some that worked, some that didn't? I mean, geniuses like Jim Henson that have like, you know, it's not going to click.

Speaker 9 It's not going to work, work, are in the same room as people who are literally just

Speaker 9 there. Like I always said, this is a shuttle launch.
Like that's what we're watching.

Speaker 9 So with, so with Dan Aykroyd, it becomes a question of, you know, not can you do Bassomatic, but rather can you capture his energy and his verbosity is an intelligence and his vulnerability and Dylan O'Brien.

Speaker 9 who, you know, Dylan O'Brien's like a heartthrob.

Speaker 9 Dylan O'Brien was, you know, in like Maze Runner and Teen Wolf and like, you know, I don't think think people think of him as a com as a comedian, but understood that Akrod's on the spectrum and understood how Akrod spoke.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 9 also understood Akrod's sex appeal, which I think no one else did. No other actor came in and understood that,

Speaker 9 like,

Speaker 9 Akrod could get it. Like, women loved him.

Speaker 9 Like, that's an important part of who he was.

Speaker 9 And, and so, tall, good-looking, and charming, and funny,

Speaker 9 and so smart, and and kind of willing to play both ends of the spectrum of of comedy of being like uber confident, but also weird.

Speaker 9 So

Speaker 9 we interviewed every living person who was in the building October 11th, 1975. So

Speaker 9 not only the cast, not only the writers, but costumers, production design, members of Billy Preston's band. We interviewed Tower Shore, we interviewed Paul Schaefer.

Speaker 9 There was NBC pages we literally got a hold of who could just give us a taste of like, what was it like? How were people acting?

Speaker 9 How confident or unconfident were people? And that's what leads to the casting, not

Speaker 9 can you nail the Chevy Chase fall or can you nail Gilda Radner doing Rosanna Danity?

Speaker 1 Or you hear a random story that actually did happen and no one knows about it.

Speaker 1 Just some page tells you, oh, I don't know if you know this, but over by the elevators, then you're like, oh, we should put that in. It's great texture.
It's just something that did happen.

Speaker 8 It's weird.

Speaker 1 And then because you're moving the camera through this whole, there's always, you know, everyone has to be good because, you know you got to know when the camera's hitting you for the movie not the show but you know when you're going through the hallways and you go into makeup then you pan and you're going to the host dressing then george carlin walks past and you're like trying to catch people going oh my god this is sort of the chaos of it all it's hard to be uh

Speaker 9 the idea was to drop you in it like we wanted the audience to feel not like they were being presented a movie but rather i just remember the first time i was there it just felt like holy shit i'm here and everyone's moving past me and it's people i recognize, people I don't recognize.

Speaker 9 And being at SNL, no one sits down. Like you're not allowed to sit down.
It's just constant movement. And that's what I wanted the audience to feel is like layers of action.

Speaker 9 And so we tried to give 30 different characters actual arcs,

Speaker 9 but sometimes they're the foreground, sometimes the background. But literally every actor works every single day.
There's no trailers. You're just there.

Speaker 9 And we rebuilt the entirety of 8H, 8th floor, 9th 9th floor. It's all 1,360.
It looks great.

Speaker 1 It looks exactly.

Speaker 1 I thought it was real. I'm like, oh, they must have built this, but there's so much shit they'd have to put in here.
Like those makeup rooms and the wardrobe and everything.

Speaker 1 And all the things on the walls. And I'm just like, God damn.
Cause

Speaker 1 it was like in real time. One time you moved and I go, they're on that side.
Okay. Oh, they're coming by where we used to put catering along the wall.
Oh, they're coming back. So it was real.

Speaker 1 In that respect, like it didn't even matter, I guess, but it does that if someone knew it, they go, because I would see like Herb Sargent was still there, was still there with us.

Speaker 1 He lays out checks.

Speaker 9 I didn't even realize that. Herb was there when you guys were there?

Speaker 2 Certainly, yeah.

Speaker 15 We took his office.

Speaker 6 Update, update writer. He's in charge of update.

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And he was like, oh, shawl, shawl, kind of grousy, but after about a year, he moved out of that office and me and Farley moved in. Oh, yeah.
And then Sandler and Rock took. The back part.

Speaker 1 It's like a small, two little offices

Speaker 1 with a door between them, but you have to go through ours. So that was four of us crammed where he had all these papers and shit just doing an update

Speaker 1 and newspapers. But I saw him.
I think I told Dana before this. I saw Audrey Pert Dickman

Speaker 1 was working with, because she was there with me.

Speaker 9 She was there with no kids.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right. And I was like, oh my God, was she there from the beginning? Because you could see was Joe Dixo in that?

Speaker 9 Joe Dixo is day one. In fact, it's great.

Speaker 9 Ackroyd, so we were finishing up this last Ghostbusters movie that I produced with Ackroyd, and I showed him the model of the whole set. And I, you know, I interviewed Ackroyd a bunch of times.

Speaker 9 And finally, I was like, hey, can you give me an impersonation of Joe Dixo for the actor who's going to play him? And Ackroyd just like, just jumps right in that dude, minutes.

Speaker 9 And he just starts doing the whole thing.

Speaker 9 And then I was like, what about Davey? How about Davey Wilson? Can you give me Davey Wilson? It's Davey. Davey Wilson.
And he starts doing like Davey Wilson.

Speaker 14 And like, this isn't going to work.

Speaker 12 What do you want to put? What?

Speaker 7 Where?

Speaker 13 You want to use it?

Speaker 1 I don't know yeah how about that between dress and air meeting davey wilson's got his script out right next to lauren's desk and it's that bindered script that says starting alive in a circle and he's like this and he goes well we're gonna have to jump from we're gonna have to put gap girls right after and he's like i i don't think we can get camera i don't think we can do it

Speaker 1 and he would laugh and smile and yell at him come on baby he's like why you're asking too much here

Speaker 1 But I didn't know Davey was there from the beginning. How stupid am I?

Speaker 9 Well, I think

Speaker 9 there's something about lauren's i'm not sure if part of it is loyalty and you guys know this better than i do but uh

Speaker 9 someone told me once lauren has the same routine every day because he thinks if he did it differently tomorrow morning he wouldn't wake up lauren michaels and uh i thought that was really interestingly said and when i The first time I went to SNL, I was probably a teenager and just as an audience member.

Speaker 9 And I remember the fear I felt, and I couldn't even understand why. I'm like, I'm just sitting in the audience.
Why am I scared?

Speaker 9 But then I started checking with other audience members, and everyone felt the same thing. We were all scared as it started to count down.

Speaker 9 But then I went years later

Speaker 9 to write for a week, and I got to wander around, and it started to hit me. I was like, oh, nothing's changed.
And the more people we would interview, nothing,

Speaker 9 physically, nothing changes.

Speaker 9 The turnover of people, I mean, there was people that we were interviewing that had literally been with the show since pretty much the beginning, like art department people who had worked back from like at least like episode two or three.

Speaker 9 So I think there's a consistency that there's a recipe that Lorne seems to believe in. And I think it's the reason why

Speaker 9 every other sketch show that's been popular is...

Speaker 9 comes down to the few people that were at the core of the cast, and yet there is something about the DNA of the show that allows brilliant people to come in and out of it.

Speaker 9 Writers, actors, musicians, like anything, but the recipe remains.

Speaker 6 I think that Lauren Michaels never, never wavered. You know, there was, it should be an hour.
It should be pre-tape. We should change the theme.
We got to get rid of that song.

Speaker 6 We don't need the, you know, for years and multiple administrations of overlords.

Speaker 6 He has stood the stood the test of time. He really does believe in it.

Speaker 6 And these are the off-label things that I don't know, you would know, but basically, when you take unknown people and you put them on a show, which right now there's unknown people who just got on Saturday Night Live,

Speaker 6 it's a de facto reality show.

Speaker 13 You're watching them grow and get confident.

Speaker 6 So I believe, or putting a football player, Joe Montana is going to host a live 90-minute sketch show doing.

Speaker 6 So there's a reality element to it. So, it's so compelling.
And then the band plays and they break big bands. And I got to see Roar Arbiterson and Neil Young standing there.

Speaker 6 And so then you have those moments. So I think you're right.
It's the DNA of it. And Lauren never wavered.
He's right now, because I'm watching your movie.

Speaker 6 And then I'm just flashing back to last week when Lauren would suddenly appear at 8H and was, you could tell he's uncomfortable with the way the rehearsal is going. He's trying to think how to fix it.

Speaker 6 What should we change? So it's an extraordinary thing that it's a 50-year and going, going, going. It blows my mind.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think people like, Jason, you're right about when I like when they pull the camera back and they go to a commercial

Speaker 1 and they start ripping down a set. And you're like, the set's that small? Or, you know, anything.
You just look. It's more you're learning.
You're like, oh, it's right there in the front.

Speaker 1 Or, oh, that set was over in the corner. And they all get up and sprint out.

Speaker 1 And that part is very cool to watch.

Speaker 9 It's funny. So I grew up on sets.

Speaker 12 And

Speaker 9 I

Speaker 9 grew up just wanting to be on the trucks. Like, I wanted to be one of the crew.
I I wanted to be one of the dudes. I loved that they would say off-color jokes, and I just wanted to hang.

Speaker 9 And when I watched SNL, I got a very early feeling that there is a brilliant ensemble in front of the camera.

Speaker 2 We're all aware of that.

Speaker 9 But there must be a brilliant ensemble behind the camera that's performing some sort of chaotic ballet that allows this show to exist. And when I got to see it in person, I just...

Speaker 9 I couldn't fathom how

Speaker 9 you write all night Tuesday, you do the table read Wednesday,

Speaker 9 and then in the middle of the night on Wednesday, there's already someone painting a wall, hemming a dress, creating a wig, and then it goes right up to the last second.

Speaker 9 And it's the most thrilling thing I've ever been present for. And that's what I wanted.
I wanted an audience to experience like,

Speaker 9 because it's very easy for people at home to go, like, I'm going to turn it on 11:30 and see what they do. And then after be like, yeah, they did a good job, they did a bad job, or like, whatever.
And

Speaker 9 it is an extraordinary piece of choreography in front and behind the camera to pull off that show. And they are constantly bending the boundaries of what can be done on live television.

Speaker 9 And that started literally with the first episode.

Speaker 6 And I think there are two things you captured really well. One is to your point about the crew.
By the time the read-through, you got some laughs there.

Speaker 6 And maybe you're not blocking Thursday, but you're blocking Friday. And you're just kind of, you're kind of going by the crew.
And the crew is often just casually kind of right yeah they're american

Speaker 6 you're running the lines and they're either there's silence or they're

Speaker 6 five or ten uh teamsters or just regular people laughing and it gives you a little boost you know and the other thing was watching the film I want to give it away for the people going to watch it.

Speaker 6 You can't give it away because it's tactile. It's experienced.

Speaker 9 You actually can't give this movie away. I already told everyone what the last line of the movie is, and that's kind of the beauty of it.

Speaker 6 I loved the build up watching the build up to the tension: is it going to go on? Are they going to show a Carson rerun? I just love that. I love the Johnny Carson phone call.

Speaker 6 Whether it's real or not, I don't know. But at the last second, they're either going to go to Carson or go to what now is gone for 50 years.
So, you built that so beautifully.

Speaker 6 I was right in the moment, even though I knew what the answer was going to be. I was like, God damn, are they going to put Carson on?

Speaker 6 I'm riding that train emotionally.

Speaker 1 So, every single person is so invested on the the show and the cast and crew to something that doesn't really matter yet.

Speaker 1 It's nothing. It's also everyone's pretty defeated in a weird way because most people are saying, this is some dumb thing we're going to do.
In two weeks, we're going to look for another job.

Speaker 1 And so you couldn't say to someone now when you work on the show, you go, well, at least we have a job. At least this is picked up.
At least there's a different vibe.

Speaker 1 But then it's like, why are we working this hard for this shit? And I love seeing the board of how many, I love when Billy Crystal caught the board.

Speaker 1 right and he's like holy what do you i mean you can just eyeball it and say that's a three-hour show like just for the audience the board today is where the sketches go up and they're honed down there might be 10 or 12 of them and and and in jason's movie there's a board in the hallway on 8h not up in lauren's office right with like 50 sketches three musical acts a magic show they're like wait who the is getting cut because you know who's getting cut before you go in but you're like oh wait that guy was and they all treat jim henson like shit, which is funny.

Speaker 1 He's such a genius. And everyone's like, get the puppet guy out of my way.
And then, you know, and then

Speaker 6 they stop putting them in compromising positions. You know,

Speaker 6 Ben Bigbird over, you know, Elma or whatever. Yeah, that was funny.
One thing I wanted to ask you is like,

Speaker 6 the,

Speaker 6 you know, when you're watching it, and so they're there right now, they don't know they're on Saturday Night Live, yeah, like I did 10 years later.

Speaker 6 Yeah, they know it's late, they're getting paid, They were, they became, obviously, they were found by each other and they're smoking weed and rabble-rousers. And they were sort of

Speaker 6 more aggressive than people would be now, in a way. They'd be more deferential because it wasn't a hit show, and they knew Lauren.
Lauren was younger than Chevy Chase, he was a contemporary, a peer.

Speaker 6 So you captured that too. I mean, how much of that vibe was part of your thinking?

Speaker 6 The rebellious thing, especially, especially Belushi.

Speaker 9 I think it was Rosie Schuster who told us that what it felt like every night was that feeling if you broke into your high school, that if you broke into your high school over the weekend or overnight and you're just running around and like you own the place.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 9 that was echoed by everyone we talked to. That during the day, Rockefeller Center is an office building with people in suits.
And then all of a sudden, it's Thursday and it's two in the morning.

Speaker 9 And Aykroyd, Aykroyd somehow stole a set of keys and had literally a key to every door in the building.

Speaker 9 And they would just go and like, just in the middle of the night, he'd go find fun places to go, fun, find places to smoke out.

Speaker 9 He had found this one shaft on the eighth floor that if you opened it, he could like exhale into it. And that was his way of smoking.
But

Speaker 9 what I love is actually the idea that they were a bunch of kids and how young they were, that Aykroyd was 23 and Lorraine was 21 and Belushi was 26 and like they were genuinely kids.

Speaker 9 And, you know, I asked Akrod, it's like, you know, what were you going to, what were you thinking right before you went on?

Speaker 9 And he said, you know, I was thinking, I still have a snowplow up in Toronto, so I had a job waiting for me.

Speaker 1 He still likes that stuff. He's still very real dude like that.

Speaker 6 I mean, oh my God, he'd rather talk about ghosts and things and paranormal. He lights up the storm.

Speaker 9 By the way, tell me about it. But

Speaker 1 When those guys come by the show, Jason, when I was there, he'd come by, like I had it, I interviewed Ackroyd for Spin Magazine or something. They wanted to be like a collab.

Speaker 1 But first of all, couldn't be more generous and sweetheart.

Speaker 1 But it's such a legendary thing when you're on the show and someone that used to be on, that you'd watch, comes through the hallways and he comes in the office. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 15 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 This one. This is old Herb Sargent, you know,

Speaker 15 don't be hurry to leave this.

Speaker 2 Fair enough, sir.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 9 He has an extraordinary memory and he can, and he, and everything's right on top for him.

Speaker 9 And that was an interesting thing between people because some people didn't remember anything or they clearly would, you know, had made up 50% fabricated their history.

Speaker 9 Ackroyd has an exceptional memory and will hold to it.

Speaker 7 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 9 But it's weird now because now we've shown the movie to them.

Speaker 9 You know, like all these folks like that we interviewed have now watched the movie and watched themselves be like portrait.

Speaker 9 The guy sat in a screening with like Billy Crystal revisiting like the worst night of his life.

Speaker 15 Oh, wow. Wow.

Speaker 6 What was that like?

Speaker 14 Yeah, I'll just add that.

Speaker 15 I mean,

Speaker 9 it's what's interesting is, you know, so Billy obviously gets cut on opening night, and Billy Crystal has had as bad a successful career as a human being can have. Sure.

Speaker 9 And he talks about that night like it happened yesterday. He gets cutting.

Speaker 1 It still stings.

Speaker 2 It has to sting.

Speaker 12 Wow, wow, wow.

Speaker 9 Yeah, I mean, so we were looking for a script from opening night.

Speaker 9 We kept on asking everyone, everyone we interviewed, because there was stuff that was like a sketch that got cut that we always wanted to read, and we just want to know what it looked like.

Speaker 9 Nobody had it, not Lauren, not anybody. Finally, we asked Billy, Hey, is there any chance you have a script from opening night? and he goes, I think I could find it an hour later.
I found it.

Speaker 9 So we go over to his house. He pulls out the script and he starts leafing through it.
And then he just goes,

Speaker 1 There,

Speaker 9 that's where I was supposed to be.

Speaker 9 Deeply emotional.

Speaker 1 Oh, it'll kill me.

Speaker 9 So we scan the script. And anytime someone has a script in the movie it's billy's script

Speaker 6 like a physical like the physical script like anytime a character is like going through pages on scene it's like in our movie that's billy's script that we actually that we scanned and he went back three years later and then had this killer year with christopher guess you look marvelous and all that stuff you know yeah but still that moment

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Speaker 1 Did he ask to see the movie or did you ask if you could show it to him?

Speaker 9 So this is what happens. So I've done two movies about real people and this is what inevitably happens.
Like

Speaker 9 you interview the original person.

Speaker 9 All they want to know is who's going to play them and if they're attractive and how tall they are.

Speaker 2 And then

Speaker 2 they watch the movie and

Speaker 9 they just can't. they can't figure it out.
There's just silence after. They're just freaked out by it.
They're freaked out by watching themselves.

Speaker 9 It's emotional.

Speaker 1 Thrown back in time.

Speaker 9 It's like, yeah, Billy was really into it. Lorraine loved it.

Speaker 9 Garrett loved it. I think for Garrett, it really was.
I think Lamorne did an extraordinary job as him and really.

Speaker 2 I did too.

Speaker 1 He really kind of sounded like him. He kind of, that was like.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 6 He was on this podcast and it's very memorable as one of our favorite.

Speaker 2 I mean, he's amazing.

Speaker 1 I ran him two days ago with that thing and he was sitting there. Oh, this guy.
He was super sweet still.

Speaker 6 You know, I do impressions of people and i and i do kind of have empathy uh for the in in terms of you with these actors and watching people play them it's like is that

Speaker 6 is that how people see me you know it's a little vulnerable yeah

Speaker 6 yeah am i missing the way the world yeah you know so

Speaker 1 i thought lauren wasn't very pushed i liked it he wasn't like no you know he they didn't you guys didn't do that it was very kind of thrown away because he's a little canadian you know he's a little

Speaker 9 he's got something you know that's a little uh unique to lauren and back then it was a little softer so i did like the guy that played him i thought he did a great job he's the kid who played you know gabriel lowell played spielberg in the fablemans and so he's now played two of the most iconic jews of all time and i think there's something about gabriel where He has this look in his eyes where if he has a vision, you know somehow he's going to accomplish it.

Speaker 9 And I don't think that's something you could teach somebody. I think he just has that.

Speaker 6 That tracks so beautifully throughout the whole film.

Speaker 15 He was Lorne.

Speaker 6 There's Waldo of the film, the Lorne character. Like, oh, what is he thinking right now? And, you know, nonverbal acting is just a skill set that some people have.

Speaker 6 I think Michael Keaton's, you know, naturally gifted at it. And Gabriel, he is too.
No lines, just looking at a board and thinking, you know, you really wrote it with him, that character, I think.

Speaker 9 For each character at the end of the day, I tried to identify just one thing as far as the casting. So, you know, with Chevy, it was an ego that needs to be humbled.

Speaker 9 You know, with Belushi, it's a guy who thinks that somehow going on television will be the end of his life. You know, for Gilda, it's obviously the overwhelming empathy.
You know, for

Speaker 9 Garrett, it was,

Speaker 9 who am I? Like, what's my identity? Who the hell? And by getting down to that one idea, instead of it being an impersonation, it became, all right, this is, this is the one thing.

Speaker 9 This is what the one thing you want in this film. And it just gave him some chase.

Speaker 1 Did Belushi really, I mean, I heard Belushi didn't like the bees. That's true, right? But did he really have a problem with that he's sort of a bigger actor than this show?

Speaker 1 I wouldn't think that of him. I would think he's just a goofball.

Speaker 9 This is what I understood: is

Speaker 9 one, you know, he wouldn't sign his contract and he went missing on opening night. And he definitely had animosity with Chevy.
And I think the reason was really clear.

Speaker 9 You know, what was brilliant about that first show is that no one looked like anyone on television.

Speaker 9 Belushi didn't look like someone who should be on television. You know, Gilda did not look like someone who should be on television.
And Chevy did. And

Speaker 9 I think what upset Belushi was that when you look at who Belushi was on stage at Second City and in the National Lampoon show,

Speaker 9 he was a star and he had found a place where he could 100% be himself and people would respect his genius. And now he was going to be on television.
And Belushi knew Chevy's going to be a star.

Speaker 9 And the network kind of identified that from moment one. And Chevy knew it.
And Chevy was like, this is where I'm going to get my win.

Speaker 9 That's why, you know, we have this line in the movie where he's like, oh, is this an ensemble? You know, he,

Speaker 1 yeah.

Speaker 9 So I think for me,

Speaker 6 it was revealed, obviously, later on, I guess, people, it was obvious in the beginning that you're at home base in 8H. That means you're in the center of the studio.

Speaker 6 You really can play to the audience and the camera. It's the perfect position to be in, where Chevy was.
And then you're going right to the audience and you can drop little ad-libs in.

Speaker 6 You can break out character bits, stuff like that. So, and then, you know, obviously he broke so hard.

Speaker 6 I was just going to ask you quickly about two subsidiary characters that people wouldn't be household names, Michael O'Donoghue

Speaker 6 and Rosie Schuster, who helped me put together church chat. So I was interested how what a big part of

Speaker 9 that year she was was as lauren's wife their relationship was shaky or something well i i fell in love with rosie as everyone does you know i all i'd been hearing was that everyone falls in love with rosie and then gil and i gil's my writing partner we got on the phone with rosie and i think you know we wanted to fight after you know after the call we just felt so head over heels for her and she was so funny she was easily the

Speaker 9 of all the heavyweights we spoke to she was easily the funniest person we spoke to who like just consistently made us laugh and said things out of nowhere that were highly original.

Speaker 9 what I think really interested about us, about her, was that, look, I mean, look, this cast is and write, this group of writers and casts are challenging all these social mores and the way that they're doing television, the way they do comedy.

Speaker 9 And, but also for Lauren and Rosie, who their marriage is coming apart, they're seeing other people. They're still married to each other.
They're working with each other.

Speaker 9 that they were taking this 1970s nuanced look at love where it's like she's fucking Danny, they're still married, but they they respect the fact that they make each other better.

Speaker 9 And that's all that counts. Like they make each other funnier and they make a better show together.
They support each other. They understand each other.
And who gives a shit?

Speaker 9 And Lauren didn't give a shit.

Speaker 6 And that was really clear in speaking to that was that, yeah, the hippies day or whatever, the new, new kind of looking at everything, basically days, including comedy.

Speaker 9 And I think that's what. what's so cool about that moment is you have a young people who are going, we don't have to do it the same way that anyone else has done it before.

Speaker 9 And like, that's kind of what the movie is about. It's about the moment where one generation just rips television out of the hands of another because they say, your time is done.

Speaker 9 Like, that's why we have Milton Burrell in the movie. Like, Milton Burrell is there representing an entire generation of old TV that

Speaker 9 this group goes, no, I'm sorry. We're done with you.

Speaker 6 That was a brilliant, because I read it. It wasn't exactly true.

Speaker 6 J.K. Simmons as Milton Burrell is magnificent.
The character's hilarious.

Speaker 9 Well, Milton exposing himself is true. He didn't, he may not have exposed himself to Chevy, but he exposed himself to a bunch of other people.

Speaker 6 I think he wanted to constantly exposing himself to people. It's hysterical.

Speaker 9 I mean, so the first person we heard about was Zwybell, and he had exposed himself to Swybell in someone's chain, in someone's dressing room.

Speaker 9 And then the more we talked to people, the more people I would find out, you know, even Jeff Ross. Jeff Ross came to our premiere, and after he goes, oh, yeah, yeah, Milton showed me his dick.

Speaker 9 I didn't get May 2, I got May 22. That's how big it was.

Speaker 6 Well, I mean,

Speaker 6 to have him in there, and also I wasn't quite sure. I may have lost track.

Speaker 9 I love when Spade doesn't like a joke. He's like, oh, no, I'm going to

Speaker 2 let you know how much I don't like that joke. He just now.

Speaker 1 No, I like that the guys with the big dicks want to show everybody. That's so funny.
My friend used to accidentally send his. huge dick picture to girls and go oh my god sorry not for you

Speaker 6 no that's okay well i just think of hydraulics I mean, there was a prosthesis in your show, and it's like you're extrapolating war. How does that really get to a place of excitement?

Speaker 6 It seems like it's just too much weight to lift.

Speaker 9 It's very funny.

Speaker 9 This is a very naturalistic movie. We shot on 16 millimeter.
We tried to do everything old school.

Speaker 9 There's only two visual effects in the film, and one of them was retouching Milton's penis to make sure that the skin color and shine matched JK's skin.

Speaker 6 Only, only in the movies. And as far as Rosie Schuster being there in 86 and being assigned to me, I had a church lady character for my stand-up to develop it.

Speaker 6 I didn't know she was his ex-wife, and I noticed that she would always call him dear in meetings. Yes, dear.

Speaker 15 I love that. Oh, dear.

Speaker 10 I know.

Speaker 6 Yeah, she called him.

Speaker 1 She was good in the movie.

Speaker 9 Oh, well, Rachel Sennett, that actress is good. She's off the charts.
I mean, I don't know of another actor who's had as strong a debut.

Speaker 9 When you think about her first three films, you know, Shiva Baby, Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, and Bottoms. I mean, it just lights out good.
And she's, yeah, she's a killer.

Speaker 1 Yeah, she was charming.

Speaker 6 Yeah, she seemed just in the pocket, totally natural.

Speaker 9 And Michael Adonahu, who you brought up earlier, obviously is one of the reasons why the show was genius from day one.

Speaker 9 Is that, again, I think that's this other thing about Lorne, is his understanding that a show could hold the tone of Jim Henson

Speaker 9 and kind of the delight of like a comedian like Zwaya Bell with the dark nastiness of O'Donoghue and knew that somehow this is a show that's going to occupy enough space where all these voices can live together.

Speaker 9 And Tommy Dew is the guy who played O'Donoghue.

Speaker 2 And that's a really tricky role.

Speaker 9 I think that's one of those things where

Speaker 9 from the outside,

Speaker 9 you don't see how hard it is to be able to say that kind of nasty shit and still be a likable character.

Speaker 9 And there's very few actors like Billy Bob was someone, you know, Billy Bob Thornton was a guy who like, you could literally say anything and you still like the guy.

Speaker 9 And it's just, it's such a tricky thing to do.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 9 Interesting.

Speaker 10 Weird.

Speaker 6 Well, Lorne is very clever about that. I don't really know how his brain works, but it's, it's at a high level of really absorbing.

Speaker 6 I was the thing I say as I came back with the young people, but Lauren's an AI who's downloaded the show. So it's general.
So he can blink stuff. He can look at something and kind of go, well,

Speaker 6 if they're supposed to be older, we have to make them older or whatever. There's the essence of things very quickly.

Speaker 6 we'll figure out what's wrong what might be better and you see him i've been there many times when the show is a little flat and and i can tell he's a little wounded but gonna go on to the next one and then when it goes well he's just a little lighter but it's an intense life to do what he's done and is still doing it and is going to keep doing it after the 50th What news flash.

Speaker 9 I was about to, you just dropped that like it was nothing.

Speaker 9 I'm curious with both of you,

Speaker 9 do you remember early moments where you understood why Lauren picked you? Like, where, like, did it ever become clear? It's like, oh, this is what he saw in me. And this is why he knew I was special.

Speaker 6 David, I'll let you go first.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 I wasn't a big character guy. I just did stand-up, and I think

Speaker 1 he liked the way it was written, even though I wasn't even a headliner.

Speaker 1 And when I got there, I was a little over my head,

Speaker 1 more than a normal over your head, because I wasn't writing sketches for characters and I wasn't doing crazy stuff. And that wasn't something that was on my even radar.

Speaker 1 It was so high above me that from Arizona, I couldn't think, oh, one day I should be on SNL. It didn't even cross my mind.

Speaker 1 It was, I was saying I should be like a manager at Bennigan's, you know, that was like the ceiling. And so when you get the, you get at the highest place and you're the lowest level, it was hard.

Speaker 1 And I was always feeling about getting fired and getting when obviously he was having some troubles, especially the first couple of years.

Speaker 1 But when we had Lauren on, he goes, and by the way, David, you were never in danger of getting fired.

Speaker 1 And I was like, it's just weird to hear him say that because that's all you're thinking for six years.

Speaker 1 And just to have him say it out loud, because it was, it was a little rocky road, but got through it. But shit, I was just like, oh,

Speaker 1 I don't know what he saw. Maybe it didn't look like everyone.
You know, you just, you don't know what. I wasn't a huge jumping off the page guy.
But

Speaker 6 did say also during the podcast, I always, I always knew you were funny, which is high praise from the guy who was saying that.

Speaker 1 It's nice to hear, just that simply.

Speaker 16 I always knew you were funny.

Speaker 6 Follow-up question.

Speaker 9 Is there a person who makes you more nervous when you answer the phone and someone goes, I have Lorne Michaels for you?

Speaker 9 Is there any person who would actually make you more, or is that the person who would make you the most nervous hearing, oh, he's on the other line?

Speaker 6 It definitely is something that you might have especially if you're there if you're there and you're part of it it's the ultimate boss going oh my god the godfather's calling or when even to this day though i'm saying even oh yeah i can see if they go everyone wants you to come up i feel like lauren's um emotional interface i'm just making up these words i'm just more used to it this time around so i kind of want to give him a hug and tell him a joke and be silly uh

Speaker 6 but for years when i was on the show you know because lauren had this thing walking down the hallway, still with the show, you know, that kind of stuff. And you were still,

Speaker 6 he was intimidating. I mean, he had told somebody recently or

Speaker 6 that he had to create sort of a wall between himself and the cast or else they would have eaten him alive.

Speaker 6 You know, so yeah, he's an intimidating character. But, you know, if you go to the Yankee game, you know, he's kind of, I mean, yeah, he's, he's, he's an eclectic personality.

Speaker 6 There's sort of the elusive Lauren and erudite Lauren. And then there's the guy who wants to get a hot dog and go to the game.

Speaker 1 So also, that stuff, you're not as fearful now because you did it. And so now I just like to see Lauren and laugh with him and try to make him laugh and goof around as much as much as possible.

Speaker 6 But you feel like he's so observant and so smart that he can just see right through you. Right.
And he kind of knows where you're going wrong.

Speaker 6 Never leave a hit. You know, he always has these lessons.
Never leave a hit.

Speaker 6 What happened to me was so unusual and bizarre and just happened since that I had done the church lady character in in my act, but I was doing 70 minutes of stand-up, and it was just a few minutes of it.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 so then decided to make it into a talk show with Rosie Schuster, you know, and then it just scored huge. And I was an accident.
I didn't know it was great that it was a talk show on home base.

Speaker 6 I didn't know it was great that my character is funny, and also Phil Hartman and Sigourney Weaver could come on and be funny. And I had Jan Hooks and Phil Hartman scoring.

Speaker 6 So I figured out at some point, that's what Lauren loves. It's a sketch that at home base, a reoccurring character with a catchphrase, and then guests can come on and be funny as well.
Right. Yeah.

Speaker 6 And so, and then I did chop broccoli that show and a few other things. So

Speaker 6 I didn't have ground leads up in San Francisco. So I just was a sketch player doing stand-up.

Speaker 6 And in the small rooms, it would work, and the bigger rooms would be harder. So I didn't really know I was a sketch player.

Speaker 6 But when I got on there, I figured out, well, this is where I belong, you know, doing characters and sketch.

Speaker 6 But I was trying to do it as a stand-up so so that was a freakatudude to have that right up front you know

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Speaker 9 is there anyone these days that you fight for to laugh more than lauren like is there a person that you want that you try to make laugh more than lauren

Speaker 9 so that you feel the win more when they laugh more than lauren no um

Speaker 6 My first show back doing these little sets of shows,

Speaker 6 I was reading Biden and the read-through, and I didn't really have it, but it was kind of coming on to me, this

Speaker 6 Biden non-sequitur thing.

Speaker 16 And guess what?

Speaker 6 And by the way, the fact of the matter is, and so I was throwing it in. It wasn't in the little draft of the script.
I was just throwing it in.

Speaker 6 And I saw Lauren's shoulders going up and down because that means

Speaker 11 in the corner of my eye.

Speaker 6 And so that was, that was a big, when the shoulders go, you know, yep.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the read-through laugh of Lauren is unreal. Like when you're on the show and everything matters and you're at read-through and you wrote a sketch and it's your lines and you're saying it.

Speaker 1 And then you see him just buy into the sketch and start cracking up or slap the table. You're like, holy shit.
Oh my God.

Speaker 9 The week I was there, I wrote three sketches.

Speaker 2 That's a lot.

Speaker 9 No, no, no, no. They didn't make it.
I did for the table reading.

Speaker 1 It's a lot of writing, though. You know, it's hard to do.

Speaker 9 Yeah, but I've been like, I've been wanting to do this for decades and this is my one chance. Like, trust me, I had stuff in the office.

Speaker 9 So I, I just, I made so many rookie mistakes not realizing, oh, fuck, like, that's never going to work at the table read.

Speaker 9 And he's going to be reading the, all the, all the, all the stage directions and there's multiple locations. Why did I do that?

Speaker 2 Just all these things are.

Speaker 1 Too many sets. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 I made that mistake.

Speaker 9 God,

Speaker 9 I, I wanted so many do-overs. I got a sketch on, but oh, my God.
That.

Speaker 2 Who was your host that week?

Speaker 9 Ashton Kutcher was the host. Narls Barkley was the musical guest.
And now you know exactly when it took place.

Speaker 2 Sure.

Speaker 15 It's great then. Well, how to your point?

Speaker 6 Lauren is like a coach, you know, and if you did, you were a high jumper, right, in high school.

Speaker 2 How the hell do you know that?

Speaker 9 Who just who slipped you that weird face?

Speaker 1 I was, and it must be you.

Speaker 6 I just, I just at least had a perfunctory look at your Wikipedia page. I assume we would mostly talk about this, but I, I love track and field and I remember Dick Fosbury and stuff like that.

Speaker 6 But Lauren is like a coach that you want to please. And I had a button-down coach when I was in high school.
Very, not big with the praise. You'd have to just go fantastic.
But Lorne,

Speaker 6 he would just give you a little, if you dismantled the room, like really scored, he might walk by him and he would just tap your shoulder and give a little pat

Speaker 6 and kind of nod his head. And that was like a,

Speaker 6 you know, a huge, huge win, right, David?

Speaker 1 If you kind of acknowledge it, I think three years and I did one Hollywood minute at read-through and he goes, he turns the sketch, he goes, next sketch. And he goes, I think you found your voice.

Speaker 2 All right, we're going to do Wayne's World. And I was like,

Speaker 1 and then two weeks later in the hallway, he goes, maybe Hollywood Minute this week.

Speaker 12 I go, fuck.

Speaker 1 You're asking me to do a sketch?

Speaker 2 Oh my God.

Speaker 9 David, that must have been extraordinary.

Speaker 2 Oh, maybe.

Speaker 9 By the way, I was just talking about the rare gift to say cruel things and for people to love you for it. And it's like, you're literally one of the handful of human beings on earth who can do that.

Speaker 9 And you can say these things and people love you for it. And like, you can't teach that.
It's just like, it's just in the DNA.

Speaker 1 I'm not really a mean person. That's the funniest part of the whole thing.
It's like, you just think of these jokes, goes, oh, that'd be funny. But you're not like, I fucking hate these people.

Speaker 1 You just go.

Speaker 9 Isn't that the truth? Like, when you think about the few people who do this, like, if the few greats who are like, they know how to just cut you to the bone and be funny,

Speaker 9 most of these people are not mean people. Like, Don Rickles is not a mean person.

Speaker 7 Jeff Ross is not a mean person.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No,

Speaker 9 Like the real assholes are not funny.

Speaker 2 They're just

Speaker 1 because you always have to find the fine line where it's not too rough. And sometimes I would go too deep and caught myself at dress or something going, I don't think they're going to buy that.

Speaker 6 That's that's well when Chevy came on this podcast, I, you know,

Speaker 6 I'd seen him in act.

Speaker 6 I know, I, I knew enough of seeing him over the years, and he was very generous to me when I was at Lauren Michaels' house before I got on the show, but I was out there and he loved my audition tape, saw something in me.

Speaker 6 But Chevy loves to say the thing you're not supposed to say. Yeah.

Speaker 6 To the extreme where it can go wherever it wants to go.

Speaker 9 I have an example for you. And

Speaker 9 I've known Chevy my entire life. I grew up, you know, that's right.
That's right. Like with his kids and stuff.

Speaker 6 Funniest Americans ever created.

Speaker 9 And so Chevy comes in to watch the movie and he's there with Janie and they watch the film and he's in the group and he comes up to me after and he pats me on the shoulder and goes, well, you should be embarrassed.

Speaker 1 What a

Speaker 1 exact Chevy thing. You couldn't even write it better.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Kind of funny.

Speaker 6 Well, he knows that's that's funny. Like, okay, that's the most.
That's the roughest thing you could say to a director in that moment right up there.

Speaker 9 And all right, you know, and I'm trying to balance it.

Speaker 9 Well, I'm trying to balance it because like in my head, I know, all right,

Speaker 9 I'm getting a Chevy Chase moment that's 1000% only for me right now. And from a comedy point of view, that's really pure and that's kind of, that's kind of cool.

Speaker 2 But also,

Speaker 9 I just spent like two years of my life recreating this moment so that

Speaker 9 I'm trying to capture Chevy perfectly and also, even in the ego, find the humanity and give him a moment to be loved.

Speaker 9 No, none of that shit, like

Speaker 9 he's he's not talking about that.

Speaker 1 It's a funny thing to say, but then you got to to look at the meter and go, what percentage was real? Was it all a joke? Or was there a little bit he's not happy, but you just don't know?

Speaker 1 And he leaves and you go, ah, well, he saw it.

Speaker 6 I think the key is if you can,

Speaker 6 I just say yes to everything.

Speaker 6 At one point, he goes, I had a way bigger career than you guys.

Speaker 14 And we both went, of course you did.

Speaker 6 So if you go back in time, he says, you should be embarrassed. I'm completely humiliated.
And then the air goes out of the balloon.

Speaker 14 Then he's more like, hey, it wasn't that bad.

Speaker 6 But you always say, yes.

Speaker 6 Have you seen my cock? And he would go like this, like, was it a hundred times?

Speaker 16 Yeah.

Speaker 13 And then he would go like that.

Speaker 1 We weren't on video, which is horrible because everyone would have, he was so funny with all his visual craziness. You know, Dan,

Speaker 1 we're going to let, we have to wrap up with Jason, who's a fucking stud, but Jason

Speaker 16 mention

Speaker 1 his great other things he does. We won't go into him totally, but we just, just so people know.
Two knows the up in the air was great.

Speaker 9 Is this when you do it at the end of the show?

Speaker 9 You're like, oh, by the way, this is who this guy was.

Speaker 1 No, we, well, I, no, we're going to introduce you. We separately.

Speaker 6 We're going to introduce you and say all this, but I want you to hear that I love young people.

Speaker 10 This went full Saturday night.

Speaker 6 I thought we could, it could have been about your high shopping in high school.

Speaker 1 Apparently, it could have been how you frequent STK in Hollywood, but we didn't want to spend the whole time on that. That's in your Wikipedia also.

Speaker 6 By the way, William Defoe

Speaker 6 loved every minute of William Defoe as Dave Tibbett.

Speaker 9 I don't think I've ever been to STK. That's kind of exciting.

Speaker 1 Frequents Los Angeles Steakout STK, as does Channing Tatum.

Speaker 14 Does it really references?

Speaker 6 Swear.

Speaker 9 By the way, that's a really interesting way to do advertising. I never thought of that, but anyone can update a Wikipedia.
You can just go to the most recent.

Speaker 1 You can just slide in at your favorite restaurant. That's exactly what you do.

Speaker 9 So if you own a restaurant, you're just going to be like, and Beyonce, you know,

Speaker 2 always seen at Cheesecake Factory.

Speaker 6 The problem, which I've said before, before, is if people hear something, they have a hard time thinking it's utterly untrue. So on the Wikipedia page, it said I had a previous wife named Leah.

Speaker 6 It's probably still there. So people will go, so you were married before Paula to a woman named Leah.
No, no, it's all made up. Well, you must have known someone named Leah.

Speaker 6 Nope, it's all made up. But you must have had someone before, you know, nope, it's a 100% some nerd in a room, and it's still there, you know.

Speaker 1 So I I did it to myself, Dan. I said I collected gerbils.
We just put it in one time.

Speaker 1 And then it was such a mistake because in the middle of heavy interviews, they're like, you know, my son has a gerbil. And I go, I don't give a fuck.

Speaker 2 And they're like, but don't you love you, collect.

Speaker 1 And when did that start? I go, what? I forget. I go, oh, right, right.
I got to get that out of there. It's like for one laugh.

Speaker 6 That's Richard Gere. Remember the gerbil up the butt? And people will go, well, he must have been on the same side.

Speaker 7 That's the exact same rumor, but yeah.

Speaker 6 He must have sat on a gerbil.

Speaker 16 Nope.

Speaker 6 It's all made up.

Speaker 15 Oh, Dave.

Speaker 12 No, but come on, Dave.

Speaker 9 This is not going to turn out well.

Speaker 1 I know, right?

Speaker 9 I just did it again.

Speaker 1 Dana, thank you. Jason, you're stud.
Aside from everything else you've done. Nice hanging out.
I love talking about SNL like that.

Speaker 1 And what a fun movie to watch and just be thrown back into that crazy world.

Speaker 6 Did a great job. One last thing before we go.
The Franken and Davis characters really made me laugh.

Speaker 9 You know what's great? So those two actors, they did something I hadn't experienced before. They auditioned together.
And that's what made it work.

Speaker 9 They already knew each other, and so they just did the bit together, and it was like, Oh, I believe them is a duo, and I was like, Why don't more actors do this? That was so smart now.

Speaker 1 That Julia Child bit, did you see? Like, I don't know if you saw the movie, but at the beginning, they're you know, it's chaos, and they show on the side,

Speaker 1 they they show on the side Frank and Davis. Just one of the crazy things is one of the most memorable sketches of all time, Julia Child.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they just walk by, we got this thing, we just want to do it's blood, and Lauren's like, sounds great.

Speaker 1 Moves on. And you're like, oh my God, that's everyone knows.

Speaker 9 There's a lot of detail. So for a big SNL fan, which I'm presuming your listeners are, you know, way bigger fans than I am.
Yeah. They like, like, we have Colin Blow in there.

Speaker 9 Like, there's all sorts of little details.

Speaker 9 And if you start actually, if you start looking in the background and stuff, there's all kinds of fun stuff. Colin, obviously,

Speaker 6 oh, Easter eggs, because Colin Blow was 10, 12 years later.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that was when I was there with Phil.

Speaker 15 God damn it. What a great one.

Speaker 10 Again, yeah.

Speaker 2 Okay, thank you, Jason.

Speaker 1 What a stud.

Speaker 14 What a stud. Okay, Jason.

Speaker 1 I'll talk to you later. Enjoyed it.
Bye.

Speaker 1 This has been a presentation of Odyssey. Please follow, subscribe, leave a like, a review, all the stuff, smash that button, whatever it is, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 Fly in the Wall is executive and produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Jenna Weiss-Berman of Odyssey, and Heather Santoro. The show's lead producer is Greg Holtzman.