Dylan O'Brien, Rachel Sennott, Jason Reitman & more talk about "Saturday Night" I Interview

hi there settle down it's Sharon Good Luck Good Luck yeah this is already going to be a yeah I had a friend there was a director friend who came to me early on and I was talk to him about casting and he just said to me Jason you're making a movie about SNL surrender and that is my advice to you you know dly noted and taken I'm just going to try to slip this in here I'm Sharon Waxman hi there I'm I'm the editor of the rap you're we're coming from our rockus and uncontrolled Studio here at the Toronto Film Festival with the cast and the director ride director of Saturday night which is some of the most fun we've had I've had at the theater uh in in a long time so welcome you guys thank you than for having thanks for thank you all right we're let's just start down here and let everybody introduce themselves hi I'm Rachel senet should I say who play and I play Rosie Schuster I'm d o Brian I play Dan arroy I'm Ella hunt and I play Gilda Radner Cory Michael Smith I play Chevy Chase I'm Gabriel laal I play Lauren Michaels uh Lamor Morris I play my dad Garrett Morris oh he's your dad that's why you look like him nepotism did you make Daddy proud uh on the subject of nepotism I'm Jason wman and I am the co-writer and director okay so I have to say Jason and I go back a very long way to your very first film Thank You for Smoking yeah one of my first interviews actually and one of your first interviews that you aced okay well somebody called me up they said there's this new there's this new director you really should meet him come to the set and I went on I got to go on the set of Thank You for Smoking if any of you guys you've all seen this movie of naturally naturally so I haven't yeah it's really good oh no you really you really should see it like it's it's I have actually seen anything oh you have okay okay it's only me that hasn't okay well they're still telling the good news is anyway it's a great it's a great documentary they half of them were born right after so no okay you're really making it this painful Jason um it was it's so great to reconnect here at Toronto where your home turf and I want to hear all about this insane idea of remaking the opening episode of the creation of Saturday Night Live While like most of the people are still with us you know with with the exception of Don of course um and Gilder Radner and Gilda Radner yeah um you know these are all childhood icons for all of us for you and I we'll the we'll be call each ourselves the olds uh in this interview but what possessed you uh right after I made Juno my agent asked me what do you want to do next and I said to him I had two dreams as a kid one was to direct movies and the other was to be a writer at Saturday Night Live and he literally called Lauren and said would you let him come right for a week and Lauren's response was yes the young man can come to space camp and I spent a week at SNL in 2008 I wrote a sketch it got on air it one of the greatest weeks of my life and the hour before Showtime was the most adrenaline I've ever felt in my life I mean I've been to the World Series I've been to the NBA finals nothing compares to being on the ground there and I knew there and then that someday I'd find a way to capture what it felt like to make that show well but you're deciding to cast people who are playing really really well-known iconic and Incredibly like um complex people and yet you found all this is only this is a small taste of the number of people I think you were saying there are how many speaking there are 80 speaking roles in the movie and usually 30 to 40 of them were miked on every day so our our sound mixer actually had to bring a second mixing board they can tell you every day you would up at set and there was a table with 40 mics on it and you'd come over get miked yeah DJs could never this guy is like on the playing the boards it was kind of amazing to watch so you're all running around 30 Rock but it's not yeah it looks exactly like 30 Ro it does look exactly like 30 Rock I want to say I've thanks for the mic Dylan um it's like I watch the show in real life getting the mic back um no I think like the It was kind of crazy because you could wander around there were multiple levels to it and there was never any place where like once you were in 30 Rock you were just in 30 Rock it was never like and this is a random holding room like no no no this is Lauren's office and you're taking a nap here during lunch but it's like that's where it was and that was really cool to get to like run around and play in that space yeah there were times where I would be in Lauren's office and I would have to ask myself should can I be in this man's office and I go oh this is this's another actor it's fine also that extended to our dressing rooms uh Jason had the amazing idea to make cast Camp instead of us having individual dressing rooms we basically had a massive dorm that was decked out like SNL 1975 with like shag rug and cozy couches and there's a pingpong table sometimes you'd walk in it'll be dressed as bees playing pingpong together I have some videos of that they're going to turn up online okay so um Gabriel by the way uh nice to see you and we last saw you when we we were doing uh working you were working on fabl men's and I think we you were you were we were your first interview that you'd ever done oh yeah so uh you've come quite away since then I'm sorry yeah we have scars we have scars no we were delighted but I mean so much fun to see you as Lauren Michaels I just feel like it's such a brave thing to do to play this guy who's still working he could you know he could kill your career right yeah like this could be bad yeah it could be really bad and I could get it wrong and all of my comedy Heroes and uh favorite actors and comedians could think I just ruined a very important figure of their life and I could ruin Jason's movie and all of these guys as well wa way to have a good attitude and so okay seriously how did how did you cast him and then how then how did you approach this cuz there got to be he's like he's the center uh I I saw fabl men's at a screening in London and uh I went over to talk to Stephen after and Spielberg Steve Stephen and and uh um and and standing next to Stephen is a is this young man who somehow had the Poise and confidence to stand next to Steven Spielberg and own the room and started sharing stories from the set of that movie and I was like who is this guy and I immediately took him out to Coffee the next morning and started talking about Saturday Night Live cuz I felt like I had just met a young Lauren Michaels wow wow okay and so how did you prepare how did you think about it well we had that one meeting and then you said yeah I'm just you know I'm just trying to meet young actors and see oh I played it cool yeah he played it you on the first date you can't be like I want to marry you and then and then that was in like February or January of 23 and then in June later that year uh I find out like yeah he would they would like you to audition and put yourself on tape or go in person like I'll go in person go okay but it's in New York and you know they we can't fly I was like that's fine so I flew myself there stayed on my cousin's couch and then um there were a couple scenes I don't think I told you this but I was so nervous about like getting his voice right of like in the that my voice performatively is like an octave higher so leading up the audition for like a couple days I was just like screaming and chain smoking around New York trying to get my voice nobody noticed his original reading was with Cooper uh Cooper Hoffman and the two of them together had the kind of chemistry that a director is just longing for that you just watch out and you go that's it keep that don't change the thing just somehow don't lose that what what was the scene it was that they were doing it was their fight it was this fight that's in the stairwell it's one of the best scenes in the movie and I wish Cooper was here he's so extraordin the iconic television executive dick ERS I had known each other for a couple years at that point he was a covid PA for the on the fabl mens right after shooting licorice pizza which I think is what yeah I met him on the set of the table getting the co people coffee he's so um what PTA who has been like well he I mean looks has is like a family member to Cooper Hoffman and I think after licorice pizza was like all right you've been the star but now you're going to be the pa okay it's only Dawning on me now he's Philip Seymour Hoffman relation son it's all coming together I have a general rule only babies on your set yeah that's what I Tred that's what I am for right I my dad works in insurance and my insurance is free so in some ways but was Cooper originally audition he wasn't because he I think he we cold read that scene we didn't think we would bump into each other at the same time I had auditioned and then you asked me we were like hang out for a couple minutes I go outside I see Cooper in the waiting room and I'm like I hope he's not auditioning for Lauren and uh cuz he's so good and then he not who was he auditioning for I actually don't remember but I it he wasn't auditioning for dick no no that's the thing with the movie was uh blushi everyone had to it was Belushi I think everyone had to be on their toes this is a it's it's a movie that simultaneously there was a lot of choreography because the way that the the shots were built the set was built everything but then after that it was okay today you're the lead but tomorrow you're the background and you have to figure out what you're going to do in the background because if you lead you're like all right here's your dialogue this is what you're going to be doing right in front of camera but just because you're not the lead or have the dialogue on the scene doesn't mean you get off the hook you have to come up with something to do something I think I would tell all of them is find your moments and you're in the background you can do what you want be in character and just like go for it and you can make your way into the scene if you just follow Gabe out of a scene you get a new scene I learned that but I'm like I'm like where should I go he leaves I'm like yeah I'll leave too and then and then you're for and if you start talking they and the camera's rolling they film it so it's well it's funny because I think usually as an actor if you're in the background you're like well no one's listening no one's recording but everyone's mic we're recording everything everything so we can I unplugged took pack off I was like I don't know my God I mean this just sounds like what was this like filming this it sounds insane it's the hardest thing I've ever done the amount of cor we Shot the movie twice we shot the the movie first with standin uh so in the two months leading up to shoot I we did the entire thing with standin to figure out the choreography because it's a movie that's shot in order so you had people playing the people who were playing the people yeah exactly okay just checking now when watching that watching that footage back did you find any of the the standin like you know were they doing a dope job that you said me I I would actually put this person in something they almost all ended up getting a line in the movie really they have little beats cuz they were your standing so like Gabe stand in has a a lovely beat where he delivers the Johnny Carson show uh right at the top of the movie and he goes you know like where the [ __ ] you been he like oh here it is here's tonight's show and he just runs off and they all have little beats but all of that all of that work that Jason did ahead of time was amazing for us because it was truly Controlled Chaos and it always felt like Jason's game plan was so solid that what we got to do like playing I we were just Unleashed animals truly on set because we always knew that Jason knew exactly where the camera was going to be and what he was catching so it was just like utter play for everybody else yeah Controlled Chaos is such a good way to say it because it was like everyone had their own path and track at the same time and and not just the actors but the background actors like they you'd done background Camp so that like the costume workers knew how to like spray something on Emily or like the grips knew how to like hang a lighting rig and so it felt when we came on to set like we were coming on like the background were working the set like it was very Dreamin a dream weird well even regardless of where we were going to be standing or moving Jason did such a good job of calming us down everyone it was so unifying to be like well this is how we sounds but I don't know how like that's performative or like he walks like this or But like everyone was just we were all in our heads and Jason did such a brilliant job of just getting us to chill out and have the most fun that we possibly could and relax and I think it's the best thing that could have happened to any actor let alone on this project and I think you got the absolute best of all of us they're all being very kind but I've never worked with a cast like this and I've actually had extraordinary cast through my career I've been really lucky we all know but I've never had anything like this where tell George cloy that you said that but yeah no please I'm sure he'd love that he'd be like yep he's right uh the uh where they're all playing at top level all showing up and ready to have a good time all ready to kind of fill in the script and find their own moments and I look at the film as a director and I go yeah there's no one I want to recast everyone is perfect and there's not a weak length uh and uh and they all each individually found a way to capture the essence of the person that they were playing people that we all know well that's terrifying work I would have think as an actor 100% so so I have to ask you guys has the original not ready for Prime Time cast scen been to set seen this dad showed up um you want to clarify this I think not my not my dad I didn't I didn't think you were going going to believe me and then um emotionally I felt I felt the lump here for you and so to cleanse myself no that's not every presumes yeah no no no no not my daddy um but he did get a chance your name is Morris his last name is Morris um no relation but uh when I was a kid I used to tell people he was my dad I thought that was fun um okay now I'm blushing but thank you extraordinary it was the crazy thing it was you were the first person that I cast in the film and like you literally I you sang the song was like what did you do for youring was it the song yeah it was the the song but it was also it was also um the guilt white white guilt really fun oh my God it I remember when I got the audition I was I was at home in Chicago and I was and I was sleeping and I rolled over I checked my email and I lit up and I just went I could do I can do this [ __ ] right now I do that's literally what I said and I was like and cuz usually I get in my head I did it by myself I did it I put on I had to go to my brother's room and find a suit and then like in a tie one of his old ties and then I remember uh setting the camera up by myself now normally I'll call a friend and help me but this the way you the audition you had set set for us it didn't call for that so I just set the camera on a tripod statically and then and then just did it a few times and uh kept watching the original footage to make sure my voice was as as close to Garrett as possible so right and uh and I remember sending it in I kept calling my manager going like you you think I should redo it should I co my hair should I should I do this you know out so so has has the original anybody from the original cast seen this most of them have at this point a couple of them have not uh but almost all of them seen it in fact we did an LA and a New York screening where they came together as a group to watch it together and I you got some like highly emotional for them cuz they're watching the moment of the birth of their careers the birth of the show and they're thinking back at not only it's like not only who they were but who they were as a group it's these friendships uh and people have lost as well and so I think it was a highly emotional thing well thank you guys for coming Saturday night you guys crushed it Jason congrats like what a super fun film and you're going to have the best ride on this as you as you take it out to the public I just I'm so excited for you for having you thank you