The Cast of 'Saturday Night' on Recreating the Drama Behind the First Episode of 'SNL'

Gilda was the fairy dust and Garrett is looking for his identity Chevy is a ego that needs to be humbled uh Acro is this genius that's like filtering a fire hose through a straw uh ichon had like one thing uh to focus on that was their Journey [Music] a counterculture show starring total unknowns with zero narrative and even less structure so SNL has such a long Rich history how did you decide to Center the movie entirely leading up to its first show uh well uh I've always been kind of enamored by these moments where moments of greatness come into the world you know uh it's like that Peter Jackson documentary about the Beatles what was it like when certain songs were written and Saturn live is is beyond a cultural institution it's the birthplace for you know a countless number of the greatest comedians the last 50 years uh not to mention musicians entertainers writers uh and uh I always wondered what would it have been like to be in that room as they counted down to going live um and I know you conducted interviews with cast members people who were there that night was there one piece that you felt most shaped the story that you learned while you were talking to those people yeah it was awes the bricks the bricks were the thing I remember reading about the fact that they put bricks down on the eighth floor of this building and when you would never do that it's as though you laid you know a real wood floor inside here it it it makes no sense and that obsession with getting the details right that obsession with it feeling like a real night in New York City and the fact that they were putting These Bricks down together in the hours leading up uh I I had this moment of just realizing the cohesiveness of how everyone came together I was like that's what I want this movie to be and that's how I want to make it um so for the cast uh what kind of research did you do in your roles and if you are playing someone who's alive were you able to to talk to them at Rachel if you want to start yeah so I uh play Rosie Schuster and I got to talk to her and she's amazing like we we were talking about this before but like she's so cool like she under pressure and like I I am not like that at all I feel like I am like anxious and I freak out very easily and so I Hur her everyone go no not at [Applause] all so chill remember you were so relaxed on that you're like a picture of calm it's really convincing everyone no I think you're right but but she was just talking to her on the phone and hearing her like laugh about all these like crazy memories and whatever I was like oh my God like I that's such a like such an amazing thing to step into is like all this chaos is happening around you and you're like okay I don't care you know like it so that was sort of my research and um it was it was so much fun to get to step into that and play that such a departure so cool you got to speak the transformation um I felt very lucky I got to speak to um one of Gilda's key collaborators and close friends Alan zel Allan and Gilda wrote Rosanne Rosanna Dana together their partnership in writing was like so fiery and so like loving in friendship and getting Allan's window into gild there and and also seeing you know how best friends share a sensibility sometimes like there were things in Allen's composure and the way that Allan communicated with you yeah that I thought about in playing Gilda oh wow it was he's magic I'm kind of in love with but yeah that was something that I did oh wow uh no I I I I wanted to talk to Lauren initially in in prep but Jason didn't think that was a good idea and I it took a bit to mourn that a little bit uh to mourn the lack of loan exactly exactly and that was great but no I I I just read books and interviews and um you know the internet is very abundant with things but no I I met him he was very lovely he as like giving us his Blessing to do the movie he invited us to SNL Josh broland was hosting and we met him uh in his office right afterwards and it was very lovely very brief um but it was it was interesting because it's like my idea of Lauren was him in his 20s and here's a 79y old man and it was very comforting so that like right before filming to kind of have that oh I didn't have to meet him and I didn't have to uh try to figure him out in the present because he's a different man I think one of the really special things about this movie and one of the things that Jason was really clear about with us as soon as we got going was that we were trying to capture the spirit of this moment in time and the essence of these people at this moment in time and so it was kind of freeing in that we didn't have to think about them 10 years later or even them once they'd been affected by Fame yeah yeah yeah like it's this really precious this was before they had agents cast members but no it was cool we were like we were we were representing them we're not recreating them that wasn't the thing but it was the first screen tests and first being on set and seeing everybody in their wardrobe it was like oh my God these are like superheroes or like Shakespearean characters that everyone is familiar with that we're getting the honor to show our interpretation of how did you yeah what did you do to you PR everyone D how did you voice is insane in this movie how do it orchestrate that yeah weath yeah I we I did not do a lot of PR as so in that way you followed Jason's Direction yes I was the only one who did the homework by not doing the homework the homework was don't prep you already know how to do this because at the end of the day the the idea is to capture one piece of essence of the character you can't actually replicate a person you know 100% And particularly in an ensemble this big so it was about one part of the essence of somebody how do you bring that to life and more so how do you get along as a group and that's what was so cool about this cast is that from day one they made the building feel alive meanwhile I I I was actually working from a place of utter fear and Terror that that I would ruin my career uh trying to do this so I um are you serious yeah 1,000% yeah I I I watched compulsively only chvy Chase for a couple months uh but the thing that I the thing that I actually was most nervous about you know you can like watch someone there's so much out there of Chevy like I could watch I could try to embody what he's doing and and uh replicate that but what we don't know and what you spend a lot of time in this film is watching these people not performing but living and so it's like oh wow what is that person like you know in Chevy's case he gets embarrassed a bit and I'm like yeah but I don't know what Chevy looks like in a really vulnerable state and then I I was watching interviews with him and uh there's some great dick cavat interviews but his first time on Johnny Carson he comes out and he's really nervous he's this young guy really nervous and Johnny asks him a question and he answers with I do and it has nothing to do with the question and everyone pauses and Johnny laughs in his face suddenly and everyone is just laughing at Chevy and he's like flustered and Johnny's like let me tell you this is going to work I want to ask you a question and you're going to answer in relation to that question and he goes yeah yeah yeah yeah and I was like oh my God that's like that's it so it was like finding these little nuggets where you can actually see like oh that's Chevy humiliated and I can use that yeah Jason explained it to to me you know part of his reasoning for not wanting you to to to speak to said person you're playing is cuz we really want to embody the energy of what they were going through on that particular day um and so I remember speaking with Garrett and against Jason's uh but I knew yeah no no this was an accident you were present no no I spoke to him first yeah I was contact personally directly but Garrett was going through Garrett was going through similar things that find myself going through in my career so it was kind of easy to relate to that fish out of water feeling to being the first of something you know what I mean and to kind of really you know to have a a select group of people um that that are skilled at a particular thing and you feel like you're you're coming in with your own brand of whatever and you don't know how it fits into this puzzle and so um you know with the backdrop of you know post civil rights and all those things Garrett was he was going through a lot more than just having to perform and so I I wanted to make sure that that's actually what Garrett was feeling and and Jason was spoton um with his writing and so it made a lot of sense for me and against Jason's will I'm very grateful that I did what I had to do well when you say don't prepare I know everyone's working to prepare so much and I'm just trying to get them to pull back to a certain extent that it's really generous I know that the the movie is set before the rest of the the first season unfolds but did you guys watch that in prep and how do you feel like the first season of asnl holds up I actually made the mistake of going okay so the one thing I know I'm definitely not going to do the one way I'm going to like follow Jason's advice is I'm not going to watch any of the first season of SNL and then we get to like two days before shooting and we're in cast Camp I'll let someone else explain the idea of C we didn't have trailers we had a big common area with 70s furniture and pingpong and board games and old records and we all had our own dressing rooms that were all specifically designed and catered for our characters personalities which was really cool but everyone was always together on and offset well okay so I came in and the first season was playing and there was this clip of Gilda that I'd never seen before and I was like oh my God help me I was really I was like at a roadblock with her and this this video of her being a farman came on and I was like oh thank goodness F thank goodness um so that's my little anec it it was kind of weird though yeah on the TV there was just the first season on a loop loop on like every day it would be the same episodes that just filter throughout the day and eventually we would like change it to something and then we'd come back from set and then we would be back on the first season of SNL is that you yeah no I said Put it on uh well I wanted it to be 1970s television in general that you guys were watching while you're there the best thing is the photos of you while playing ping pong in your be outs but Gilda was the fairy dust and Garrett is looking for his identity Chevy is a ego that needs to be humbled uh Acro is this genius that's like filtering a fire hose through a straw uh each on had like one thing uh to focus on that was their Journey awesome well sorry to have to wrap so quickly but um thank you guys for being here it's was great 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