Playing Eliot Spitzer on SNL made Bill Hader sick for a week
Bill Hader has long made it quite clear that his beloved tenure on Saturday Night Live, while iconic to most, was plagued by severe anxiety, shyness, and a serious case of imposter syndrome. While we yukked it up from the comfort of our couches, Hader was in in the midst of an emotional (and physical) collapse, none so severe as when he portrayed New York governor Eliot Spitzer.
“I did Eliot Spitzer once…I got so nervous doing that,” recalls Hader during an episode of Off Camera with Sam Jones. “…the next day, I had a fever and chills. My whole body broke down, and I was sick for, like a week [because] my defenses were up the whole week I was doing it.”
While the interview is from an older episode of Off Camera, the clip itself was uploaded to YouTube recently—for which we are grateful, since it serves as a helpful reminder to all you thankless fans that Bill Hader, an angel if there ever was one, is out there consistently suffering for our own enjoyment.
Take heart, though. Apparently the sage advice of Sir Paul McCartney helps him manage some of the weight of our expectations.
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