Saturday Night Live is simultaneously
blessed and cursed by its history: When the show was good, it was good enough
to build up positive feelings that stick with it today, but every current
character, sketch, and joke is measured by the ones that preceded it. And
there's a lot of "before" for comparison. On the air since 1975, and still
mostly holding to its initial formula, SNL is often criticized as "comedy by numbers,"
when it isn't being praised for becoming "relevant" again. That seesaw of
expectation leads to every new season being called either the worst ever, or
the best in a long time.
But if nothing else, SNL is still a thriving
school for comic actors. The list of brilliant comedians who started out as SNL cast members
stretches back from Bill Murray through Dana Carvey and Will Ferrell, and to
current players like Will Forte and Rachel Dratch. (Of course, the list of
not-so-accomplished comedians goes back pretty far too, but that's another
story.)
The four newcomers of SNL's 2005-6
season—Bill Hader, Andy Samberg, Jason Sudeikis, and Kristen Wiig
—have begun to make their mark on the show, as well as stake their claim
on its future: Hader is a master of impersonation, while Sudeikis, an SNL writer for two
years, has proven to be a solid player. Wiig already has a recurring character
(The Target Lady) under her belt, while Andy Samberg, of Lonely Island fame,
has ensured SNL will be running digital shorts until 2008 at least.
On a recent Monday, The A.V. Club stopped
by 30 Rockefeller's 17th floor to talk to SNL's four newest cast members about
their (tiny) offices, their work week, and their fears of typecasting,
recurring characters, and auditions.
The
A.V. Club: How did you two end up in an office together?
Jason
Sudeikis:
They just put us here.
Bill
Hader: They
go by height.
JS: I have a different
office every year. So this is my third office. I like this one because it's
close to the action.
AVC: You mean that room with the big table?
BH: Yeah. And it was also
reportedly Al Franken and Tom Davis' office, right?
JS: It was? I know it was
James Anderson and Kenan Thompson's office.
BH: Oh, well, that's even
more impressive.
Andy
Samberg:
A lot to live up to.
AVC: So you've never been in an office you wanted to stay in?
JS: No, every person I've
ever been in an office with has been let go, so…
Or
they've left on their own accord. They haven't necessarily all been let go.
BH: Yeah…
That sounds more like it. [Laughs.]
JS: So it wasn't my choosing,
but I couldn't be happier. I think that goes for both of us.
BH: I couldn't be happier
either. We found out we have a lot in common.
And
we don't have to look at each other, because we're back to back when we're
working.
AVC: So what are you all doing today? Today is…
Everyone: Pitch.
JS: Pitch meeting. Where you
meet whoever's hosting. The writers go through a topical meeting, where they
talk about all the things that have happened in the past three weeks and things
that are going to be happening during the week—predicting the future to a
certain degree. And then deciding what they want to write about, and who's going
to write what, and things like that. Then we go meet with Natalie Portman.
BH: And this happens.
[Everyone starts clapping.]
JS: We clap. And everyone
gives her a couple ideas about what they may or may not write, and then we eat
free food. And then either you stick around, or you go do…
BH: You stick around,
generally try to write something,
AS: Get a jump on the week.
BH: That's a really great
feeling when you come in on Tuesday, and you're like, "I have a piece
underneath my belt." It lays off the pressure.
AS: You're talking about a
gun, right?
BH: Yes. I come to work with
a gun.
AS: Under
your belt?
Kristen
Wiig: You
can't print that.
BH: I mean, I've got a
license for it. I use it for an intimidation tool. It's not loaded. "Oh really?
You don't like that sketch?"
AS: "Well, I've got a piece
underneath my belt."
BH: I'm just putting my guns
on the table, I'm just saying.
KW: We're all required to
bring some sort of weapon.
JS: I wear
shoe lifts.
AS: Totally
unnecessarily, too.
JS: I'm fairly tall, but
it's like another quarter inch.
AVC: It gives you an edge?
BH: Not with
most hosts, but with Lance Armstrong, it gives you an edge.
AVC: And with Natalie Portman.
JS: Yeah, but her bone
structure totally outweighs my lifts.
AVC: So what was everyone's first pitch, whether or not it made it to air?
KW: I can't
remember. My first show was with Jason Lee, and I honestly can't remember what
I pitched for him. I know I had written it down, though. I was terrified.
BH: I think I pitched a Bobby
Flay thing for Steve Carell, him playing Bobby Flay and getting executed, or
something.
JS: A couple of years ago,
when I was just a writer, I pitched to Jack Black an idea about him being a
college-kid folk singer who tries to sing "Cat's In The Cradle" to his dad, but
his dad keeps interrupting him. And it did make it. But that is the only one.
First show, first thing. I was very nervous.
BH: So your first pitch, you
then wrote, and it got on the show. God, that doesn't happen a lot.
AVC: How much of the pitch meeting makes it to air?
JS: I would say 15 percent of
what is pitched in that room probably actually gets on the show, much less even
written. Sometimes it will be a variation on it. Sometimes people pitch
whatever, just sort of to protect the piece or the joke or the notion. It's a
lot less interesting than the Saturday show, which is probably why they don't
televise it.
AS: Yet.
[pagebreak]
AVC: And things can get knocked out at any point?
KW: At any point.
BH: You might even have
something in the show, but after Update, basically it's kinda like a
free-for-all. If you had something, it could be pulled at the last minute
because of time.
AVC: Do people ever fight about that kind of stuff?
Everyone: No.
JS: If you have something so
funny that you're willing to fight your co-workers or your friends over, then
it's probably going to get in, because everyone agrees.
If
one person is sticking up for their piece… I don't know if anyone really ever
sticks up for their piece that much, to the point that it would be off-putting.
BH: Well, it's also out of
your control. It doesn't matter.
JS: It's no easier to find
out when it happens. You could be dressed up in your lederhosen or whatever,
and they're like "Oh, that sketch has been cut."
BH: You're always in like a
really intricate costume. And then it gets pulled.
AVC: Has that happened to all of you?
KW: It happened to me. I
wasn't in a crazy costume. I don't think I was dressed, actually. It was one of
those things when it was the sketch after the sketch that was on, and no one
really knew if it would be in or not. So it was like "What's going on? Should I
change?" and then I was told we ran out of time.
AVC: So how did everyone get on the show?
JS: I would love to hear
this.
KW: Maybe I'll start, because
mine is the quickest and the most boring: My manager sent my tape in, and I
auditioned twice, and then got a call on Wednesday to be here Friday. So, fast
packing. It's not an exciting story.
AS: Say there's a dragon or
something. "My manager sent in a tape, then I flew in on a dragon. I got off
the dragon and was like, 'After that, I can handle anything.' Then I knocked
out the audition."
BH: Yeah, when you show up to
an audition on the back of a dragon, you've got it.
AS: Well, [SNL creator] Lorne [Michaels]
doesn't like dragons.
KW: [Head writer] Tina [Fey]
does.
JS: He likes some dragons,
that's the weird thing
AS: Dana Carvey came in on a
dragon.
BH: Dana Carvey came in on a
dragon and still got it. So it just goes to show you. You show up and you
perform, that's all that really matters.
AVC: Andy?
AS: Me and my two friends,
Akiva [Schaffer] and Jorma [Taccone], we were writing on the MTV Movie Awards
last year, and Jimmy Fallon was the host. We were friendly with him, and I
guess he liked us and recommended that they check us out for the show. They
invited us to audition and send a writing packet. Then I auditioned, and they
asked me to come back and do it again. And then I barfed the night before my
callback.
AVC: Out of nervousness?
AS: It was nervousness. Then
I came out into the lobby the next morning, and Jorma was there, because he was
also going to audition. And I was like, "Dude, I threw up last night." And he
was like "Really? I just threw up!" and I was like "Oh my God!" and we hugged
about it. It was the happiest I've ever been, hearing about someone else
throwing up. That adds a little color to my story.
KW: Well, my dragon vomited.
Go, Bill.
BH: I was in a sketch group
in L.A., and we were playing, like, backyards in Glendale and stuff. It was
pretty ugly, because we didn't have any money. One of the guys in the group,
his sister-in-law is Megan Mullally, so she came to one of the shows and was
like, "Hey, you're good." So she told Lorne about me, and I came out and met
Lorne last January, and then we did a show for him. And he flew us out to New
York and we did a show for, like, everybody: the whole SNL cast, writers,
producers—which was the most nerve-wracking thing ever.
AVC: Did you barf?
BH: I did not barf. It
actually turned out pretty good. But the morning of my audition, my manager
called and was like, "You have a political impression, right?" And I was like
"No." And she was like "You have to have a political impression." So that morning,
I was just flipping through channels and I found Tony Blair. I watched Tony
Blair for, like, two hours and figured it out, and then went to the audition.
AS: Yeah, I had a similar
thing. When I was going to my callback, the guy was like, "Just do the same
stuff, but maybe trim a little. They just want to see you again." I was like
"Really? Because I feel like it won't be funny again." And they were like "No,
that's fine. Just do the same stuff." And then two days before the callback, I
got a call from my manager: "They want to see all-new stuff." So I wrote a
whole new audition in two days.
AVC: Jason, what about you?
JS: I had my manager send in
tape of a show I was doing in Las Vegas for Second City. Then I auditioned in
the beginning of September of 2003. I was hired as a writer from that audition.
In September of 2004, I auditioned to be on air again, and did not get it, so I
stayed as a writer. Then I tested for Weekend Update and did not get that.
About 17 episodes went by, and then a Friday before a show last season, Lorne
called and asked if I wanted to be in the cast, and I told him I'd get back to
him. [Laughs.]
BH: And I still haven't let
him know.
JS: No, he asked if I wanted
to, and I said "Yeah." He goes "All right." And that was the extent of it.
AVC: Does everybody have to have a political impression?
AS: No, I think they just
want to see if you can. Bill does impressions, that's part of his thing.
BH: But they ask you, though.
Did they not ask you guys?
AS: I mean, what political
impression could I possibly do?
KW: I did Laura Bush.
JS: I don't know if there's
any set rule. I did John Edwards and George Bush, but only because I could, not
because they commanded it. I mean, I doubt Adam Sandler did a political impression.
AS: I heard he humped a chair
for 10 minutes
JH: I remember when I was
doing my audition, I was very concerned with keeping it five minutes, short,
not because they wanted you to, but because I wanted something punchy. In and
out. I could hear some of the other people, and some of the auditions were
really long.
AS: Well, I watched
Ferrell's audition off his best-of DVD. That helped me personally, because a)
he went significantly over five minutes, and b) it gives you an idea of how
little laughter there is in the room. You're watching Ferrell, and you're like,
"This is fucking hilarious," and there's no real laughs. So it prepares you. No
matter what you do, it's not going to be like killing at a stand-up club or an
improv show. It's going to be going into a stale room, and feeling really
awkward, and having to believe that what you're doing is really funny, beyond
what the reaction is.
AVC: Did you all grow up watching SNL?
Everyone: Yeah.
AVC: Who did you like growing up?
JS: I liked Eddie Murphy and
Phil Hartman. The Dana Carvey/Phil Hartman/Jon Lovitz years were probably the
years I watched it the most, as an impressionable youth. I just sort of stopped
watching. I remember liking Adam Sandler a lot.
AS: I was big into the
Sandler years. Actually, I never stopped watching.
JS: I stopped
for like 10 years, from '92 to 2002.
[pagebreak]
AVC: Why'd you stop?
BH: You got your license?
JS: I got my driver's
license. I figured out how to masturbate with a girl being present. They call
it "sex." I was working on Saturdays, and it stopped being my favorite
television. Same reason I don't watch 24 any more, I guess.
AVC: Why do you think you were hired? Do you think they hire you to fit a certain
type they're looking for?
KW: For me, my second
audition was all women, so I know they were looking for a girl. And I'm a girl.
I don't really know, though.
JS: I don't know. I assume
that those conversations go on behind closed doors, and we wouldn't be privy to
them. I guess you can make sense of it if you want to, but at the end of the
day, I think they probably just found us entertaining in some way. I think it's
everybody else watching the show who tends to think in types. I worked at
Second City before, and they always had that same theory, like "A big guy just
left, so they're going to hire a big guy." But I don't think… things didn't
always work out that way. It's just someone trying to make sense out of chaos.
KW: At the end of the day,
you just want a good show.
AS: Yeah, you hope it's
whoever made everyone laugh, in however way they did it. I don't know if it's
by design or if it's coincidental, but I feel like all four of us kinda do a
different thing from the rest. Which is nice, for sure.
JS: Big picture: you could
just say "Well, there are four white people," or "They added three younger,
skinny, white dudes with mop-heads." But if you get more specific into what
they do with those elements, then it becomes very, very different. What at one
point was very hard to discern will become very easy to distinguish as time
goes on. It's one of those things that happens time and time again with the
show. I don't think it's as compartmentalized or standardized as people may
think.
BH: But it is cool, coming in
with a group like this. It feels like a base. There's a really cool support
system.
AS: There are stories other
people have about just them being hired mid-season… It doesn't sound that fun.
Although everyone here is so nice that I can't imagine anyone being that bad.
It's just extra nice to have each other. [Laughs.]
JS: It's competitive, though.
You know, it's an hour-and-a-half show that we have to share with Weekend
Update and the host and two musical acts, so truly you're talking about 40
minutes of material, and yet eight hours of material is being generated every
week. The reason it's competitive is because the show's not long enough, not
because the people here are competitive. Everybody wants to do well and have
their things be seen and get their thing on air, but it's not to the point
where people are being unsupportive by any means, so that's good.
AVC: So no sabotage?
JS: I mean, nothing that we
could directly talk about.
BH: Nothing we could say
about in front of you
AS: It loses its power. If
you're talking about pranks, though, well… [Maniacal laughter.]
KW: Jason does own a fart
machine.
JS: It's rented. I rented it.
AS: Keep that receipt, by the
way.
BH: That's a total
write-off.
AVC: Do you ever read press about the show?
KW: I don't. If they send us
something that's a general thing about the new people, I'll read that.
BH: Something actually in
print, I'll read. But as far as Internet, like boards and junk, I don't read
that.
AS: I'm weaning myself off of
it, because I come from a lot of Internet stuff. I had a website with my
friends, so we would always be checking out how much we were out there, but now
it's to the point where the Internet is a place that can turn so fast.
KW: It can make you insecure.
AS: They can say such harsh
things. There's no filter. And if you put stock in something good someone says
about you on the Internet, then you also have to let it affect you when
somebody says something bad. I'm trying to choose to not look at any of that,
because it's not really helpful in any way. Better to just do what you think is
good here, and let that be that.
AVC: So none of you have looked at your IMDB profiles?
BH: I looked at mine the
Sunday after my very first show, because I had message things on it. I was
like, "Oh cool, people are saying things," and then it registered, and I was
like, "Oh, this is why I don't want to look at this." You don't want to get
caught up in it.
AS: I looked at my IMDB page
just to make sure I'm still on the show.
AVC: Is there pressure to create recurring characters or catchphrases?
BH: Not really.
AS: I think that they want it
if it happens, but there's no one's going, "Think of a catchphrase." Just come
up with something funny, and if they like it enough, and think it can go again,
they ask you to do it.
AVC: Kristen, you have a recurring character. Are you ever afraid that you'll run
it into the ground?
KW: Yeah. Or that what made
the first one funny won't be funny the second time. Or I'm afraid that I'm
doing the exact same thing. It's hard to write a second recurring character.
AS: There's also obviously
some sort of internal mental stigma of being on the show. Because we all watch
the show. You know that exists. Franchise the characters. It's part of the
show.
JS: You can't predict it,
though. I guarantee that if you watch that first "Wayne's World" sketch, you're
not going to hear a lot of people laughing, and definitely not a lot of people
in the background at the end of it saying, "Oh, do that again." Much less "Make
a movie that makes $100 million and a sequel that makes a bunch of dough and a
career!" So if you're aiming for that, you're aiming for the wrong thing.
AS: It never happens because
you're trying to do that.
BH: If anything, things that
have gotten on the show have been the Plan B of the night.
JS: It's back
to the whole Monday pitch meeting. If you have an idea that you see through,
soup to nuts, if you see it through the whole way from pitch to air… Some
people work that way, I don't know, I certainly don't. I'm sure they would love
it, but… We don't have meetings where they say "All right, everybody, let's
hear your Irish accents. Who does the funniest one? All right, you're going to
be Leprechaun Pete. Go write that." It's not McDonald-ized to that nature.
Where it's cookie-cutter and all planned out.
BH: It's weird and
mechanical, too, if you do it that way. I know it probably sounds silly to
everybody, but I never am like, "I'm going to do this accent," or anything like
that. I remember watching the show growing up, and it was different because it
was like watching a show with a timeline. Like, "Oh, are they going to do
Wayne's World this week?" It's more what makes you laugh. It's kind of that
simple. Like when you're in high school, and your friends make you laugh in the
cafeteria. It's that simple.
JS: I wish he would have said
this just to me, because it would make a better story, but before my first
audition, Chris Rock happened to show up to do some stand-up material at the
club, and he went on right before me, and as he was walking out, he sorta
tapped me on the shoulder and said, "They love original thought." If you just
keep that in mind, as long as you know it's yours, you know that if they like
it, it's yours to keep, regardless of being on the show or not.
BH: They would always rather
you do what you like, rather than you do what you think they like.
AVC: Chris Rock wasn't being sarcastic in that story?
JS: No, not at all. It didn't
really—I mean, there's a lot of people that've auditioned for this show
that we've never seen on the show, that we've seen do a lot of things that are
great, and there's a lot of people that have been on this show that didn't do
much on this show that's the same. It's very—[Laughs.] Maybe he was being a smartass.
KW: You ruined it, you
ruiner.