Literally, just walked into Lorne's office and he said, "Hey, we're just going to make you into a cast member." And I said, "...who?!"
Related posts tagged 'Saturday Night Live'
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Related posts tagged 'Saturday Night Live'
I will say that off the top of my head, the two favorite sketches that I was a part of had to have been the Harry Caray space show with Jeff Goldblum and, of course the cowbell sketch with Christopher Walken.
My favorite cast member to work with was Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Not being good at getting sketches didn't mean I was all of sudden a horrible stand up. My confidence was never broken. I immediately started writing at 30 rock right after SNL. Smooth transition.
A great talent. We used to call him 'the glue' because he kept all the sketches together. I think about him often. So many fav sketches with him. Tarzan, Tonto and Frankenstein...Mace...The olympian weight lifter...I'm sure I'm forgetting tons..
They're good. I don't know them as well as I knew the previous one. But i really feel like the previous cast, that was the best group since the original group. They were my favorite group. Some really talented people that were all comedians of some kind or another. You think about Dana Carvey, Will, Hartman, all these wonderful funny guys. But the last group with Kristen Wiig and those characters, they were a bunch of actors and their stuff was just different. It's all about the writing, the writing is such a challenge and you are trying to write backwards to fit 90 minutes between dress rehearsal and the airing. And sometimes the writers don't get the whole thing figured out, it's not like ...
It was awesome to learn the television business from that side. I got to work with great people and watch great musical acts and drink til 7am for no reason.
One of the few times I almost broke character is when Chris Farley got hung up on the Weekend Update letters behind us as he was supposed to be hoisted up on a cable and flown over the audience. Too funny!
The hours. We work on each show FOREVER. Another thing I didn't expect - how good EVERYBODY is at their job. Like, EVERYBODY.
It was the first sketch I ever did. I got confused with stage direction, and literally did not know what color I was on the cue cards, so I just froze! Hey people, it's live TV, and the experience has made me a better performer. AND took away the fear of being in sketches!
Well, here's what I did, Victoria. Any sketch I would write, I would call my character "Stan Hooper" and he didn't really do anything, you know? And I would be very careful to name him Stan Hooper, and then have someone in the sketch say "Hey Stan Hooper" and one time I read a list of recurring characters and Stan Hooper was way up there. And of all the characters he had no real qualities of any kind. Just a bland empty vessel of a man.
It was my first sketch I did on SNL. It was mind-boggling because you had two conversations going at the same time and it was SNL and it was live and oh, please don't remind me...
The first time I heard "Pornstars!" It was the Jonah Hill episode. "One time I thought I banged Seal Team Six... but it was actually just sixteen seals. I was like, 'Thanks, America!'" I remember I made them keep that joke in there!
The smartest SNL cast member was Adam Sandler, by far.
People are going to know this - when I got hired, Adam was hired as a writer, he wasn't even hired as a cast member. And he was smart enough to write stuff for other people AND write stuff for himself at the same time. Made himself indispensable. Made himself into a star. Smartest guy I know.
It's my favorite moment of the week. It's the one time I can stand in the studio and look around and think how grateful I am to work at SNL.
This was one of my favorite performances of all time. And it was the first time Rihanna played this song anywhere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-dW7z0QBNg
Oh...
My favorite memory is Gilda eating EVERY KNOWN candy you could buy in a candy store - she LOVED that. And she also, I have to say, was a great, great physical comedian. one of the funniest things i ever saw was a scene with her and Belushi, they had known each other before at Second City, and in this particular sketch, he's directing her and a man in a movie, and something goes wrong with the man, his lines or something, John would yell "CUT!" and he'd go talk to the guy, but if anything went wrong with Gilda, he'd slap her as hard as he could, and she'd go plunging to the wall, and she'd make it look like she was hit with a brick...She was SO good at making you believe in Gilda, as a...
It certainly didn’t debunk the myth. He was super charming and nice but he still came across pretty cool and badass and on the wind. We finished and walked off and he shook my hand there on the stage and was like, “Pleasure doing business with you.” And then he was gone, like Keyser Söze. [Laughs.] He left and I was like, “There goes the motherfucking man.”
Behind the scene stories from SNL -- I particularly remember the Saturday that Steve Martin was hosting with Sting as musical guest. The fire alarms went off that afternoon and we all had to rush down the stairs and out into the street. We weren't allowed back into the building until right before the live show. We went on with no rehearsal. Quite exciting. (just smoke in the building).
The craziest moment was walking out to do Weekend Update and my first joke was about the Patriots and Deflategate and the one person I passed walking to the desk was Robert Kraft. He was just hanging out and watching the show in our studio. I was like, "Hey.... Ear muffs?"
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