Title: 'Saturday Night' Recreates the First Episode of 'SNL'.

[MUSIC - Luscious Jackson: Citysong]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart. Today, and for today's show, we've been bringing you some conversations with filmmakers and actors behind some of the most entertaining independent films of this year. Next, we hear about a movie that tries to capture the frantic minutes before that New York institution, Saturday Night Live first hit the air. Co-written and directed by Jason Reitman, the film, Saturday Night, follows the 90 minutes of sound checks and dress rehearsals and mishap after mishap. Falling lighting rigs, disappearing cast members, bad drug experiences, and, well, not being ready. Here's a clip featuring my other guest, Gabriel LaBelle, speaking to an NBC suit, played by Willem Dafoe.

Willem Dafoe: I can only imagine what must be running through your mind. The thought, no matter how improbable, that you might not make it to air.

Gabriel LaBelle: That didn't even occur to me.

Willem Dafoe: Really? I heard that you were having some technical difficulties.

Gabriel LaBelle: Not that I know.

Willem Dafoe: I just heard that your writers were stoned, your actors were physically assaulting each other, and the sound system was down.

Speaker 4: What the hell is happening?

Willem Dafoe: A fire broke out earlier. I've been doing this job a long time. I've seen it all. I'm sure you have it all under control.

Gabriel LaBelle: Minor issues already addressed.

Willem Dafoe: That's for sure.

Gabriel LaBelle: Oh, this whole conversation is a soothing shower of relief.

Willem Dafoe: Hey, good, good. Look, if for some reason you can't block your script or commit your cast to legally binding contracts, rest assured the country will be happy to watch Johnny Carson.

Alison Stewart: Writer and director Jason Reitman and star Gabriel LaBelle join me to talk about Saturday Night before its theatrical release. Let's listen to my conversation.

[music]

Alison Stewart: When did you know that was going to be the script that you were going to write?

Jason Reitman: It's funny. I think it actually happened in some ways the opposite order. I was already obsessed with real-time films and this kind of countdown, and I was already interested in telling a story that I knew was going to be 90 consecutive minutes. Then at some point, it hit me, "Oh, the location of Saturday Night Live would be perfect." A rundown that started at 10:00 PM with Lorne Michaels looking for Andy Kaufman out on 50th Street and leading all the way to the last line of the movie, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night."

Alison Stewart: Gabriel, people might recognize you as the young Steven Spielberg from The Fabelmans. Now, you're playing Lorne Michaels. What is something you understand about fronting a movie, being high up on the call sheet that no one could have ever told you about?

Gabriel LaBelle: Something about film sets is everybody is working so closely together, and there are a lot of people, and the energy trickles down from the director and the production. Then I think as the number one on the set, there's a responsibility to just be nice to everyone and treat everyone well and check in and make sure that everyone's feeling good because then, as soon as everyone else is just like, "That guy's not fun to be around," then everything collapses. I think it's just a matter of making sure that everyone's having a good time.

Alison Stewart: A big part of the film is old school versus new school, right?

Jason Reitman: Yes.

Alison Stewart: The SNL crew, they're upstars, they're trying to get stuff over on the sensor. Then the old guards, like the union guys, they don't want to pick up their stuff. They don't want to help. They're ready. Johnny Carson can roll at any time. When you thought about it, why do people not want to try new things?

Jason Reitman: It's a great question because every generation, at one point, is hip, but none of us want to let go. Saturday Night Live in 1975, it's kind of like the Woodstock moment for television. You have Woodstock for music. You have early '70s cinema, The Graduate, Harold and Maude, Five Easy Pieces, all these movies that did that for cinema. Then in 1975, you have a group of young people, and it's a combination of writers, producers, actors, musicians who are ripping television out of the hands of a previous generation and saying, "No, this is who we are now."

Alison Stewart: Gabriel, you had to play Lorne Michaels and you didn't meet him, right? Is that correct?

Gabriel LaBelle: I met him the day before our first day on set when he invited us to watch Saturday Night Live, and he invited us to 30 Rock, the whole cast, while we were about to shoot two days outside of New York. Other than that, I did not talk to him.

Alison Stewart: Ooh, what did you observe?

Gabriel LaBelle: I observed how everyone in the room is looking at him, and I observed that he holds power in his aura, and it's really cool to experience. Then I couldn't also help but just be hyper-focused on what his face was doing, how he laughed at certain things. I tried not to. I've been studying him, so it was weird. It was very weird.

Alison Stewart: As you were studying him, what mannerisms did you know you wanted to show, that you wanted to portray in your character?

Gabriel LaBelle: I think certain facial expressions in how he's telling a story and how there are old photos of him and his eyebrows are raised a lot. He has lines in his forehead. I thought that was a very clear personification for me. Then how he carries his lips, his postures, how he pronounces certain words, how when he laughs, he puts his tongue between his lips. I noticed that in person. Little things that I just thought were fun to sprinkle into the film.

Alison Stewart: Also, his vocal quality, you heard it in a little bit in the clip. There's a flatness to it. I don't know what it is.

Gabriel LaBelle: I don't know what it is either. I think he just operates at a lower octave. He speaks in a Canadian accent.

Jason Reitman: Something you did really great in the movie is that you don't respond immediately to everything coming at you. That's the thing I've noticed about Lorne is that the majority of the world flinches and he doesn't, whether that's comedically out of fear, people are looking for his response. He just has a sense of self-control, and he seems to only respond exactly as he intends to. I noticed you doing that even when it was complete chaos around you. That's one of my favorite things about your performance.

Gabriel LaBelle: Oh, thank you very much.

Alison Stewart: A lot of fans of SNL, it's 50 years. There's different groups of watchers. Who did you think your viewer of the movie was going to be Jason?

Jason Reitman: Oh, that's a great question because I feel like SNL is like a great sports franchise. Everyone thinks that the members of SNL from when they were like 15 years old are the greatest SNL members of all time. You can almost guess someone's age if they're like, well, it's Eddie Murphy or it's Adam Sandler or it's Lonely Island. I think that's actually one of the beautiful things about Saturday Night Live is that it's actually grown. That's almost impossible to say about anything comedically.

Comedy has a short shelf life and it doesn't age well. Yet somehow Saturday Night Live has found a way to reflect our sense of humor, reflect our politics, reflect our taste in music. Even the opening theme of Saturday Night Live has never been recorded. They perform it live every Saturday. As they've changed the band members out and changed the style of the music over 50 years, it has been a slight evolution.

My sense is that the movie is for not only anyone who's ever loved Saturday Night Live. That's pretty easy. I'm saying, "Oh, the movie's for everybody," but it's actually for anyone who's ever tried to put on a show, and that's whether it's Broadway or a high school musical or a talent show at summer camp. There's that feeling 90 minutes before you try to do anything, and where there's friction between the cast and the crew, and it never feels like this thing is going to come off. Somehow Saturday Night Live, 50 years later, still in the seconds before show, they are painting the sets, they are painting the wigs, and it is frantic. When it comes together, it's exhilarating.

Alison Stewart: I have a friend who's a stage manager there. It's crazy every week.

Jason Reitman: Yes. Do they have ice in their veins?

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: She's a sweetheart. She's really like it's very mothering to the crew, to her staff. Where did you go to get all your research for writing the book, the movie?

Jason Reitman: My writing partner, Gil Kenan, and I just started interviewing everyone we could find that was alive, that was in the building on October 11th, 1975, and every writer, actor, Lorne, Rosie Schuster, Dick Ebersole, members of Billy Preston's band, NBC pages, even. We just wanted to get a taste of what it felt like. Of course, as you can imagine, they all contradicted each other, like nothing added up. No one was in the room that they said they were.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] That's funny.

Jason Reitman: You get this kind of mix of mythology and legend, and there's truth in between everything. We made an early decision that it's not our job to write a Wikipedia page here on the history of SNL. We're trying to capture what it felt like, that exhilaration of what it felt like in the 90 minutes before, and also capture a bunch of people that we know well now today. Not only actors like Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase and Gilda Radner but all the other people who were there. Billy Preston, George Carlin. Jim Henson is there. Andy Kaufman is there. Billy Crystal's there. What were every single one of those people like on the verge of fame when everything is potentially about to happen or blow up in their face and how to capture their vulnerability?

Alison Stewart: One of the people that you mentioned was Rosie Shuster. She played Lorne Michael's first wife. Why do you think that's an important part of the story, Rosie and Lorne?

Gabriel LaBelle: Rosie and Lorne met each other when they were about 14 years old in Toronto. They grew up together and they conspired their mutual dream to be comedy writers. They worked together and got married young and spent their incredibly important developmental years together. Yet their relationship is also such a reflection of the time where they weren't monogamous and they were married, but they realized that they probably shouldn't have been that young. Rosie doesn't want a nuclear family at that time. They're sleeping with other people in the studio and who they're working with, and yet they're still best friends and they still respect each other and listen to each other. Rosie, played so beautifully by Rachel Sennott. She's just amazing.

Alison Stewart: She's sexy in it, too.

Gabriel LaBelle: Oh, yes. She is the straight--

Alison Stewart: Real sexy.

[laughter]

Gabriel LaBelle: It's funny because Lorne is supposed to be the straight man to all of the crazy personalities and characters in this film, but Rosie is a straight man to Lorne's straight man. She's there and is such a beautiful device for Lorne's vulnerability, to get him to admit that he is nervous and she understands everything that he's been going through. I think that's what's important for her. Also to reflect that she-- Not a lot of people know about her. She was a brilliant, brilliant writer who wrote a lot of amazing stuff on that show. We wouldn't have Saturday Night Live without Rosie Schuster.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to a clip from Saturday Night. This is Rosie Schuster playing. She has just left John Belushi's dressing room and has been trying to convince him to wear a bee costume. Let's listen.

Lorne Michaels: Hey, I heard John doesn't like the bee costume. You know anything about this?

Rosie Schuster: It's not a costume, by the way. He thinks he's Brando.

Dick: Lorne. Lorne.

Lorne Michaels: No, he's better than Brando. I'm working on it, Dick. He's better than Brando. He's more important, even though we studied.

Rosie Schuster: They will study his [unintelligible 00:12:44]. John is better when he's angry.

Lorne Michaels: Rosie, you understand that it's an hour television program? I made a covenant with the national broadcast.

Rosie Schuster: A covenant, Lorne?

Lorne Michaels: Yes, a covenant. I'm on the hook for 90 minutes of live television.

Rosie Schuster: Okay, Abraham.

Lorne Michaels: Rose, must you turn him into a bee?

Rosie Schuster: I am not turning him into a bee.

Lorne Michaels: Thanks, Tom.

Rosie Schuster: He is a man in a bee costume.

Alison Stewart: So good. I was speaking with Jason Reitman, the writer and director of the new movie Saturday Night, along with Gabriel LaBelle, who stars as Lorne Michaels. Gabriel, I understand Steven Spielberg gave you a good piece of advice. Tell me what it is.

Gabriel LaBelle: He didn't give me advice for the film, but he did sit me down and just tell me his experience with the people and his relationships and what he thought of people and how he became friends with them and how he was a total regular groupie for the show. He was living in Los Angeles, but for months, he'd been hearing there's something happening in New York. There is going to be something great in New York. You have these great comedians, all these cool things. They're making something different on television. He was so curious that he flew himself out to New York on Friday before that first show, watched it Saturday night, became friends with all of them, flew back to LA on Sunday, and did the exact same trip every single episode for the first season.

Alison Stewart: For the first one. He was most still making Jaws about that time, right?

Gabriel LaBelle: I've gone to about 10 live tapings of Saturday Night Live, and Steven's been at least 7 of them. That's over 15 years. I just go there. He is a genuine SNL super fan.

Jason Reitman: Him and Lorne have been really close friends for about 25 years. They've known each other 50, but have been very close for a quarter of a century.

Alison Stewart: As you're thinking about the show, what's your favorite skit?

Gabriel LaBelle: Ooh, sketches, please.

Alison Stewart: Sketches, excuse me.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Sorry. Lorne, sorry.

Jason Reitman: I'm going to be so upset. I'm sorry, this interview's over.

[laughter]

Gabriel LaBelle: I've never broken character. I don't know. There's so many. It's like your favorite Beatles song, except there are more SNL sketches than Beatles songs. It revolves every once in a while. One thing I've been thinking about lately, there was one with Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, and Bobby Moynihan, and it's this faux documentary on the history of punk. There's this great punk band from England. It's about how they started and then why they broke up because their lead singer, Ian Rubbish, played by Fred Armisen, could only write pro-Thatcher songs, and the punk community wasn't into it. They broke up and Ian went solo, and then could only make a career writing pro-Thatcher love songs.

Alison Stewart: Nice. Do you have one that you just remember that makes you laugh?

Jason Reitman: The one I've probably rewatched the most is Tina Fey and Amy Poehler doing the game show, Meet Your Second Wife. It's absolutely thrilling. Then there's a new sketch from the opening episode of this season that I loved. It's a young woman. I can't remember her-- She's a new cast member.

Alison Stewart: Jane Wickline.

Jason Reitman: The song.

Gabriel LaBelle: Oh, that was amazing.

Jason Reitman: What is it called?

Alison Stewart: It's a party. It's my friend's daughter. She just got canceled.

Gabriel LaBelle: Really?

Jason Reitman: Really?

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Gabriel LaBelle: Wow.

Jason Reitman: I'm the--

Alison Stewart: "The party's over."

Jason Reitman: Yes. "I'm the plus-one of a plus-one." That's killer.

Gabriel LaBelle: "I'm the plus-one of a plus-one of someone who doesn't exist."

Jason Reitman: Oh, all right.

[laughter]

Gabriel LaBelle: She was so charming. I had so much fun.

Jason Reitman: That made me feel good about the new season.

Alison Stewart: I like sweater weather. It's sweater weather.

Jason Reitman: [laughs]

Gabriel LaBelle: It's sweater weather.

Alison Stewart: Sweater weather.

Gabriel LaBelle: Sweater weather.

Alison Stewart: That was my conversation with Saturday Night writer and director Jason Reitman and star Gabriel LaBelle. Up next, we talk to the writer and director Jane Schoenbrun and actor Justice Smith about the movie, I Saw the TV Glow.

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