A lot of the motivation for doing the ‘Make ‘Em Laugh’ on SNL was because I had just finished shooting ‘Inception,’ where there were zero-gravity scenes and I got into really good shape and was training and did all these stunts. Coming off of that, that instilled me with the confidence to do ‘Make ‘Em Laugh.’
Before ‘SNL,’ I would do stand-up, opening for Jeff Tweedy. It was worse than bombing in that people were dead silent.
If you speak to his friends like Adam Sandler, David Spade or Tim Meadows – the people he came up with at ‘SNL’ – they would all agree that Norm was the purest amongst them. He was the comic’s comic.
I would love to do ‘SNL.’
It’s like, backstage at ‘SNL,’ like, if you come back after a show or something, or a lot of times even at the after-parties, we’re just pretty tired and like, ‘Hey, what’s up.’ Just getting a drink and kind of chilling out. Nothing crazy.
Say what you will about the leadership of ‘SNL,’ they have crafted an institution as opposed to just running a show. I don’t think that’s by accident.
‘SNL’ is the first real job I’ve held for more than a month and a half.
Anyone who knows music knows that Neil is about as real as it can get, and this along with seeing him perform ‘Harvest Moon’ on ‘SNL’ was my first experience knowing what real music really felt like.
Even before I got on ‘SNL’ I assumed I would do some type of sitcom; I kind of thought that was how I would start. I don’t mean to sound arrogant – I just thought I would be best suited to the form.
All the women I’ve grown up with at ‘SNL’ and other areas, and even the women that work with Judd Apatow, all those women are powerful, assertive women that have great material, and they just produce themselves.
Being an Asian person on SNL,’ when people are like, ‘Why did it take so long?’ It’s sort of a question that doesn’t fully understand the idea that there is no developmental experiential process for a queer Asian person to get into comedy in a way that feels inevitable.
I really just love dumb humor. I watch a lot of SNL.
I think I came at the right moment at ‘SNL.’ There was a space for me, and I was good at it.
Even when I was at ‘SNL,’ I didn’t do impersonations. I always wanted to be the kind of person who could do them – I always thought they were the coolest thing on the show – but I didn’t have any experience.
I am always so happy to be at ‘SNL.’ I still feel like a kid when I’m there, like I can’t believe I’m watching them make the show.
‘The State’ was a huge thing for me. I watched that and ‘SNL’ together when I was 15, 16.
‘SNL’ ain’t been relevant since Jim Belushi. It’s on every week; it’s not funny. They need to find some black women to put on there to make it funny.
I’d like to be involved in ‘SNL’ somehow. I mean, being a permanent cast member is a stretch! That’s pretty damned hard, but to host it one day would be a dream come true. And I would like to play the DC Comics villain Harley Quinn.
I didn’t have the greatest ride on ‘SNL,’ but I always felt support from gay fans, which made me feel accepted within a place I didn’t feel totally accepted.
Before you get to ‘SNL,’ you have your own sensibility. And when you get to ‘SNL,’ it’s the show’s sensibility.
‘SNL’ came out in the ’70s. It’s a different zeitgeist. It’s hard to re-create it, just as it would be hard to do a black-and-white noir film now. The culture’s different.
I was hired as an assistant at ‘SNL’ in 2002.
I’m crazy lucky. I was trying to be a filmmaker. I was doing Second City classes as a way to be creative. I was a PA for a long time. I was working as an assistant editor on ‘Iron Chef America’ when I got ‘SNL.’ It was one of those situations where you’re concentrating in one thing and the peripheral thing popped.
I can apply myself to the format of ‘SNL,’ I can apply myself to the format of ‘Conan,’ but at the same time, I’m still being J. B. Smoove. I’m not changing up my style, I’m not changing up how I think, what’s funny to me, my delivery, the way I carry myself.
‘SNL’ is all about discovering the unknown, the unexpected.
I was at Second City L.A., going through the conservatory, and I graduated in 2004 and I got ‘SNL’ in 2005.
We hoped to get a TV show, and we almost did, but ‘The State’ beat us out for this MTV show. So because they were there, and ‘SNL’ and ‘Kids in the Hall’ were there, we thought, ‘Let’s go try to do what Python did, and instead, let’s make movies.’
Tina Fey is part of a generation of women who have changed the face of comedy at ‘Second City,’ ‘SNL,’ in sitcoms and in film.
I steal props from ‘SNL’ a great deal. Almost every sketch I’m in, I try to grab something from it, so I have a storage space full of props.
From 1985 to 1994, I lived in Manhattan in a big old loft right off Times Square. I could walk to work, which was in a couple of Broadway theaters, to Howard Stern’s studio, and to 30 Rock for ‘Letterman’ and ‘SNL.’ Even in New York, walking to work is homey and folksy, like living in a small town.
If I had the gift of Jerry Seinfeld, of Bill Cosby, of Lewis Black, these instinctively brilliant comic minds, then you go that route! But you gotta know your limitations. I’m more of an actor, more of a process guy. I did Tom Snyder, just as Danny Aykroyd did on ‘SNL.’ I did it in the club.
At ‘SNL,’ we don’t have the luxury to perfect things. However a video turns out, that’s what we have to present. There’s a number of things that I’m super embarrassed by and wish didn’t air.
The longer you’re on a show like ‘SNL,’ the less frequent the Google alerts become.
I think ‘SNL’ is so well-known for its musical performances, as well, and people really breaking into America through a really great performance on there. So I think me and Gotye are both really excited to be amongst such company. You know, it’s great.
I think, my first season on ‘SNL,’ I watched every single episode of ‘Step by Step,’ and a few years prior to that, I watched every single episode of ‘Family Matters.’
When you go into pre-production on a movie, you can spend weeks and even months working on the nuances of the animatronics on the bear head. If we were to write a sketch about an animatronic bear on ‘SNL,’ we’d have to come up with every aspect of the suit within 24 hours.
Getting on ‘SNL’ wasn’t just about getting cast. I had written all this stuff in my audition, and I wrote several things that got on the air. But to me, I’ve never been interested in being picked. So when I do get sent things, most of the time I do pass on them because it doesn’t feel like it would be fulfilling.
I had always wanted to be on SNL, it’s not always great, but it’s this leftover childhood dream.
In Australia, I wrote lots of little plays and put them on, and then I worked on a few different TV shows, like the Australian equivalent of ‘SNL.’ I would write and perform all of my characters.
A lot of the original people on ‘SNL’ came through Chicago – and Toronto, I’m sure – but Chicago was the center of it all. When I was there, Chris Farley – I knew him; we hung out and stuff – he went off to ‘Saturday Night Live,’ it was like, ‘It’s possible to be from here and make it.’
When you’re doing comedy constantly, you’re organized: you know where everything is, you know how to get out of it, you know how to stretch it. But, like, doing ‘SNL,’ I stopped doing spots, and then I would finally do some sets – it take me so long to, kind of, get in the rhythm of it.
