“Directing is 90% casting.” That adage of unknown origin has been embraced by some of Hollywood’s greatest directors, including Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, John Ford, Elia Kazan and, seemingly, Jason Reitman.
filmmaker behind “Saturday night,” Regarding the production of the first episode of the film “SNL”, he has said that he can make the film only if he gets the right casting.
“He’s gonna find a John Belushi, and he’s gonna find a Gilda Radner, and he’s gonna find a Chevy Chase,” Reitman recently told hollywood reporter He entrusted this task to his longtime casting director John Papasidera. “And, if he doesn’t do that, I guess we won’t make the movie.”
With “Saturday Night” officially arriving in theaters Today, October 11, check out how the film’s cast compares to the real-life actors they portray.
Gabriel LaBelle as Lorne Michaels
“We only talked about a handful, maybe 10 or a dozen Lornes,” Papsidera told “SNL” creator Lorne Michaels about the search for the role.
“Once you remove all that isn’t Jewish and Canadian, you really get at a man,” Reitman said of actor Gabriel LaBelle, who gave a breakout performance in Steven Spielberg’s loosely autobiographical film, “The Fablemans.” Said referring to. ,
When it came to casting the only thing working against LaBelle was her age. Michaels was 30 when “SNL” debuted. LaBelle is 22 years old. Thankfully, the rising actor is more confident than his age and proved to Reitman that he can still be credible at 30.
Reitman recalled, “I was standing next to Gabe, across from Steven Spielberg, and Gabe had taken his place next to the greatest director alive.” “That was one of the first moments where I said, ‘Wow, this kid has presence.'”
“I met him briefly once,” LaBelle said. Diversity Michael’s. “I was reading books, a lot of books, the Internet is endless.” He acknowledged that he “looked at the influences” of Michaels, “not to caricature him, but to define what kind of ways he came to be remembered by those closest to him.” He said he also focused on “just getting it down” and imitating Lornes’ Canadian accent.
Matt Wood as John Belushi
“Matt Wood is a guy who’s probably been saying since he was a teenager, ‘Oh my God, I really hope they make a John Belushi movie, because I’d be perfect in it,'” Reitman said. And he was right.
“The first time I got compared to Belushi was when I was 14,” Wood said. a promotional interview For “Saturday Night”. “I was always hoping something would come along and then this turned out to be the best project ever.”
Wood had a theater background, having been in the original Broadway cast of the “SpongeBob SquarePants” musical.
“I had to go back and watch ‘Animal House’, ‘Blues Brothers’ and all his stuff again,” Wood shared. “Seeing his body language, seeing how he moves, bringing out the physical character and getting into the environment of the time period.”
Reitman also said, “John was round but athletic and surprisingly agile, so part of his trick was being able to have those quick, twitchy moments.” “Matt was able to do that from the beginning. This, more than anything, gave us confidence.
Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase
“There must have been a few hundred Chevys that we saw,” Papsidera recalled.
After auditioning actors using skits from the first episode of “SNL”, Reitman realized, “We’re not looking for what the final product is. What we want is the gist of the beginning, so we turned to that. Turned.”
Include Corey Michael Smith from movies like “May in December” and “Gotham.” Reitman recalled, “Corey did the scene very well and Corey had a low voice, but he also surprisingly fell down at the beginning of the audition.” “He did it when he fell in the trash.”
“I loved her as a child,” Smith said Chase’s.” There were some actors who were goofy. I spent hundreds of hours watching his stuff and really wanted to make Chewie feel real to people who know him and have been watching him for so many years.
Kim Matula as Jane Curtin
“I didn’t do any research,” Kim Matula said Regarding her preparation for playing Jane Curtin, before casting, “I did a little research, but I’m already quite familiar with Jane Curtin.”
He added, “‘SNL’ was a big part of my household growing up.” “So I knew right away how I was like, I know how Jen delivers it.”
For Reitman, Matula’s essence was similar to that of Curtin, because of her beauty and intelligence. “If you’re a beautiful woman, a sense of humor is often considered a vestigial part,” Reitman said, comparing the two actresses.
“The thing that made Jen so great on SNL was that she could totally be in these Colgate commercials, except she did it at a 2 percent discount, and suddenly it was brilliantly funny. Kim also had the same thing. You look at Kim and go: I’ve been watching you get picked on for the last 15 years, and now you get a chance to have fun with it.
Ella Hunt as Gilda Radnor
“Who would have thought Gilda would be a British actress who starred in Dickinson?”. Papsidera quipped to THR. Not Ella Hunt. She thought there was no point in auditioning for the role. But his agent gave him the courage, so he did it. And he booked it. Reitman said, “Both he and Corey noted that they were surprised because they were both dramatic actors.” “They both came in thinking their funny friends would get it.”
But according to Reitman, Hunt was able to execute Radner’s distinctive voice brilliantly. “She was also able to improve the voice, which is really impressive,” he revealed.
Once she was in the role, Hunt began her preparation. “Watching Gilda’s videos was the best few days I’ve ever had,” he said in a promo video. Posted on TikTok.
For Hunt, the most important part of getting into character was the wig he wore to recreate Radner’s distinctive hairstyle.
“When [hair department head] Janie [Thompson first put this wig on my head, I was so excited,” Hunt recalled. “I think maybe I cried. I thought so much about Gilda’s hair. Gilda’s hair is so iconic that it was something I’d really obsessed about. And the minute she put this wig on me, I felt like Gilda.”
Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd
Casting Dan Aykroyd proved a challenge for Reitman, given that he had grown up knowing the actor. Reitman’s father, Ivan Reitman, directed Aykroyd in the original “Ghostbusters” movie.
Papsidera explained, “Jason knew tiny minutia about Dan, having spent so much time with him. It was trying to fill the personal side of what Jason knows about Dan as a human.”
But beyond getting the human qualities and the mimetic bits — the voice, the humor, etc. — the actor playing Aykroyd needed to embody the star’s “very unique sex appeal.”
“I was talking to Dan’s daughters, and we were joking, actually, about the amount of women that Dan slept with at ‘SNL,’” Reitman recalled of the casting process. Though not familiar with O’Brien’s credits — “Teen Wolf,” the “Maze Runner” movies, to name some of the more popular items on his CV — he saw in the charisma he was looking for. Or rather, he saw that other people saw it. “I could tell by the women in [casting director John Papsidera’s] “Dylan O’Brien was appreciated in the office.”
“Apparently he was quite the ladies’ boy,” O’Brien admitted“It’s nice to play with that energy and a lot of flirting.”
As far as his preparation goes, he explained, “I watched some old SNL and I also watched some Dan interviews just to try to see what I could do. He has a very specific rhythm and he is very clear. These were the kinds of things I was absorbing.
Emily Fearon as Laraine Newman
Laraine Newman, the youngest of seven cast members, had a lot on her plate when she joined “SNL.” “Jason [Reitman] Gave me the real Lorraine’s number,” the actress Emily Fearon said“She was like, ‘You can listen to my memoir if you want, but it’s nine hours long if you can be bothered.’ I said, ‘You are very nice.’
“She has some really interesting Lorraine energy,” Reitman said of Fearon, whom he met through actor Lucas Hedges. Reitman had directed Hedges in “Labor Day” and Hedges was starring with Fearon in “Brokeback Mountain” on London’s West End when Reitman was looking for his “Saturday Night” cast.
“I realized how much we had in common,” Fearon said. “She said on our first date with her boyfriend she was laughing so hard she peed in her pants. It’s so funny because on my first date with my boyfriend, I was throwing up, so I messaged the real Lorraine, and she was like, ‘Okay, you beat me to it, honey.'”
Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris
Garrett Morris, the only black cast member among the original “SNL” cast who was older than his peers, was Reitman’s first character.
Lamorne Morris – no relation – made his name on the popular sitcom, “New Girl,” and his experience on that show was something he and Reitman discussed while working on “Saturday Night.” Those conversations were “really interesting and really informative,” Reitman said. The fact that he came in as the only black actor in that cast. We’ll talk about his experience there, and what it was like for Garrett to be on ‘Saturday Night Live.’
Lamorne said, “I did a lot of research to include Gary in all his interviews, his musical performances.” revealed.
“Garrett has a lot of ‘isms’. He shakes his hips a lot, shakes his neck a lot. ‘Mhm’ says a lot.”
He further added, “I am glad that I met him and tried to know what was going on in his mind during these moments. He feels like a fish out of water.
Nicholas Braun as Jim Henson and Andy Kaufman
Braun was first cast as “Muppets” creator Jim Henson and had to pull double duty on “Saturday Night” after Reitman asked him to play the role of famed comedian Andy Kaufman.
“About three weeks before we started filming, Jason hit me up and he said, ‘What do you think about playing Andy?’ I said, ‘Yes, I’ll change, it sounds fun.’ And he said, ‘No, I want you two to play.'”
Braun’s response? “Let’s do this.”
The role of Kaufman was to be played by Benny Safdie. But when his wrestling film “The Smashing Machine” starring Dwayne Johnson got the green signal, the actor had to leave the film.
Reitman recalled, “It scared him to do both roles,” but he did it anyway.
As far as Henson’s portrayal goes, The “Succession” star said“It’s really fun to try to get that sound right.
You try to pick up on the way he interacts with other people, often without actually interacting with people. He’s kind of in his own world. I just wanted to get it right.
