Besides having the advantage of growing up with Ivan Reitman as a father, who made films with multiple Saturday Night Live alums, director Jason Reitman wanted to ensure every detail of the long-running sketch show’s debut was accurate in his new film, Saturday Night, which follows the 90 minutes leading up to the first SNL broadcast in 1975. In an interview with Vanity Fair featuring first-look photos from the movie, Reitman explained that he and co-writer Gil Kenan spoke with surviving cast and crew members to thoroughly research their script.
“We interviewed everyone we could find that was alive from opening night,” said the filmmaker. “Every living cast member, every living writer, people from the art department, costumes, hair and makeup, NBC pages, members of Billy Preston’s band — I mean, anyone we could find.”
The original SNL cast shared anecdotes that weren’t widely known about the show’s lore. Laraine Newman recounted that guest host George Carlin (played by Matthew Rhys on Saturday Night) objected to a sketch about Alexander the Great’s high school reunion; this made it onto the film.
Reitman cast The Fabelmans star Gabriel LaBelle as SNL creator Lorne Michaels. While the director consulted with Michaels on the making of the film for accuracy, he deterred LaBelle from speaking with the showrunner before portraying him onscreen. To prepare for the role, LaBelle instead tapped into a comment he heard of Bill Murray making to Michaels.
“Everyone sees him as this fearless leader, this captain who’s steering the ship in the fog,” said LaBelle. “Bill Murray, when he came back to host the show 15 or 20 years after he left, said to Lorne, ‘Wow, you really figured out how to do this.’” To LaBelle, this proved that Michaels didn’t have it all figured out from the start. “[Michaels] started it when he was 30. He’s now 80 and has been doing it for 50 years. Nobody knows what to do when they first start,” he noted.
When the actor eventually met Michaels on set, he realized he “didn’t need to ask him anything. I didn’t need to try to hack him.”
However, one Saturday Night star benefited from bonding with the real-life person he was portraying. Lamorne Morris spent his childhood telling people Garrett Morris was his father, even though they’re not related. “Obviously we had the same last name, so I used to tell people that he was my dad, as a joke,” he said. The actors have since sparked a friendship, with Garrett in on the joke. “He called me and said something about owing my mom a call because he’s not convinced that he’s not my dad,” quipped the New Girl alum.
Lamorne was interested in exploring how Garrett fit into SNL, as someone who was a decade older than his castmates and widely experienced outside of comedy as both a playwright and a Broadway singer. “His journey is, ‘Hey man, I got all these skills. I’ve been a part of the Civil Rights Movement. I’ve helped desegregate the acting unions. All of these things have happened to me, and here I am with all these kids telling dick and fart jokes.’ It’s like, ‘What am I doing here?,’” he said about Garrett.
Eventually, Garrett figured out that he could use all of his talents on the show, spending five years on SNL. “He finally goes, ‘Hold on. There are a lot of things I can do, and I think this is the place where I can do all of them,” explained Lamorne.
The actor recalled that Garrett had a request in his Saturday Night portrayal: “Tell the story as it happened. Be honest about it. I just want the audience to know that I did not quit. I never gave up.’”
Saturday Night hits theaters on Oct. 11.
