‘Saturday Night Live’ Boss Lorne Michaels Offers First Reaction to Doc

With Lorne, Morgan Neville pulled off the unthinkable by getting the enigmatic and elusive Lorne Michaels to sit for a feature length documentary that offers unprecedented access to the long reigning king of Saturday Night Live including his creative process, recollections, unique habits and inner circle.

If that weren’t enough, Focus Features, which is releasing Lorne April 17, pulled off another rare feat by getting Michaels to Los Angeles for a West Coast premiere held inside the Steven Spielberg Theater on the Universal Lot Tuesday night after which he sat for a Q&A with NBCUniversal Entertainment & Studios chairman Donna Langley.

The nearly 35-minute conversation marked Michaels first public comments about the film and found him opening up on a range of SNL-related subjects from the sketch show’s expansion to the U.K., the recent epic 50th anniversary, and more. And he did so in front of an intimate and SNL-heavy crowd in the 250-seat theater that included Spielberg, David Geffen with plus-one Kris Jenner, Jon Hamm, Owen Wilson, and alums like Chris Parnell (who narrates the doc), Laraine Newman, Will Forte, Vanessa Bayer, Kyle Mooney, Kevin Nealon and more.

But about the film, Michaels gave it a thumbs up. “I watched it in New York for the first time and I had been completely dreading it. And then I kind of liked it,” Michaels told Langley to kick off the conversation. She then asked him to expand on his review.

“Lot of memories, a lot of history there, and I really prefer the parts where I’m much younger. But you sort of see just the growth of both the show and certainly my growth, and how the times changed. But the essential thing we do, turns out it still matters, and that’s the surprising thing. A large part of that is that new people are always coming in. And almost everything is forgivable in young people.”

John Mulaney was only 26 when he started on SNL, and the comedy star turned up as a surprise guest to help Neville introduce the film. Neville went first, saying how “incredible” it was to be in Los Angeles to premiere the film after three years of production. He then offered a mic drop of a quote to describe his subject. “As a subject, Lorne is, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, a riddle wrapped inside a mystery inside of an enigma. So in other words, really fucking difficult.”

As for Mulaney, who is featured in the documentary but was seeing it for the first time Tuesday, he got laughs for addressing the retirement question. “I don’t know if [the film] covers any of the succession rumors. Who would succeed Lorne Michaels if he ever left? I don’t think Lorne Michaels is going to ever leave, but obviously a lot of people are excited. Which lucky duck will get to run that show at a third of the salary with none of the stature?”

Michaels didn’t offer an answer during his chat with Langley but he did cover many newsworthy subjects in the Q&A, a transcript of which is below, edited for length and clarity.

LANGLEY Lorne, they made a movie about you.

MICHAELS Evidently, yeah.

LANGLEY And you watched it this evening, and I think you watched it in New York last week?

MICHAELS I watched it in New York for the first time and I had been completely dreading it. And then I kind of liked it.

LANGLEY Would you like to expand on that? How do you feel?

MICHAELS Lot of memories, a lot of history there.

LANGLEY Yeah, and you’re watching 50 years.

MICHAELS Also, I really prefer the parts where I’m much younger. But you sort of see just the growth of both the show and certainly my growth, and just how the times changed. But the essential thing we do, turns out it still matters, and that’s the surprising thing. A large part of that is that new people are always coming in, and almost everything is forgivable in young people. If the original cast was still doing that show…

LANGLEY That would be challenging.

MICHAELS Yeah. And we’d all have guns in our mouths.

LANGLEY You bring up an interesting thing, which is this idea of reinvention. After the 40th, it was, “OK, what are we going to do now? How are they ever going to reinvent the show after the 50th?” And you blew the doors off with the 50th. The conversation is, “OK, how do you keep going?” It’s a brand new generation. Gen Z is very different, but yet here we are and here you are. You took the summer, you recast a lot. There’s a lot of fresh new faces. I can say that the ratings are really strong and really excellent. Obviously, a young audience engages on social media and YouTube and so on. Take us inside a little bit of that thinking about post 50th, how did you get to this new season?

MICHAELS The pressure on the 50th season started in the 49th season, and then it was like nothing can go wrong. Normally things go wrong and it’s just part of it. But there was something leading up to the 50th where it had to sum up so many things, and everybody coming back and the importance that it was to all the people who were coming back and also the different periods. You want to get the emotional part right and you don’t want to be overly congratulatory. There was also sort of an attitude within the show that is, I guess I’m partially responsible for, which is let’s just keep it moving. That is a sort of discipline that doesn’t allow emotion to come into it. So you feel deeply about these people.

I remember right after 9/11, we were doing a show and I was on a stage with Will Farrell. It was a rehearsal and we’d had anthrax in the building. We were the second tallest building in New York, and I didn’t ask anybody to come in because I thought if they don’t want to come in, people shouldn’t have to come in. But pretty much everybody came in, and I thought, well, this is nuts, but this is what we do. We do this show and we have to figure it out what we’re going to say and how we’re going to do it. Also it has to be funny in a time where it’s probably not going to be. At least the audience isn’t looking for that, but they are looking for connection and familiar faces and the idea that we’ll go on. That’s what we’ve done many times, and it’s just baked in that’s what we do. When the anthrax was there, Drew Barrymore was hosting but she left because a serious thing had happened on the third floor when somebody opened an envelope. It was serious, and they were hospitalized but we were still doing the show.

I said, “When you get on the elevator, don’t press three. Just press eight or nine and be fine.” The only way you heal those kind of things, particularly for yourself, is you’re working and doing something that will matter. How are you going to do that? When you have enough people who care about that, it’s a really powerful thing. If you have music, the mix of politics and what’s going on in the culture and people who represent that and who care, then you just have a really good feeling that what you’re doing is important.

LANGLEY That leads me to one of the things that really resonates with me watching that film and seeing it all in a block like that is your persistence, perseverance, resilience, all of those things in the face of failure, in the face of real pushback and resistance from authority figures, especially in those early years. I don’t think you get too much resistance now — it’s all good — but what is it? How is it that you have such a commitment to the creative process and how you throw your body in front of your cast to protect the process?

MICHAELS I think it’s being around funny people. As I said in the film, which a weird place to say it in Maine [at his vacation home], but there’s not that many [funny people]. When you recognize them and when you see them come into their own and they realize that there’s this group of people who understand them and get them and who will make them better, it’s an exciting place to be. Also to be able to comment on what’s going on from that perspective, particularly in a time which almost always is dead serious. At this point, we’ve been on for 51 years, we’re almost a branch of government. We’re allowed to say that things. Somehow we earned it, and whoever’s president has so far has allowed it to go on and no one’s thinking we can’t do it or we shouldn’t do it.

It was interesting watching it happen again in England with SNL UK, which the mandate there is… It had to be British. I could help it so much, but it had to be British.

LANGLEY The Brits wouldn’t appreciate it.

MICHAELS And suddenly they’re doing it again and people are talking about the government and they’re talking about what’s going on and it’s just a connecting thing. Then now with the internet, it’s amplified and YouTube makes it global and people go, “Oh yeah, I know what that is.”

LANGLEY I wanted to talk a bit about SNL UK because the show is off to a terrific start. It’s really interesting to see, as you say, the globalization. The internet, obviously, affords us this great opportunity to reach audiences far beyond the little island of England. The U.S. show, again, with this new fresh-faced cast really feels like they’re speaking to a younger demographic, and same with the U.K., they kind of speak to each other. Take us inside your thinking of wanting to go into a brand new market, and a tough market at that.

MICHAELS My design for it was that it would be the cooler of the two shows, and it would be the thing they beat us up with — that it’s smarter, funnier, more original — and it had to be that. It had to be its own thing. It couldn’t be an imitation of what we do and I would go in and out of it. James Longman is producing it, and Jonno Johnson, who is the head writer, we talk all the time but it has to be their show. Because I could tell you how I would do it, but I’ve been doing it for 50 years and it’s pretty well known how I would do it. You have to do it your own way. They did a sketch a couple of weeks ago about Prince Andrew and an MI5 plan. The way I would have done it is [set] in an austere room with the right looking people in an MI5 meeting. Then I would have had an entrance for Andrew, and I would have explained the plan and all that, which would be logical to me. They had everybody in the room at the same time. It was really funny.

There is no better way. There’s only what works and they found a way that it’s working for them and the audience has taken to it and then it makes you feel better about what you’re doing and that’s a loop that goes on. I said to James a couple of weeks ago, “The show that we do, you won’t recognize it until the fourth show,” which was the Candice Bergen episode for us. It looks like the show we do now. Before that, we’d move this around, we found things that didn’t work. Last week was their fourth show, and it kind of looks like they found the show.

LANGLEY The formats are the same though. Was that important to you that it kind of followed the same path?

MICHAELS As I said in the documentary, it’s a very wasteful way of producing things because you don’t know what will work. And sadly, you’re part of the support system for it, but you don’t know with comedy if it’s going to work. When it doesn’t work, it’s pretty clear and you’re not going to go on with it. You stop and pivot and you do something else or you find ways to make things work, but it’s not a problem you can solve. An audience comes in and tells you you’re wrong and you live through it with previews and movies and I’ve lived through that as well. You have to adjust and it has to be reinvented all the time. The English way of inventing this is their way and it feels British. That’s a success.

LANGLEY It’s been received so well. It’s really thrilling. In the documentary, we all get to go inside the inner sanctum of your office. I remember going into your office for the first time when we were making Baby Mama together. I was very intimidated and very confused as to why [Tina Fey and Amy Poehler], who had a very important role to be playing, were lounging on the floor where there was a lot of furniture available. I realized there was such a wonderful informality, and that inspired so much creativity. That was just such a great experience making that movie with you that still, to this day, one of my favorites.

MICHAELS It was fun to make. Obviously the two of them together was mad, and that was before they were doing [“Weekend Update”] and all of that.

LANGLEY Back to your office. There’s goldfish, there’s popcorn …

MICHAELS It’s all emphasized over and over. The fish don’t think they’re that important.

LANGLEY There is a big sign in your office that says “Captain’s word is law.” What is the story behind that?

MICHAELS Eugene Lee was the original designer and he really built the show. We wanted to put things on stages, and you couldn’t do that in television because you’d shoot up. They had all these complications and we fought for that. Eugene lived on a boat in the 72nd Street Basin, and he lived full-time up in Rhode Island. The sign came from the boat. Captain’s word is law is like at one point somebody has to say, “This is what we’re doing and your job is just to go out and do it.” There has to be a leader. I didn’t really understand that at the beginning because we were all about the same age. [Chevy Chase or Dan Akroyd] could be writing something but then the decision has to come down and it’s then that you realize what separates you when you’re in charge.

I was originally uncomfortable with it, not for long, but you realize that you have to live with the consequences of the decisions. When it doesn’t work, you wear that for the better part of the next week, but you’re saved because we’re doing another show. There’s always the chance at redemption. Watching people that you have faith in get better slowly is not fun, but it is … I use this ugly metaphor that all babies are ugly unless they’re your baby, but at three months people say, “What a cute baby.” No one remembers what they were like in the early days of their time [at SNL], because that just disappears when people become known and they become important when they break through with a character or that great skit, that great opportunity. Then you see the confidence, which sometimes turns into arrogance. But most of the time, it just remains confidence and they know how to do it. Someone like Ryan Gosling, who was just there, he knows how to do it. They’re in show business and they know how to perform, and they love performing.

The Jack Black, Jack White show, which took about two years to put together because I just thought what a great ticket. And they’re complimentary. The joy that they were having with each other, musician to musician and comedian to comedian, and you saw it and it was pure. For me, it’s just joy. You watch it and you see how happy they are to be making people feel that. In the face of totalitarian government, I don’t think comedy really does much good. The totalitarians win every single time, but there is something as a safety valve in a culture, which comedy is a really important part.

LANGLEY The 50th was such an incredible experience watching everybody coalesce and come together. The thing that struck me was at the party, you had a who’s who of royalty in music, comedy, film and television with no agents, no handlers, no publicists, no minders, no nothing, just everybody coming together to coalesce around this incredible milestone and a celebration. That’s the culture that you’ve created and it’s really extraordinary.

MICHAELS What’s interesting, and there was some of it in England when we started, in my generation, the worst thing that could happen to an actor was to be typecast. But there’s a generation of people working now who want to be known. They talk about their “brand” — I think it’s just economics and social media and all of that — but you go, “No, no versatility is important.” Coming back and being completely different is a better, more original state. It’s probably not as lucrative, at least not right away.

LANGLEY What are some of the qualities or criteria you look for in a cast member? Chris Rock talks about it in the documentary, being a deep thinker.

MICHAELS Adam Sandler did a joke in the audition that I saw in Chicago about when you’re young, home sick from school and your mother is putting Vicks VapoRub on your chest. Slowly she comes up and your eyes meet and you think, “I could have her.” Where did that come from? That’s the same thing with Chris. You go, “I want that person because they’re smart and original.” And that’s infectious.

LANGLEY We’re almost out of time, and you’re probably relieved. I’m not going to do that lightning round thing, but one of the things I love most about spending time with you is that you just impart so much wisdom and you’re so generous always with your time. I’m sure everybody in this room who knows you has great Lorne-isms. I have one. I was probably whinging to you at some point about something and you said, “Take the high road, there’s less traffic up there.” It’s one of my absolute favorites, and I use it a lot. Where did you get this wisdom?

MICHAELS I was always attracted to the people who seemed to know stuff. When I got to New York, Candy Bergen introduced me to Mike Nichols and I started spending time with him. You watch how they work and see what their standards are. Buck Henry would come in and write with us, and Paul Simon is a perfect example as well. You see how they care so much about it being good. If you have that, what you can do with a big group is really powerful when they’re all working together and supporting one another. Cohesion is really important. Also tolerance is really important because they’re going to do awful things. Not thinking that they’re awful but they’re taking chances. It has to be a forgiving culture that way, but also, hey, it’s time to work. Remember almost all the nice things that were said about me were said by people who’ve left the show. In memory, I come out much better. Instead of, “What the fuck was that?”