Live from New York!Lists about Saturday Night Live cast members, hosts, musical acts, and backstage antics of America's favorite sketch comedy series, airing from 30 Rockefeller Plaza since 1975.
Updated October 1, 2021 1k votes 258 voters 30k views
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Vote up the most insightful accounts of what it was like to work with popular 'SNL' stars.
Saturday Night Live has been around since 1975, and featured dozens of cast members, crew people, and writers who've brought the show to the small screen each week. With all of the comings and goings - some of which were controversial or unexpected - there are a lot of stories to tell.
Finding out what it was like to work with one of the SNL cast members is like getting to know a friend. Stars such as John Belushi, Gilda Radner, and Chris Farley are no longer with us, but their friends and colleagues have much to say about their time on and off the set. The same is true for original cast members Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase, and 1980s and 1990s staples Mike Myers and Chris Rock.
There are a lot of stories about working on SNL, many of which come from books like Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told by Its Stars, Writers, and Guests, written by Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller. Fun, interesting, eye-opening - these firsthand accounts about what it was like to work with SNL stars really make the show - well - come alive.
When talking about his time as a cast member on SNL, Bill Murray credited Dan Aykroyd as the person who could turn a failing sketch around. Akyroyd had a trick to making it happen:
Danny was the best at saving sketches... when you're dying, you just play for yourself: "Let's make ourselves laugh. If we're not making them laugh, let's start over again and just make ourselves laugh." And that fearlessness would then turn the audience.
Murray also described Aykroyd as "kind enough to write me in as the second something," when none of the other SNL writers "even bothered." Chevy Chase also offered words of praise for Aykroyd, once calling him the "funniest guy on the show."
As the original cast of SNL came together in 1975, John Belushi was, according to Chevy Chase, "an afterthought."
Belushi was a risky choice, despite giving an "incredible audition... [and being] the best available person in New York," as described by NBC executive Dick Ebersol. Producer Lorne Michaels was concerned about Belushi's attitude toward TV because the comedian had made it clear, in Ebersol's words, that he thought "television was sh*t."
This opinion, as well as substance abuse issues, meant working with Belushi was "always kind of a little bit of an emergency happening." That's how Carrie Fisher saw it, anyway, but she qualified it, saying he was a "fun emergency."
Bill Murray echoed the idea that Belushi was full of surprises in some of the best - and the worst - ways:
John was very good to all of us. He was tough on the hosts though. The better an actor the host was, the sicker Belushi would be. He would be at death's door, and he would come in a robe, unable to speak. He'd have doctors in his dressing room... And the host would be thinking, "Belushi isn't even going to show up, he's too sick even to work" - and then John would come out on the show and just blast them away. He would sucker-punch guys that just didn't see it coming. And the more actorish they were, the worse they got it.
SNL writer Alan Zweibel wrote a lot with Gilda Radner during her five years on the show. He recalled that they came up with dozens of characters. Zweibel "was nuts about Gilda," as was Dan Aykroyd. Radner and Aykroyd had worked together in Canada and dated for a while, but their relationship didn't last. Zweibel and Radner maintained a platonic relationship, one that worked well for their creativity.
Gilda was so great. She was such an angel... so gifted, so sweet. Everybody bonded with Gilda, because she was irresistible.
Despite Radner's energy and ability to make people laugh, crew member Neil Levy recognized a "profound sadness inside Gilda." Levy also said:
I loved Gilda... if I ever had a problem, I could talk to her. She was totally accessible and one of the wisest women I ever met. She had an understanding of human nature that most people don't have.
SNL writer Conan O'Brien recalled one of his first interactions with newly cast Mike Myers:
It was his first time there and he was very polite and proud to be at SNL. He was asking us about what he should submit in our read-through and we were giving him advice... And then he came to us and he described to us this idea, this character he had named Wayne who had a cable show in his basement...
At the time, O'Brien and the other writers told Myers they "didn't think it was his best idea." When O'Brien saw the script for a "Wayne's World" sketch at their next read-through, however, he "felt sorry for [Myers]." O'Brien thought, "This poor kid is going to have to learn the hard way."
The writers ended up giving "Wayne's World" a try, but it wasn't an easy road. Dana Carvey was put in as "a sidekick" without being told and, with time, "defining the roles was a little harder."
There was "a problem with Mike and Dana on the set," according to writer Terry Turner, one that led to "hostility and then some friendly hostility and then people would band together and it spilled over to the show."
Brad Hall was on SNL during the early 1980s, appearing on the show with his future wife, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and rising star Eddie Murphy.
According to Hall, the show focused a lot on Murphy because of his talent, and he became a leader of sorts:
Eddie was the one guy that really stood up for us. And if we were light in the show he was always, "Come on, let's give these guys something." He was really a team player from that point of view and an easy guy to talk to and always funny and fun to have around.
When Chris Rock joined the cast of SNL, he was the first Black actor hired in several years. He shared an office with writer Fred Wolf, who called Rock "so smart... so smart, and he has such a unique sense of humor."
Tim Meadows "had a good time just being friends" with Rock, but felt like it "was hard for him to express his comic thoughts and stuff and the kinds of things he wanted to do." Another writer, David Mandel, sensed Rock was "incredibly frustrated," but also noted he wasn't alone.
Perhaps this is why Adam Sander found it so admirable that Rock had "the balls to say anything he" wanted to. Sandler also described spending time "backstage with Chris Rock, [Chris] Farley, and [David] Spade [as] the best." They spent their time talking about comedy, "what was funny, what we didn't like... we lived for comedy."
