RUSHES: Jason Reitman's 'Saturday Night" depicts 'SNL' at its beginning

(9 Sep 2024) INTERVIEW RUSHES INCLUDING BELOW: ASSOCIATED PRESS Toronto - 9 September 2024 2. SOUNDBITE (English) Jason Reitman, co-writer/director: “It’s impossible to name all the talent that has come out of that show and the way that it has impacted our culture, our sense of politics, our sense of style – it’s everything. I got to be a guest writer in 2008 right after ‘Juno’ and that was one of the greatest weeks of my life. Getting to watch that show in real time come together, getting a sketch on the air, and that countdown to go live was the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced. I wanted to somehow capture that in a movie.” 4. SOUNDBITE (English) Lamorne Morris and Ella Hunt, actors: Morris: “Especially because it’s ‘SNL,’ you could fall into the trap of trying to do impressions and it might come off as cartoonish, but we’re not playing that part, you know. You see glimpses of it in the sketches, but we’re playing the real people and like you say, the vulnerability and the nervousness and those things – that’s what we’re actually trying to figure out.” Hunt: “And like Jason (Reitman) was just a great guide on that front. He really spearheaded this idea that we were after the essence of these people, that we weren’t making a biopic where we needed to, like, know every single minute of their lives and we weren’t making, like, a parody of them.” 5. SOUNDBITE (English) Jason Reitman, co-writer/director: “I love this cast. I’m so proud of them, all the way down the line. There’s, like, 20 main characters and there was days where all of them were working simultaneously, all mic’ed, all the faders up, and they just captured the essences of the original cast in a way that makes me look like a much better director than I actually am.” 6. SOUNDBITE (English) Dylan O'Brien, Rachel Sennott and Gabriel LaBelle, actors: O’Brien: “I couldn’t actually do an impression of my guy, so I fee like if I did an imitation, then it wouldn’t be perfectly accurate.” Sennott: “You would feel that.” O’Brien: “So I just did that and then hoped that it would end up in a place where it wasn’t that good of an imitation so it felt like my own version.” Sennott: “I think also the scenes were so active and really well-written.” LaBelle: “Yeah.” Sennott: “… where it never felt like anyone did, like, an impersonation or any imitation of someone because the scenes were so active, so you can’t just sit there being like, how am I going to say this? I don’t know who that was supposed to be! That was a made-up character. Do you know what I mean? You’re not thinking about that – you’re thinking, like, I have to push this clothing rack there, I have to get John in his costume, I’ve got to hook up with that person, I’ve got to do drugs! I’ve got to whatever. Like, do you know what I mean? So you’re not even thinking about, am I doing the voice right? Is my walk OK? It’s like you’re so active in the scene.” 8. SOUNDBITE (English) Gabriel LaBelle, actor - on whether they felt pressure being watched by the real people on which the film is based: “I think you kind of have to ignore that for your own mental health and just focus on the work that you’re going to do and you know, obviously you don’t want to, like, Lorne Michaels says he hates Gabriel LaBelle, but you know obviously you don’t want that but I think, you know, you just want to focus on the script and the film and how you can bring to it and your interpretation of this person.” 9. SOUNDBITE (English) Cory Michael Smith, Ella Hunt and Lamorne Morris, actors - on what they discovered about the real life characters of the "SNL" stars: STORYLINE: Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...