Jason Reitman probably knows better than most what it’s like to be around comedians. As the son of Ivan Reitman, the director of such works as Stripes, Ghostbusters, Meatballs and the producer of National Lampoon’s Animal House, Jason was hanging around as a child with many of the primary cast members of what would become Saturday Night Live. He has also directed Bill Murray and Dan Ackroyd. As a child he was an extra in Ghostbusters II, Dave, Kindergarten Cop and many more. He is known for his collaborations with Diablo Cody.
Saturday Night chronicles the chaos of the first episode in 1975 of what would later become the defining comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live.
Nadine Whitney asked him about his process, his favorite people, and what he loves about making impossible things happen.
Jason Reitman: This is Jason. Hi!
Nadine Whitney: Jason, hi! Or should I say “Hey, bud”, because you’re Canadian and you’re filming the legacy of another great Canadian, Lorne Michaels (played by Gabriel LaBelle). Obviously, a lot of people are going to ask you this – through your dad and other folks you grew up around many of the talents from Saturday Night Live. Is it difficult separating your personal feelings for them and putting them on camera as characters who are completely unprepared for what’s about to happen?
Jason Reitman: It’s a really interesting question, and it’s funny, in particular with Dan Aykroyd, who, as you know, I’ve been making these Ghostbusters movies with. I feel like I have such a strong relationship with Dan who is now 70 years old, so it’s really tricky sometimes to wind back the clock and think of him as a 23-year-old who did not know what was ahead of him.
I remember I asked Dan. I said, “What were you thinking the opening night?” Dan is the rare person. He can tell you exactly what he was thinking. Dan said, “You know, I thought, I’ve got a snowplow waiting for me in Toronto, so I’ve still got a job.”
I think that’s what it was like for a lot of them. I think they were aware of how talented and how gifted they were, and what kind of chemistry they had and how special that was, but they had no sense of whether or not it would catch and whether audiences would receive it. So, I think they were all taken by surprise. I think what they felt, and what it feels like when you’re actually in 8H, when you’re in that room, the rest of the world disappears.
If you ask people on the show all the time, what they’ll say is they feel like they’re doing a show for an audience that’s inside the stage. They’re not thinking about the American public. They’re not going to see people watching on television and that feels true to that environment.
It feels there’s something special that Lorne created. It’s this safe, immersive world where you figure it out; you forget about time, you forget about everything else you don’t know whether it’s day or night. You just create. They were doing it on the fly.
Nadine Whitney: There are aspects, of course, in Saturday Night that are, by necessity, fictional. Certain things didn’t happen in the timeline you’ve presented in the film, and certain sketches weren’t shown on the first night. But the way that you’ve put it together, with the incredible chaos of like: “Okay, this is out, this is in, this is out, this is in. We need this writer now. Hey! there’s Paul Schaffer from David Letterman.”
I didn’t realize how many people were milling in the background who would later be hugely popular. This was what was going on at the time the first musical guests were people like Janis Ian, and George Carlin (Matthew Rhys) was locked away in his dressing room taking drugs.
Jason Reitman: I’ll tell you, it’s interesting that it’s so funny, because I know you brought up that I grew up around Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase, but that’s not what I think of when I think of my childhood. When I think of my childhood, what I think of is I grew up on the trucks. I grew up on set. I grew up around the camera people and the sound people and the makeup and hair people and the special effects people. What I grew up around was a crew who every morning would wake up at the crack of dawn and try to pull off something that no one had ever done before.
They would try to tell some unusual piece of storytelling. I watched on a daily basis people struggle with creativity, because that’s what it is. Every day you try something, it doesn’t work, and then you find a way to come together.
I remember the first time I heard about Saturday Night Live and I watched an episode, I asked my father, Ivan, “How often do they do this?” Because I thought this was once a year, like Christmas or the Super Bowl. He told me, “They do this every week” That’s when I fell in love with it. When I realized that there was a group of people that every Tuesday started with nothing, and by Saturday, they had a show.
So, what I wanted to create was something where the audience feels like they were part of the crew. I wanted to create an immersive experience. In which the audience felt like they were part of the cast and the crew of the opening night of Saturday Night Live. There wasn’t the traditional introduction to each character. The movie was not going to ease you into what was happening. You were going to get thrown in. It’s the night of, and you’re meeting thirty people. You don’t know who they are yet. You’re gonna have to figure it out as you go. The music’s pounding, the camera’s moving, and everything’s on the fly, and it feels hyper immersive and hyper real, and by the end of it, you’re gonna feel like one of the people throwing down the bricks.
That was the challenge of writing the script. That was the challenge of making the movie, and the joy of it has been watching people get caught up in a film where they know what’s gonna happen, like Titanic goes down and we know the show goes on the air. But somehow, they still get caught up in the energy of what it feels like when you are moments away from going live. That was the great storytelling challenge, and then the joy of pulling it off.
Nadine Whitney: They all pulled it off so imperfectly perfectly. I was stressed. I was thinking how are they going to make this happen? I was also thinking, “Why is everyone being so mean to Jim Henson?”
Jason Reitman: It’s really funny, Jim Henson really stood out. They didn’t get along with him. I think that’s part of what I found so interesting about it, is that Jim Henson is arguably the biggest genius on that show that night and will have the biggest cultural impact of any person on that show. And yet, sometimes it’s not a right fit. One of the interesting things about making this film is watching what will become a dozen household names challenge each other, push and pull each other to create something great. And sadly, Jim Henson just takes the bullets, the poor thing.
Nadine Whitney: You’ve got Nicholas Braun playing Jim Henson and playing Andy Kaufman. That’s a great doubling of roles. He is so good, and believably so, as both people.
Jason Reitman: I’m so proud of him. We threw that at him at the last second, because Benny Safdie was originally going to play Andy Kaufman.
Nadine Whitney: That would have been a great fit.
Jason Reitman: I know, but Benny’s film got a green light. He had to go direct. And it just hit us. It was like, well, you can play more than one character on Saturday Night Live. Wouldn’t it be interesting if you know, there was all these little subtle ways that we’re doubling SNL in that were emulating the show itself. Not only in the way that we created this, but structurally. The fact that there’s a musical performance one third in, and two thirds the way in, and there’s a weekend update in the middle, like we’re doing little things that are making nods to SNL. We thought, oh, one actor playing two characters is kind of an interesting nod to how they did that.
Nadine Whitney:Who is your favorite Saturday Night Live person?
Jason Reitman: The funny thing is I can give you the easy answers, which are like, “Oh, I mean, I love Will Ferrell and, you know, and I love Adam Sandler, and I love Steve Martin or…” But it’s the crew. It’s the people who put on the show. Because what they do is extraordinary. On Wednesday night they’re given sketches and overnight, Wednesday night, they’re building the sets. They’re making the costumes. The camera work and lighting rigs start. They’re rehearsing, beginning on Thursday and Friday. They’re building the show live. I grew up wanting to be someone on the trucks. I wanted to be one of the people who makes things.
Nadine Whitney: And you do! You’re a director, you’re a writer, you’re a genius on your own level. Young Adult, The Front Runner, Tully, Juno, Up in the Air, Thank You for Smoking. I could go on, but I think you know the films you’ve made. I don’t need to tell you (laughing).
Jason Reitman: With Saturday Night for the first time, I wanted to make a comedy, but I also wanted to make a thriller. I think when people think comedy, sadly, they usually are never thinking about the filmmaking and the structure. When they talk about drama, they talk about craft, when they talk about comedy, they talk about the laughs. I wanted to make a comedy that was a thriller, a comedy was craft, a comedy where every person on the crew had to kind of level up their game to pull off this feat. I’m just so proud of my crew and cast.
Nadine Whitney: I think you should be. I think, too, Ivan would be absolutely thrilled by the film.
Just a final note. Matt Wood, where has he been all our lives?
Jason Reitman: I know! There’s an actor who knew from day one. People asked, “When are you gonna play John Belushi?” Like, this is just like destiny.
Saturday Night is a 2024 biographical comedy drama film directed by Jason Reitman about the night of the 1975 premiere of NBC’s Saturday Night, later known as Saturday Night Live. The film stars an ensemble cast portraying the various Saturday Night cast and crew, led by Gabriel LaBelle as the show’s creator and producer, Lorne Michaels. Rachel Sennott as Rosie Shuster. Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase. Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner. Dylan O’Brien as Dan Ackroyd. Matt Wood as John Belushi. Cooper Hoffman as Dick Ebersol. Nicholas Braun as Jim Henson and Andy Kaufman. J.K. Simmons as Milton Berle. Nicholas Podany as Billy Crystal. Tommy Dewey as Michael O’Donoghue. Emily Fairn as Laraine Newman. Jon Baptiste as Billy Preston. Kim Matula as Jane Curtain. Willem Dafoe as David Tebet. Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris. Abraham Hsu as Leo Yoshimura Andrew Bath Feldman as Neil Levy. Tracy Letts as Herb Sargent. Taylor Grey, Kaia Gerber, Paul Rust, Matthew Rhys, Finn Wolfhard and many more also feature.