‘Saturday Night’ Director Jason Reitman Recalls Real Life ‘SNL’ Writing Gig: “You Sit Around Shaking”

Saturday Night director Jason Reitman, who in his latest movie chronicles the lead-up to the first Saturday Night Live show in 1975, had a unique training ground.

In 2008, Reitman served as a guest writer on an SNL show and delivered one sketch to air, and all on a tense yet freestyling TV set led by the series creator Lorne Michaels. “Right after Juno, my agent reached out to Lorne and said, look, he has two dreams – to make movies and write for SNL,” Reitman recalled on Sunday during a press breakfast at the Toronto Film Festival.

Reitman and Gil Kenan penned the screenplay for Saturday Night based on their interviews with living cast, writers and crew about the debut of the show that is heading into its 50th season. But there’s nothing like having worked on SNL itself to gain big insights.

Michaels brought Reitman on for a week long gig, and that’s where the director hatched the idea to capture the method in madness in producing a live TV show where, one hour before going to air, writers and actors and wardrobe and set designers are still working in an air of panic.

“Being there, all I was thinking is, there’s no way. And every week, at the last second it comes together and the band starts playing,” Reitman recalled as each show goes into a cold open. He wrote three SNL sketches that week, and one got to air – ‘Death By Chocolate,’ where a chocolate bar kills people.

Reitman said the weekly comedy universe he worked in is born out of a crazy circus that is the creative process behind SNL and Michaels, who has produced the show for 50 years. On Monday, all writers and actors gather in his office to hatch ideas for the coming week’s show and then they start writing.

And there’s no coffee provided by Michaels. “Lorne’s thing is, you’re still a kid. You bring your own coffee,” Reitman said. Wednesday brings a table read and then Michaels, that week’s host and the head writer retire to an inner sanctum to deliberate.

“You sit around shaking, and they come out like it’s a high school play and pin a piece of paper on the wall and you run up and you’re, like, Oh My God!” Reitman recounted. But the young writer-director had only a couple minutes for excitement as he was soon in meetings with a set designer and builders and wardrobe to produce Death By Chocolate.

Then, after rehearsals and just before that week’s show, Michaels returns to the big board with another piece of paper to indicate who’s made the final cut. During the SNL show itself, Reitman remembered when it was his turn entering the control booth next to the audience, to hear their laughter, where Michaels directs the live show.

“You sit down with Michaels, and it either goes well or not,” he added. Whatever the outcome, Reitman remembered the ever-inscrutable Michaels turning to him and, now mimicking the longtime comedy kingmaker, raising an eyebrow with a seemingly befuddled look as he quickly made way for the next sketch writer.

In Saturday Night, his own movie about the 90 minutes before the premiere SNL episode went to air in October 1975, Reitman kept that same irreverent, free-wheeling atmosphere on his film set. “Nobody has a trailer. We had a giant open room filled with 70s furniture and a ping pong table. We had a television and everyone hung out there,” he said.

All the lead actors — Gabriel LaBelle, Rachel Sennott, Willem Dafoe, Dylan O’Brien and J.K. Simmons – gathered there as well. The cast includes LaBelle as series creator Lorne Michaels, Cooper Hoffman as former NBC exec Dick Ebersol and Rachel Sennott as Michaels’ ex-wife and former SNL writer Rosie Shuster.

“Willem Dafoe came and the first day he hung out, watching everything all day. And the young guys were, ‘Oh my God, it’s Willem Dafoe,’” Reitman added. Finally, he walked over to Dafoe, who said: “Jason. I love your set. I’ve never seen anything like it. No edge of frame. I don’t know what the fuck you’re shooting!”

The air of off-the-cuff creativity extended to singer and songwriter Jon Batiste, who played keyboardist and singer Billy Preston in Saturday Night, and also wrote the movie’s musical score live on set.

After changing back into his street clothes, Batiste each day would return to set and Reitman would play him scenes, before the conductor turned to his band. “And he’d go, let’s start with an E-flat, go to a G and come back to a B. And on the shaker, I want a shug-shug-shug,” Reitman said, mimicking the percussive sound of a shaker instrument.

Then they would start playing. “The whole score is written on set and literally in real time,” Reitman said.

Saturday Night is set to hit theaters Oct. 11, which marks the 49th anniversary of the NBC sketch series’ premiere that aired on that same night in 1975. Previously using the working title of SNL 1975, the film is getting a prime awards season release.