Live From New York - James H. Miller [172]
After the fifth year, when my manager said, “Why don’t you just clear the air with him?” he was very angry. I went in there to do that with him, and he was very angry with me. He was shaking. He was furious. Not yelling but just shaking, you know. But after that, we cleared it and I said okay.
I think a lot of the problem that people have with Lorne is that they just know him as the genius from Saturday Night Live, right? Oh, he’s picked you to be in his show. So it’s the opportunity of a lifetime. So you’re so grateful to the guy, you know, like here’s this guy giving you the chance of a lifetime. So you’re automatically like, “Thank you,” and he’s the boss and you have strong feelings for him and you want to please your boss. And, you know, he’s not really demonstrative that way. But actors are.
Many writers got their starts, or their first major professional gigs, on Saturday Night Live and then went on to write sitcoms or movies, hits and flops. The show truly was a talent processing plant and the most influential comedy academy in TV history. Among those who went through the process was a young, tall Irish American with skin as fair as Snow White’s.
CONAN O’BRIEN, Writer:
I was always a nervous Saturday Night Live writer. I found being a writer on Saturday Night Live more nerve-wracking than being the host of Late Night and replacing Letterman.
GREG DANIELS, Writer:
Conan O’Brien and I were a writing team at one point on this HBO show called Not Necessarily the News. And we did a packet of material for Saturday Night Live and then we didn’t really hear anything for about a year. And in the intervening time we had gone on to a different show and then that show had failed.
We had an interview with Lorne. I remember when we went into the interview, he offered us wine and we said no and then he asked us some question, like, “How do I know you’ll succeed here at the show?” And we said, “You don’t, we might not.” So we left the interview and Jim Downey, who was the guy that had brought us in, came up to us and said, “How can you answer questions like that? It was terrible.” Eventually, I don’t know why, we ended up getting the job. I think that they had said about ten minutes later that it was okay.
This was more like big-time showbiz stuff, and we didn’t really know the rules of that kind of behavior. So we were still kind of rubes. I think we should’ve accepted the wine at least.
CONAN O’BRIEN:
Lorne kind of throws you into the pool. I remember, very early on, him bringing me into a room and — not that my view of him has changed at all — but when I was twenty-six years old, which I was then, and you put a gun to my head and said, “Who’s the funniest person ever in the world?” I would probably say Woody Allen, Steve Martin, Peter Sellers, one of those three. But definitely Steve Martin was like a towering figure in my comic worldview. And I remember Lorne pulling me into a room early on. Like, “Conan, what do you think? Steve and I are trying to figure out this thing. What do you think?” He’s not afraid to just throw you in there with those people. And he’s not afraid like, “I don’t know, this kid might embarrass me,” or “This kid might be an idiot.” He’s not afraid to go, “Let’s get Conan in here and maybe he’ll have an idea.”
GREG DANIELS:
Carl Weathers was the host the first week we got there. And he’d just been doing this movie, Action Jackson. And so our introduction to everybody was they had a screening of Action Jackson and we went and all the cast sat in the back and made cracks. I remember Kevin Nealon being very funny, sitting in the back.
It was intimidating,