Live From New York - James H. Miller [216]
TOM SCHILLER, Writer:
I left for good in 1993. It happened abruptly and without any human contact between me and Lorne, and it kind of threw me. Suddenly I went to the office and guys were putting my things in boxes. They said “management” had asked Lorne to clean house. But Lorne was nowhere to be found when I wanted to ask him why this was happening to me.
And yet it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened, in a way, because I should have left three years earlier.
JULIA SWEENEY:
I would say my first two years, and even up to my third year, were fabulous. And then my last year was just like one of the worst years of my life. I don’t know exactly why. I think that Lorne was feeling a pressure to concentrate more on the younger talent, which wasn’t even — particularly in age — years younger than me, but it was like going from like the Dana, Phil, me sort of emphasis, to the Chris Farley, Adam Sandler sort of emphasis. I think I got one sketch out of my whole fourth year.
I complained. I think Lorne really liked me a lot, but I could see in his eyes that I wasn’t part of the new order. I don’t think anyone cared whether I left or I stayed. And then finally I went to him in March. I had such a difficult time. It’s like every week I was writing and writing and nothing was getting on and I hadn’t really been the driving comedic force of a sketch like for — like until March, when I went just insane and forced Lorne to put on a sketch that I had written for Patrick Stewart. And the sketch went on last, and it did okay. But I could tell that it was sort of a favor to me to shut me up. Overall, I was over.
In April I went and told Lorne that I wanted to quit. My contract was five years, and it had only been four years. And he would never ever tell you, “Please don’t go.” I wasn’t looking for him to say that. I knew that even if he felt that way a thousand percent, he would never say it. But I knew that he also didn’t want me to go, not so much because he wanted me there but because he didn’t want to have the drama of me leaving. Not like it would be that big of a drama. But it’s almost like I felt like he just wished I would disappear and we didn’t even have to have the conversations about me leaving.
But by then I had so made up my mind. My agents would say, “Don’t leave a job ’til you get another job.” And I had saved up like $70,000, which was like to me a zillion dollars. And I felt like I would have scrubbed toilets with a toothbrush rather than come back to that show. There was no job I could imagine having to do that would have been more difficult than returning to that show the next year.
LORNE MICHAELS:
Michael Eisner called and said he wanted to make a movie based on her character Pat, and I said I didn’t think so. Then Julia came to talk to me. I had the right to stop her, because NBC owned the thing. But I said, “Good luck,” and I let her make the movie. And ever since, it’s been on my record. They say “Saturday Night Live movies like It’s Pat.” And she’s unpleasant about the show! And I go, “What?” Well, why — because her life didn’t turn out quite the way she wanted? Now it has, she’s done a one-woman show, and she has a baby, and she’s defeated cancer.
CHRISTINE ZANDER, Writer:
I got to know Phil even better. And this was after I had moved to L.A. and they had moved to L.A., after we worked together. Phil was a wonderful guy, incredibly generous and good-hearted, but I think he was difficult to get to know. I think maybe with his male friends it was easier, but I don’t really feel like I knew him completely. I think he became unhappy, because the last two years the new talent started to come in, it got a little bit more cutthroat, because, you know, the old guard wasn’t getting written for as much.
DAVID MANDEL:
The final season for me was really, really exhausting.