Live From New York - James H. Miller [234]
We did a test with just me, Tina, the cameramen, a director, and Lorne. And after one take, he would come out with, “Okay, relax a little bit more.” And, “I like Tina on this side and Jim on this side.” Lorne said, “What we’ll do is, we’ll do it until Christmas, because it takes a long time to get into it, and if you hate it or it’s not working, we can find something else.”
TINA FEY:
All we had from Lorne was that he wanted it to seem that we liked each other, which we do, and that the whole thing was a good time. And underneath that, I know for me, I wanted to make sure I felt that the point of view of the jokes was in keeping with — you know, if I’m reading it — my own point of view of the story. And Lorne said to not worry about it as a parody of the news so much anymore. We use that when it helps us and not worry about it when it doesn’t. Because there’ve been so many parodies and satires of TV newscasts over the years.
Jimmy and I looked at a few tapes when we were preparing our test. We did watch Chevy specifically, because Lorne talked about it. It was an interesting point. He said you have to go out there with a little detachment — “These are the jokes they gave me” — which for me was particularly different, because a lot of times I was writing them. But it is true that to get away with it, you want that sort of playful detachment. Like, we’re just out here trying to deal with this. We’re not that invested in it.
JIMMY FALLON:
After the first “Update,” I was so stressed. When it was over with, I thanked Lorne. I was like, “This is the coolest thing ever.” It’s such a rush, man. Because I’m wearing a suit, for God’s sake. I don’t have any suits! I don’t! I’ve got to wear suits now. So I wear suits and talk about the White House and all that stuff. It’s cool. Then De Niro came on. It’s just fun. It’s absolutely fun. I’m peaking soon. It’s got to peak, because otherwise I’ll go insane, and then where are you?
The way I look at it is, it’s mine and Tina’s little six-minute thing. It’s a theater show. If I want to talk to the audience, I’m going to. One time, the applause sign didn’t go on. And it was just dead air. And I was like, “Did they not press the applause button? What’s the deal?” Meanwhile, on the cue card it says, “Thank you, everybody.” So I am not going to read the card and say, “Thank you, everybody,” if no one clapped. Thanks for what? So instead I just said, “Thanks, Tina — and no one else, apparently.”
TINA FEY:
We knew that Jimmy was more than charming enough for the two of us. So we’d have that.
ALEC BALDWIN:
I would say the show’s less politically wicked than it used to be. Now they make fun of people, but they don’t make fun of people and make a political statement at the same time. It doesn’t seem that it’s as biting satirically as it was before. They should be having a field day with those two huge oil whores that we have in there now, Cheney and Bush. God, you could be just cooking them and eating them every week.
I still think Tina Fey is hysterically funny, though; I think she has the perfect kind of meter and cadence for the news thing. And that’s something where you do still have some of the edginess of the show. I used to not even watch the “Weekend Update” segment before, because I thought it was just a lot of tired LaToya Jackson jokes. Now it has some real bite to it, and I think it’s because of Tina and Jimmy. They’re really funny.
DON OHLMEYER:
“Weekend Update” is what gets you to midnight. You tune in and there’ll be a couple of weak sketches, and there might be a sketch that works and then a couple that don’t work, and that’s the nature