Live From New York - James H. Miller [278]
Most of the time when I was not in rehearsals, I was sitting around the suite in the hotel with my family. And the process that I had expected to take place over the Christmas break spontaneously occurred that week because we were all together. I hadn’t realized it would happen that way. I knew that once I reached a conclusion one way or the other, I was going to announce it pretty quickly, because I just didn’t want to be out there saying disingenuously, “I don’t know if I’m going to run,” when I really knew that I was or wasn’t. So when the family process just emerged, it catalyzed the endgame in my thinking sooner than I expected.
And so midway through that week, I began to lean toward not running. And I tried that idea on for size. And by Saturday I had pretty much decided yeah, I’m not going to do it. But by then the impending performance was a welcome distraction, because you just give yourself over to the vortex of the live performance, and I just put it all on hold until the following day. It actually turned out to be a pretty healthy way to do it, although I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody. It just happened.
Absolutely I would have done the sketches I did if I had decided to run for president. I didn’t see anything wrong with them. And yes, Tipper and I were really kissing during the opening. Absolutely. I think it was even longer than at the convention.
For me, doing the show was similar to the reason why I love downhill skiing. I am not very good at it, so it takes every ounce of concentration I have in order to avoid killing myself on the way down the mountain, and when I get to the bottom, I feel refreshed because I have not thought about anything other than surviving. And that’s pretty much the way that Saturday was.
Oh, it was great fun hosting. I had a blast and so did Tipper. We really enjoyed it a lot. And all of our kids had fun. Our second oldest daughter, Kristin, is a comedy writer working in Hollywood, and she has a number of friends who are on the writing staff at SNL that she knew from the Harvard Lampoon days, so they invited her to come and participate during that week. So we had a little inside track in getting into the minds of what was coming up. That made it even more fun, because we got to hear about a lot of skits that didn’t get as far as us.
I’m embarrassed to tell you that before I was there on Monday of that week, I really didn’t even know that they did the whole thing twice on Saturday night. That’s such an elementary thing not to know, but I did not know it. I’d never stood in line for tickets or anything like that. I just always watch it on TV. I don’t think they had any sense that they were breaking it to me as a news flash when they told me, and I tried not to let them know that I didn’t know it.
I remember actually when I first began to try and master the voice and mannerisms of Trent Lott. I watched a bunch of videotapes and I figured, “You know, I just really don’t know how to do this.” But I kept at it and ended up faking it pretty well. It was what it was.
I had to say no to a few things. If you don’t, you’re not doing your job as a host. They depend on that. But I didn’t say no to very much. I thought they had a tremendous number of good ideas. Now there were some that I thought were funny as hell that I nevertheless wasn’t comfortable doing, because I wasn’t comfortable saying the words. But I’m sure that’s par for the course.
I thought the reaction was really heartening. I still have people come up to me to this day saying, “Hey, really liked you and Tipper on Saturday Night Live.” That’s just a lot of fun. We had great fun doing it. The show is such a wonderful part of American culture.
JAMES DOWNEY:
If the show were ever canceled, you could never get something like it on again. The idea that the best way