Ex-FishbowlNY editor Rachel Sklar scored a Village Voice cover story on Saturday Night Live, and she got plenty of nuglets from inside the halls of Rock Center. Some highlights:
Al Franken on why SNL can survive in the age of the Daily Show and Colbert: “SNL has writers, sets, cameramen, lighting, makeup, wigs — and really good actors,” he says. “There’s definitely a place to do the kinds of things that you can’t do anywhere else. It’s up to the writers to adjust to the realities of the other things, and do the kinds of things that only SNL can do.” Andy Samberg [above] on “crazy everyone’s-boning-each-other kind of awesome gossip”: “There’s way less, you know, crazy everyone’s-boning-each-other kind of awesome gossip, but at the same time everyone’s much more relaxed and friendly. Everyone in the cast and all the writers too are just super-laid-back, humble, mellow people—it’s really nice.” On the exodus of Chris Parnell: The group speaks with real fondness for [Horatio] Sanz and [Finesse] Mitchell, but a special category of reverence seems reserved for Parnell. “Somebody resubmitted a sketch that was done last year and I had to do a part that Chris Parnell had done last year, and I couldn’t do it nearly as well as he was able to do it,” says [Will] Forte. “I just remembered him doing it in my head as I was doing it, and I was like, ‘Awww, he’s so awesome.'” Says performer Bill Hader: “He’s one of my heroes. Just to be able to do a scene with him was amazing.” FishbowlNY’s SNL Coverage:
Brian Williams Opens SNL‘s Weekend Update Confirmed: Seth Meyers To Take Tina Fey’s Weekend Update Seat; Lorne Michaels Says Slimmed SNL Cast ‘Great Size’ Saturday Night Live Cast Update No Love For Narnia? SNL Job Cuts To Include Parnell, Sanz Post-Fey SNL To Cut Four Lorne Michaels: ‘Massive’ Budget Cuts At NBC Will Make SNL ‘Decisions Simpler’ Weekend Update: Tina Fey Out At SNL Tina Fey Out At SNL?
