Following the screening, Lorne sat down with Donna Langley, Chairman of NBCUniversal, the parent company of Focus and NBC, which Michaels has called home for the past 51 (with a short break) years. Related Stories News 'Obsession' Beats 'Scary Movie' & He-Man On Monday; Pic Will Soon Become Top Grossing Fest Acquisition Of All-Time (Not Just Yet) - Box Office News Obsessed Around The Globe: Curry Barker's 'Obsession' Is Focus Features' Highest Grossing Movie Ever With $224M+ WW
Michaels addressed SNL‘s strong political bent as the sketch comedy traditionally kicks off its episodes with a pointed cold open commenting on current events.
“I think in the face of totalitarian government, I don’t think comedy really does much good; I think the totalitarians win every single time. But there is something as a safety valve in a culture which comedy is a really important part, and being able to even think those thoughts,” Michaels said. “Last week on Update, Jost and Che really went after things but it was what was bubbling up in the air, with the war, with all of that, and people go, ‘No!’ They know what they do.”
Michaels also spoke about the recent launch of Saturday Night Live UK.
“The mandate there is, it had to be British,” he said. “My design for it was that it would be the cooler of the two shows, and it would be the thing they beat us up with that. It’s smarter, funnier, more original. And it had to be that. It had to be its own thing. It couldn’t be an imitation of what we do.”
He pointed to SNL UK’s Prince Andrew cold open, noting that he would’ve done it differently.
“The way I would have done it is an austere room with the right sort of looking people in an MI5 meeting. And then I would have had an entrance for Andrew, and then I would have explained the plan, which would be logical to me,” Michael said.
The UK team “found a way that it’s working for them, and the audience is taken to it … There is no better way, there’s only what works.”
Michaels also revealed that the recent SNL U.S. pairing of host Jack Black and Jack White “took about two years to put together because I just thought, What a great ticket. They’re complimentary, and it was the joy that they were having with each other, musician to musician, and also comedian to comedian.”
The SNL honcho also pulled the curtain on last week’s viral U.S. sketch of host Colman Domingo, joined by cast members Mikey Day, Marcello Hernandez and Sarah Sherman, recreating NASA’s recent Artemis II space mission to the moon.
“It was funny this week with Colman, because he’s a very trained actor and brilliant in almost everything he does,” Michaels said. “We’re doing that astronaut sketch, and he said, ‘Tell me what to do.’ And I said, ‘Well, you do your part, you’re playing straight out, you have to be convincing. You’re describing historic things, and behind you there are three or four chimpanzees. They’re going to be doing stuff and floating through, and you can’t be aware of it. You have to just plow through. And the comedy is going to come from them, but it comes from them in reaction to you, right? And so you’re a part of it, but you don’t get to be what they’re getting there. And so he went, ‘I gotta do that.'”
Source: deadline.com