JAS ON REITMAN’SSATURDAY NIGHTCHRONICLES THE CHAOTIC 90 MINUTES LEADING WE CORRALLED THE CAST PLAYING THE CAST, FOR A SUITABLY ANARCHIC SUMMITUP TO THE BROADCAST OF 1975’S FIRST-EVERSATURDAY NIGHT LIVE.

WORDS MIKE RYAN

“THEY ARE A BUNCH OF DEGENERATES. THEY ARE CHAOS.”

So jokes a Saturday Night cast member, who will remain safely anonymous, about his fellow actors. (Okay, you twisted our arm — Cooper Hoffman said that.) But after talking to director Jason Reitman and ten cast members, chaos (or, at least, controlled chaos) does seem to be the overarching theme of the making of Saturday Night — to the point that even Reitman had to remind his cast that, yes, there was a method to his madness and, yes, he knew what he was doing with it.

Saturday Night Live is an American institution. Currently celebrating its 50th season — think about that for a second — the show has lampooned politics and culture since Gerald Ford was President and Jaws was still in cinemas (four US Presidents have actually appeared on the show). Launched by Lorne Michaels (who, other than five seasons in the 1980s, has run the show for its duration), SNL is a weekly miracle, every Monday starting from scratch — writing sketches and building sets — then putting on a live show, with no safety net.

“I remember as a kid watching Saturday Night Live and being in disbelief they did this every single week,” Reitman tells Empire. “It felt like something special that you should only get once a year.” The current cast has 17 members, but the original ‘Not Ready For Prime Time Players’ had only seven. And with a country still reeling from Watergate and Vietnam, those seven had a monumental task in front of them.

Saturday Night (as the show itself was originally titled) is a “fever dream”, as actor Matt Wood (John Belushi) calls it, depicting the 90 minutes leading up to the first-ever episode back in 1975. There are confused executives, an angry Johnny Carson, a defiant Milton Berle exposing himself (a version of this really happened) — all framed like it’s an actual episode of Saturday Night Live.

Which of its players had to fight back tears at an airport newsagent? Who got called out on a Ghostbusters red carpet? Who sang a rousing rendition of ‘Purple Rain’ during karaoke to blow off some steam? Ahead, the cast of Saturday Night give us all the ins and outs of this remarkable and unusual film shoot — to the point they themselves started to feel like their own comedy troupe.