The Five-ish Most Memorable Performances from Saturday Night

Live from a soundstage in Atlanta designed to look exactly like Studio 8H circa 1975, it’s Saturday Night…

The “comedic thriller” that plays out in real time over the 90 minutes before SNL’s first ever episode is here and with it, a lot of questions regarding just how… truthful it actually is (the answer: not very much at all). But once you accept that what you’re watching is much more an attempt to show the “spirit” of that first episode and season and cast, rather than a documentation of the actual 90 minutes leading up to the first episode of one of the longest running shows in human existence, it’s a rather good time at the movies. 

And yet, in a film that, according to director Jason Reitman, has over 70 speaking roles, there are a handful of performers that really jump out – mostly for better, but some for worse at times. Rather than rank all of them, here are the five-ish* most memorable performances from Saturday Night.

Gabriel LaBelle as Lorne Michaels

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about my young adult Canadian son Gabriel LaBelle – seriously, go watch Snack Shack. But if that performance solidified him as more than just that kid who played Spielberg in Spielberg’s movie about being Spielberg minus using the name “Spielberg,” then LaBelle’s performance as Lorne Michaels officially annoints him as a future star. In a movie that’s essentially one 90-minute walk and talk around the halls of Rockefeller Center, he acts as the focal point for the rest of the cast, the writers, and the NBC brass that apparently want him to fail in beautiful fashion. And while LaBelle looks way too young to play 30-ish Michaels at this time, he still comes off charming, dedicated, and relentless in his desire to succeed. Even if he doesn’t get a ton of laughs, he does exactly what the real Michaels did so well: provide room for the insanely talented to shine. And it doesn’t hurt that he has chemistry with just about every other actor in the absolutely stacked cast.

Rachel Sennot as Rosie Shuster

Rachel Sennot is by far the most charming and alluring actor in Saturday Night, which is why it’s such a bummer that she also gets stuck with the worst and most tonally-off monologue in the whole movie. Her Rosie Shuster is the star whisperer, the creative balance to Michaels’ logistical madness, and she jumps off the screen after she’s the last core character to be introduced, which seems like a very intentional choice. And yet, the speech in the rafters that she gives about Michaels’ upbringing and their relationship is just such an eye roll. Maybe it was a studio note after they wrapped filming, or maybe Reitman felt the need to add a rather saccharine moment to soften some of the more acidic beats of the story, but why spend an extra few minutes building up the lore of person who we now know as one of the most successful TV creators of all time rather than showing Shuster engaging with Chevy Chase or extending her scene with John Belushi? Sennot is clearly going to be a cultural force for years to come, but I do wish she’d gotten a little more to do in this role.

Kim Matula as Jane Curtin

In terms of actors in Saturday Night who I’d never seen before, Kim Matula as Jane Curtin was an absolute revelation. Oddly my knowledge of Curtin herself is much more from her role as John Lithgow’s love interest in 3rd Rock from the Sun, but having watched some of her old SNL clips now, Matula does an incredible job encapsulating Curtin’s energy, playfulness, and, well, heat. As with almost every member of the show’s cast, she gets her monologue moment sitting in the stands with Lamorne Morris’ Garrett Morris while he ponders how he ended up on the show and she details her own journey to the cast in a way that it seems like only she could. It’s charming and zany and shows exactly why she was cast in the first place. I really hope Matula gets some more bites at the apple after this, she’s excellent.

Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd

Dylan O’Brien has been in almost 40 films and TV shows, and yet, I have no relationship to him whatsoever. However, when they announced the cast for this movie, he was the one I was the most worried about. OK, I was worried about Nicholas Braun playing both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson. And you know what? He was fine. But we’re not talking about Cousin Greg, we’re talking about the Maze Runner himself. As arguably the most recognizable actor playing one of the most recognizable cast members, he appeared to have the hardest mountain to climb. Does he look like Aykroyd? Not really? Does he capture the off-kilter, but disarming demeanor of the always-the-sidekick, never-really-the-hero performer? Absolutely. Whether it’s his flirtations with half the cast, his peculiar romance with Sennot’s Shuster, or the mildly uncomfortable denim shorts scene, O’Brien nails it and comes out of Saturday Night looking like a potential star. My only gripe: how did Aykroyd and Belushi not get a single scene together? Seriously, HOW!?

Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase

In Saturday Night’s pantheon of familiarity, there might be no character more known or recognizable than Chevy Chase. Well, maybe John Belushi, but he died in 1982, which really just goes to show how impactful his short career was. However, we’re not talking about the guy who played Belushi, who was fine (but really had an almost impossible task). No, we’re talking about the guy who played Chase, Cory Michael Smith – someone I have almost no memory of seeing in May December, which is a movie that I also have almost no memory of seeing. However, in Saturday Night as THE guy, he’s excellent. He’s a smarmy asshole who looks like he’d hold your legs up to do a keg stand, only to let you fall when he sees an opportunity to make a too-clever joke to a co-ed. He’s the only character in the movie who is on the attack in almost every scene. Well, except for one, which… let’s just talk about it now.

J.K. Simmons as Milton Berle

So, uh, where to start? I like J.K. Simmons, and so does Jason Reitman. He liked him for Up in the Air and he really liked him for Juno, but Simmons’ turn as one of the pseudo villains of Saturday Night in famed entertainer and stickman Milton Berle is… odd. He’s obviously being used as a cultural counterpoint of what era NBC was leaving behind in order to let Lorne Michaels guide them into a new world, but man, he’s just really gross in most of his scenes. In particular, the inevitable standoff between Chevy Chase and Berle after Chase finds his fiancé (played perfectly fine by Kaia Gerber) flirting with Berle. After an exchange of barbs that includes Berle pulling out his foot-long dick (which might be one of the only accurate details in the movie), Chase tells him that he’s an irrelevant dinosaur that no one cares about anymore. And then, we get this:

Chase: "What no comeback?" 

Berle: "You'll have to scrape it off the back of your mom's teeth."

No further comment.

Willem Dafoe as David Tebet

OK, we’re doing one more because why the heck not? Willem Dafoe plays David Tebet, an NBC talent exec who is framed as the real villain of the movie, starting off as a casual supporter of Lorne’s vision who then threatens to pull the plug on the entire show before eventually getting the hero moment of the movie when at the very last second, he decides to go live to Studio 8H instead of rerunning an episode of Johnny Carson. In reality, Tebet was apparently a massive supporter of what became SNL and stood by Michaels throughout his time at the network. But we needed a villain and, I mean, just look at the guy. There are some scenes between him and LaBelle’s Michaels where LaBelle shows his lack of experience going up against one of the great faces of the past 40 years, but for the most part, you can just tell Dafoe is having fun, and for a movie about a show that was supposed to be just that, his shadow over various parts of the movie is as entertaining as it is occasionally menacing.