Yahoo Lifestyle Bill Hader Had Anxiety Attacks at ‘SNL,’ Says Lorne Michaels Came to His Dressing Room to Tell Him to ‘Calm the F— Down. Just Have Fun. Jesus Christ’
“Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels is the subject of Susan Morrison’s upcoming biography “Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live,” a lengthy excerpt from which was published by The New Yorker and reveals Michaels’ hot and cold relationship with the ever-changing cast over the years. Michaels may be the boss of “SNL,” but he wasn’t always a loving paternal figure.
Alec Baldwin, who has hosted “SNL” 17 times and had a stint playing Donald Trump, told Morrison that Michaels is “Darwinian” in his management style in that “Lorne just stands back and lets them cannibalize each other.” But Morrison writes that Michaels “is flexible about the talent-management aspect of his producer role. Different personalities, he believes, require different approaches.”
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“To some, Michaels will bark, ‘Don’t fuck it up,'” Morrison continues. “Bill Hader, who is prone to anxiety attacks, remembers Michaels coming to his dressing room when he hosted and snapping, ‘Calm the fuck down. Just have fun. Jesus Christ.’ With others, he is warmer. Molly Shannon treasures the memory of how, when she was nervous just before going onstage, Michaels would ‘reassure me with his eyes.'”
But giving praise to his cast members was not routine for Michaels. Kevin Nealon, an “SNL” cast member from 1986 to 1995, told Morrison that he encouraged Michaels to give some positive reinforcement to co-star Jan Hooks when she was struggling in the aftermath of her mother’s death. Nealon remembered Michaels declining and telling him: “I understand what you’re saying, but you’ll find that it’s never enough.”
Michaels’ pick-me-up advice to Hader during his anxiety attack beind the scenes didn’t always work. Hader has been quite vocal over the years about how his tenure on “SNL” fed his battle with anxiety.
“When I was on ‘SNL,’ I was a bit of a basket case,” Hader once told Variety. “It could not have been easy on my wife at the time. I was so consumed with work and anxiety. Sometimes I felt like people thought, ‘Oh, he’s just wanting attention or something.’ It was like, ‘No, man, I’m legit. I’m freaking out right now.’”
Many cast members have spoken about how the pressure-cooker environment at “SNL” eventually takes its toll on the mental health of the performers. Andy Samberg revealed last year that he left the sketch comedy series after seven years because “I was falling apart in my life” behind the scenes and couldn’t “endure it anymore.”
“Physically, it was taking a heavy toll on me and I got to a place where I was like I hadn’t slept in seven years basically,” Samberg said. “We were writing stuff for the live show Tuesday night all night, the table read Wednesday, then being told now come up with a digital short so write all Thursday, all Thursday night, don’t sleep, get up, shoot Friday, edit all night Friday night and into Saturday, so it’s basically like four days a week you’re not sleeping, for seven years. So I just kinda fell apart physically.”
Head over to The New Yorker’s website to read the full excerpt from “Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live.” The book is now available for pre-order and will be released on Feb. 18.
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