How ‘SNL’s’ Biggest Stars Were ‘Mind-F***ed’ by Lorne Michaels

The portrait painted of Saturday Night Live boss Lorne Michaels in a New Yorker profile is one of a relentless comedy genius who will not hesitate to mess with the heads of his talent if it means producing the results he wants.

The 80-year-old Michaels notably did not submit to any new interviews for a four-part documentary series about SNL’s history arriving on Peacock this week ahead of the show’s big 50th anniversary special next month. But he did speak with The New Yorker’s Susan Morrison for her new biography, Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live, which is excerpted in this week’s magazine and arrives on shelves two days after SNL celebrates its major milestone.

Morrison also spoke to numerous comedians and writers who have worked with Michaels over those 50 years and while many of his disciples have positive things to say about him, they also share several specific stories about how he uses his power to manipulate the emotional states of the people who work for him.

The most striking example comes from Bob Odenkirk, who served as a writer on the show at the same time the late Chris Farley was a cast member.

Odenkirk, who has previously recalled Michaels scolding him publicly (“If you speak again I’ll break your f---ing legs”), says he remembers Farley telling him that Michaels deliberately praised him when he messed up and castigated him when he scored. “Chris was mind-f---ed,” Odenkirk says. “Lorne clearly felt that if you kept people off balance they’d try harder.”

Alec Baldwin, who has hosted SNL more frequently than anyone else and became a regular presence on the show as Donald Trump, characterizes Michaels’ management style as “Darwinian,” explaining, “Lorne just stands back and lets them cannibalize each other.”

Giving his cast members genuine praise seems to be anathema to Michaels, as evidenced by another anecdote in the piece from Kevin Nealon about the late Jan Hooks, who was having a hard time during her stint on the show over the death of her mother. When Nealon suggested Michaels throw some positive reinforcement her way, he declined, telling Nealon, “I understand what you’re saying, but you’ll find that it’s never enough.”

In more recent years, Michaels has apparently begun tailoring his approach to leadership based on the personality of the star in question. For instance, with Bill Hader, who has spoken about the intense anxiety and panic he felt at SNL, Michaels came into his dressing room when he was hosting and “snapped” at him, “Calm the f--- down. Just have fun. Jesus Christ.”

“With others, he is warmer,” Morrison writes. “Molly Shannon treasures the memory of how, when she was nervous just before going onstage, Michaels would ‘reassure me with his eyes.’”

Michaels is also less “laissez-faire” towards drug abuse than he was in SNL’s early days. While he once felt that “as long as people showed up on time, did their job, it was nobody’s business what they did in their bedroom or what they did in their lives,” he now realizes—possibly influenced by the tragic deaths of players like Farley and John Belushi—that “value system turned out to be wrong.”

For yet more evidence that Michaels has softened—or at least become less intimidating—in his later years, one need only look at how ’90s SNL stars Dana Carvey and David Spade have reacted to stories about their former boss from current cast members on their Fly on the Wall podcast.

Just the idea that cast member Sarah Sherman would text Michaels to ask him why one of her sketches got cut recently floored Spade. “I’m like, you text Lorne? That floors me,” Spade said, while Carvey added, “As a cast member? During the show?”

Spade recalled Michaels giving Sherman a performance note for a sketch in which she was playing Matt Gaetz and he was returning as a special guest to portray Hunter Biden.

“She goes, ‘I’ll try,’” Spade said. “I’m like, ‘How about yes, sir?’”