YouSaid · the spoken record

Lorne Michaels

lines on the record: 25
first: 2019-07-29
most recent: 2019-07-29
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I think that I wouldn't advise anybody on it, but I think that leadership in this particular field is the ability to change your mind. Quite often changed your mind. So, if a better idea comes in from a first year writer, we'll go with that. And it's a culture that thrives on that. It isn't status or hierarchy that determine it. People that the audience is dying to see in the cast can end up in one piece because the pieces got chosen and they were chosen. Everyone's heard them play at read-through. And so There isn't a week where someone's not seriously unhappy and it's not fun walking past people just after you've cut their piece because we're running long and that's the piece that got cut. But there's always next week. And I think you just keep moving forward. You just try and create a culture where everyone feels they're heard.”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the show Continues to morph. I mean, since the last election, it's been much more political because the audience can follow it. There are times, you know, there were times in... The mid 90s, where if you'd ask one of the cast members who the Senate majority leader is, they wouldn't know. So politics becomes obviously post-Watergate politics is very important, and to the baby womb generation Remained important and then in good times it sort of recedes. So we're always just doing what's topical. It might be politics right now it is.”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's three o'clock in the morning. You see two writers in the hall. I mean, in the 70s it would have been seamless, but now they just stop talking. It's like a closer. But I think if they suggest an idea, and I'm thinking, well, we've done that eight or ten times. I wrote it three times. It's never worked. But if you ever said it won't work, they'd think, well, he just doesn't get it, which is infuriating. But they have to be able to write it and hope springs eternal that maybe this time it will work. So there's no idea that somebody brilliant isn't able to figure out and pull off. So you're always just hopeful on that front.”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Thrilling. When I got the call telling me that I was to receive it, I was in the middle of working out and wasn't. And then I sort of took it in and then I went, oh, Valley Garrett who called me said, and we'd appreciate you're not talking about it. So there was a month where I knew I was getting it before it was going to be announced. And I took it very seriously about not talking to people about it.”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the show Continues to morph. I mean, since the last election, it's been much more political because the audience can follow it. There are times, you know, there were times in the mid-90s where if you'd ask one of the cast members who the Senate majority leader is, they wouldn't know.”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think there's very strong feelings on both sides of it. When we did the 40th anniversary, A couple years ago, I think everyone, all the people who were invited who worked on the show, plus people who'd hosted the show, and I think when people looked around the room and saw all the different generations of people who'd done it, people realized that what we'd done was important. Recently, a couple weeks ago, Adam Sandler was hosting the show, and he did a song about Chris Farley. And I did a lot of work with Chris Farley and Adam and he were very close, obviously. But what happened was he was doing this tribute and he looked around the studio. And crew were the same crew, the people in design were the same people. And you sort of saw people tearing up and you realized it's just”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's always something in the show that I'm really proud of. And also, comedy is a disruptive thing. People don't plan to laugh. They're taught when to applaud, but they're not taught when to laugh. So there's something that's always surprising. And when you see the pairing of really good writing and a brilliant performance, And when they're locked in”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then once it sort of going or going well enough, I will tiptoe out of the room and go back to my other job, which is SNL. So most of my focus is S&L because it's compelling and because you don't know what's happening minute to minute. And then with the tonight show with Jimmy Fallon, who also and Seth Marz on late night, these are people I've worked with, and we have a shorthand, and I have faith in them. So you can sort of see that process”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, no, I did the tonight show and Seth Morrow's late night show. But in all of those, 30 Rock is a perfect example. TFE was a brilliant headwriter on SNL and then cast member and did update. She wanted to do a series. We did Mean Girls together as a movie. She wanted to do a television series. It ended up being 30 rock. What I will do is I'll be all over it. At the beginning to make sure that it's both on track and that it's the best version of what it could be.”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They leave us alone. And the Comcast people have been brilliant because one, I don't think they want to be doing the show themselves, so there's that. And also it's just been Steve Burke, Brian Roberts, just unwavering support.”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. You choose the pieces on Wednesday, you rehearse them Thursday and Friday and again Saturday afternoon in costume and makeup and then you do a dress rehearsal which is the first time the 300-400 people come in and see it and whatever you thought if they disagree they're right so we adjust from that things that you thought were surefire don't play and things that a harder piece if you play it early it probably won't work. And so it's where you play things running order and also topicality.”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I mean, there's some of that, but mostly it's about time. So the cast are good enough that if you are running a minute or two long, you can just go and they understand and they can just pick it up, go faster. Or else we take a page out of something.”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it was built on springs, literally the NBC Symphony Orchestra in Toscadini was that important. And Rockefeller said it had been built, so they put this in between floors so that the subway noise wouldn't affect it. A lot of that was changed when television came in because they thought sound wouldn't matter. Turns out it came.”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ready? You can get almost anyone through it. It's an odd hybrid because you're on stage, so there are lots of people who are very good at that, but then there's also cameras, and also the script is constantly changing up to the last minute. So it takes a level of focus, and there's a point which the host really just gives up and goes, you just have to trust it at this point, that it will all come together.”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We choose the show on Wednesday. We read 40 to 45 pieces looking for 13 to 14. Once that's chosen, then the designers begin designing the sets. Then those plans go out to the shop late that night and they start. The film unit goes off to figure out how they're going to shoot the two or three pieces we're shooting. are always assessing who has not as much to do as we'd like and so we've left the opening of the show and generally one or two spots open for anything that happens between then and then and then and then and”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, everybody has to show up Monday. I have a meeting which I've had from the beginning at five o'clock on Mondays, which has all the writing staff, all the cast, the host, people from the music department, people from the film department. And we all gather in my office. They gather on behind a desk. And I go round the room and ask everybody what their What their idea is.”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's almost nothing we did in the 70s that I could do now. Gilda Radner would not be able to play Roseanne Rosanna Dana. John Belushi would not be able to play Japanese. Garrett Morris doing news for the hard of hearing would have been making fun of a handicap. So it's just all values change. And then I always say that between the movie Arthur and the movie Arthur II, alcoholism became a disease. And no one wanted to laugh at drunks anymore, whereas for 200 years they laughed at drunks.”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There was a lot of discussions about what we could do and what we couldn't do and what you could do at 11.30 and what you could do at midnight. I think that we sort of, you know, all those phrases from the 70s like cutting edge and pushing the envelope and all that, I think we were just trying to reflect life as we were living it and also 1975 is the end of the Vietnam War. The president had resigned. New York City was bankrupt. It was a little window that opened where it wasn't business as usual.”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I knew that he had different monologues that would work, and I thought he was funny. The biggest controversy in that first show was the network wanted him to wear a suit, a jacket and tie. And he didn't want to. He wanted to wear a t-shirt. It was not the biggest thing in my life. I was let him wear what he wants. The compromise which took up a lot of time on Shode was He wore a suit with a t-shirt, which is the perfect solution.”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When we're beginning, I've said this often, but I had all the ingredients. I just didn't have the recipe. So between the first show and the second show, we changed. Second show was Paul Simon. Third show was Rob Reiner with Penny Marshall. By the fourth show, we'd sort of found the show with Candy Bergen. We'd found the show that resembles the show”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I felt at the time it was 1967 was the 100th birthday of Canada Centennial. And there was a new spirit in the country and I thought I'd be perfectly happy to be here the rest of my life. And then got an opportunity to do a show in California called The Beautiful Phyllis Dayler Show, Ride Show. And we'd written, I was working with a partner then Hart Palmer, answered, we'd write and perform and we'd wrote some stand up for various, for Boody Allen, Joe Rivers and people like that. Not that we influenced their careers, but we'd had enough experience and we performed.”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it was my grandparents owned a movie theater and I think from an early age I think if asked in like the third grade what I wanted to do I probably would have said lawyer because I think that's what you said or something like that but I would have wanted to be in the movies”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of the people watching television. And so they'd say, it won't work or just work on the coast. And I was from Canada, and I kind of knew what was in between the coasts. And I thought there were plenty of people like me out there. And it was a different generation. If we could, we were the beginning of the baby boom. I'd worked on shows like Laffian as a writer, and I'd done several well. shows with Lily Tallman and Richard Pryor, which were always specials. And I'd done enough that I sort of knew how you do it. And it was a question of putting together a show which was on some level new wine and old bottles, you know, so I took elements of various variety shows. Knew that we'd be different because we'd be doing it.”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think, first and foremost, there was very low stakes. Late night doesn't average in to prime time ratings, so it was no one's real responsibility. And Carson was on five nights a week, and that was doing really well. So when I done television and I'd done television in Los Angeles, both in the late 60s and then when I moved back in 1972, The more ambitious things that I would suggest or go in and meet about, they'd always say it wouldn't work in prime time. In those days, you needed a 40 share of the audience to stay on the air.”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think I thought of it in those terms, but I thought that if we actually got on the air and did the show that the people who were doing the show would stay home to watch, I thought there were enough people like us because we'd all pretty much come from the audience. I was probably the person who'd had the most experience in television, but most people, it was the first time they'd been on television.”
2019-07-29 · The David Rubenstein Show · Lorne Michaels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source