Saturday Night Live alums Pete Davidson and John Mulaney did a bit of acting themselves while interfacing with the big names hosting the late-nighter week to week, revealing during a recent panel conversation how they would placate celebrities that bombed their opening monologues.
During the Netflix Is A Joke Festival, Mulaney reflected on his time as a writer on the Lorne Michaels-helmed juggernaut from 2008 to 2013.
“When I was 25, I’d tell Oscar-winning hosts — I’d write their monologue and be like, ‘You’re gonna say all that, it’s gonna go great,’ and they’d tank 8 times out of 10,” he said, as Davidson laughed and admitted he, too, would tell hosts they “crushed it” even when they didn’t.
“They’ll have actor face. They sort of don’t get it, because they’re just an actor,” Mulaney, who got his start as a standup, continued. “And they’d be like, ‘Hey, was that good?’ And you’re like, ‘No! Do you have ears?’”
Davidson admitted that he would often tell hosts: “You’re really performing for the people at home.”
Riffing on the bit, Mulaney added: “‘Play for the camera. The audience, they’re just there to help you, but they’re not gonna laugh a lot.’”
The King of Staten Island actor admitted he would lie about the demographics of the live audience to make the medicine go down easy: “And I always would go: ‘They’re tourists. They wait outside and they try to win a lottery. Half of them probably don’t even speak English.’ They do. They’re big fans of the show; they camp outside.”
Mulaney then recalled an instance where “a very big comedy star bombed … His own fault because he was very difficult writing the monologue,” but when he checked in with the Big Mouth actor if he was bad, “I went: ‘It’s bad acoustics.’ It’s famously one of the best mic’d sound studios in the world. It used to be home to the NBC [Symphony] Orchestra.”
SNL recently concluded its 51st season. The finale episode featured host Will Ferrell and musical guest star Paul McCartney.
