‘Saturday Night’ star Cory Michael Smith on playing Chevy Chase: ‘It was a bit daunting’
It’s hard to imagine many characters this year having a better introduction than Chevy Chase in Jason Reitman’s “Saturday Night.” In the film about the first-ever “Saturday Night Live” episode on October 11, 1975, Chase all but flies onto the screen. He stumbles over a garbage can and falls flat on his face, a move that recalls one of Chase’s signature pratfalls. “Sorry, I tripped over my penis,” Chase says after getting up – a perfect button to the scene, a punchline that underscores his confidence and attitude in those early days of his career.
“I was doing pratfalls around the apartment all the time. So I felt really prepared when I went to the audition,” Chase actor Cory Michael Smith tells Gold Derby. “One of the first things I did in the room was trip over a chair for Jason, which he was very concerned about, but it worked.”
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Smith says they shot Chase’s introduction scene 22 times, fall after fall. “I really only messed up my knee once, which is pretty good,” Smith says with a laugh.
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Previously best known for playing the Riddler on the television series “Gotham” and his collaborations with Todd Haynes (including a memorable appearance in “May December” last year), Smith says he all but chased the Chevy role in “Saturday Night.”
“I thought the idea of this was really brave and interesting and sort of risky in the way that the original show was, which is kind of cool,” he says. “But then you get the job, and it’s a holy-shit moment.”
In speaking with Reitman, Smith knew that the filmmaker didn’t want his actors to impersonate the “Saturday Night Live” legends they were playing onscreen. Instead, Reitman hoped his cast – which includes Gabriel LaBelle as Lorne Michaels, Dylan O’Brien as Dan Akyroyd, Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris, and Matthew Rhys as George Carlin – would capture the energy and feeling of their real-life counterparts.
“When I work, the script is the bible,” Smith says. “I dive in and study a script over and over and over until that world feels alive and familiar to me. But when I was reading the script for ‘Saturday Night,’ I quickly realized that’s not the path here. That’s not the answer, because I didn’t know what Chevy Chase would do yet. So that was the task.”
Smith’s preparation was straightforward: he watched countless hours of Chase’s screen work and interviews to help pick up on the comedian’s instincts. “Fletch” became his go-to, a movie he streamed over and over again. “It was in the bull’s-eye zone for me. He’s wildly charming, really free… it’s a really great performance,” Smith says of the 1985 feature.
What Smith also noticed is that Chase kind of defies impersonation anyway. “He doesn’t have tiny esoteric details of his personality. He doesn’t have some strange voice that you can emulate,” he says. “So it’s this unbridled confidence where he can just sort of move about and do like little physical gags and sort of drop these very dry, quick lines.”
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Smith praises the script Reitman co-wrote with Gil Kenan because of the way it weaves all the characters and energy together. But as an actor, he still came prepared with added material.
“I would always come in every day and propose these ideas to Jason because it was imperative to me that I felt like I had commentary about everyone and everything at all times. That way, the lines could be nonchalant and sort of off-the-cuff and really easy. They were lines that weren’t trying to make anyone laugh or have a punchline,” Smith says. What he was trying to do, he adds, was “rid yourself of fraudulence. You just need to be on set and really believe and be confident in what you’re doing. Because Chevy is that guy. He is more confident than anybody else.”
“Saturday Night” unfolds in real-time in the 90 minutes before the first “SNL” broadcast. As a result, it’s not a spoiler to note that the movie ends with Chase shouting the immortal words that have started every episode for 50 years: “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night.”
Smith says he watched the real opening sketch several times, just to capture the energy on Chase’s face. “I didn’t want to do a replica. I wanted to get close without doing an impersonation, so it felt a little alive,” Smiths says.
But it wasn’t just his performance that made the moment special.
“Jason would call cut right before I would say, ‘live from New York.’ He was messing with the whole cast. And I’m looking out at all these beaming faces from the stage each time – because at this point, we’ve all fallen in love with each other. We’ve had this amazing time making this really special project,” Smith says. “And I’m saying this iconic line that represents 50 years of this television institution that’s mattered so much to our culture. So when I finally get to say it, everyone starts cheering. Like, yeah, it’s part of the film. But they were all actually elated. So that was just a really special moment. It felt really cool and special to be doing that on that day, looking out into the shining faces of my new friends.”
“Saturday Night” is in theaters now.
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