‘Saturday Night’ Star Rachel Sennott Embraces the Chaos in Her Work
Rachel Sennott didn’t get into the premier sketch comedy group during her tenure at NYU. Now she’s playing one of the architects of the world’s most famous sketch comedy show in Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night. Co-written by the latter and Gil Kenan, the biographical comedy-drama chronicles the messy 90-minute period before the first episode of Saturday Night Live on Oct. 11, 1975. Sennott portrays writer Rosie Shuster, who’s also the first wife of SNL creator Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle). And much like their ambitious attempt to shake up NBC’s Saturday night programming, their marriage, as depicted in the film, is in a similarly fragile, yet oddly collaborative, state.
In contrast with a lot of her castmates, Sennott didn’t have a great deal of existing material to reference during prep, but she did have the ultimate resource one phone call away.
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“I spoke to Rosie, which was amazing. I got to hear her voice and her laugh,” Sennott tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I was like, ‘So were you freaking out [on the night of Oct. 11, 1975]?’ And she was like, ‘Yeah, we knew it was a big deal, but also we didn’t.’ As a testament to [Reitman and Kenan’s] writing, I noticed that the script used words or phrases that she said in real life, so that was very cool.”
Sennott’s dream of hosting SNL feels like an inevitability at this point, especially after her dear friend from college and frequent collaborator, Ayo Edebiri, hosted this past February. Oddly enough, she also faced the same sketch group rejection that Sennott did during their comedic endeavors at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. And despite being unable to attend Edebiri’s SNL taping due to a work commitment, Sennott still insisted on watching the show live. So, in an act of a truly devoted friend, she added yet another streaming service to her monthly billing statement.
“I raced home from this job and I literally subscribed to Peacock that night just so I could watch her show live,” Sennott recalls. “Ayo and I met in college while doing comedy, and we both didn’t make the elite sketch group, so to see her killing it up there was so, so special.”
Sennott graduated NYU in 2018, and her career started to gain steam at one of the most inopportune times: March 2020. Her film Shiva Baby, based on the senior thesis short of fellow NYU alum Emma Seligman, was slated to premiere in person at South by Southwest until the emerging pandemic had other plans. Written and directed by Seligman, the frenzied comedy still received a digital premiere the following month via the festival, and its critical acclaim likely aided Sennott and Seligman’s efforts to sell their follow-up feature, Bottoms. The R-rated high school comedy also went on to receive critical adoration, as did Sennott and Halina Reijn’s preceding comedy-horror whodunnit Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022).
All in all, Sennott can’t help but recognize that she’s launched herself during one of the entertainment industry’s most volatile stretches.
“[Filmmaker] Emma [Seligman] and I were both in our parents’ basements, freaking out that no one was going to see [Shiva Baby] and trying to sell Bottoms on Zoom and just being really depressed. That was an interesting era,” Senott recalls. “Honestly, the last five years have been so crazy. My career basically started during Covid, and when we finally sort of moved out of that, there was the strike.”
Below, Sennott, whose untitled HBO pilot was picked up to series after this interview with THR took place, also discusses how she’s managed to build a circle of close friends and frequent collaborators throughout the course of her young career.
So, from Shiva Baby and Bodies Bodies Bodies to Bottoms and now Saturday Night, you really know your way around chaotic scenes. I presume this pattern is not lost on you?
It’s not, but I’m kind of chill in this one. Do you agree?
Yeah, I was going to say that Rosie handles the pressure pretty well, all things considered.
Usually, I’m having a panic attack; you’re so right. It was so refreshing for everyone else to have a panic attack around me while I’m like, “Okay!”
Do you tend to thrive in pressure cooker environments? Or do you keep a pillow nearby in case you need to scream?
Obviously, I keep a pillow nearby in case I need to scream. That’s why it was so fun to just dive into playing Rosie and watch everything happen. It’s so funny because it reminds me of what my therapist says to me. She’s like, “Don’t take it on. Rachel, don’t take it on.” I take everything on immediately. I’m like, “I’ll take on everyone else’s emotions, whatever.” But Rosie, to me, was like, “Don’t take it on. Be cool and just float through. If something gets thrown at you, you can pivot or maneuver and just figure it out.”
You’d be an ideal host for SNL, and it’s something you’ve been open about wanting to do. I imagine this movie might scare some people away from that idea, but did it only intensify that dream for you?
I think so. Of course, I grew up watching SNL, and I always knew about the history, but I really got to dive in here. Reading the script, I was like, “Whoa!” Jason [Reitman] and [co-writer] Gil [Kenan] spoke to so many different people who were involved in the making of SNL, and so there’s all these different perspectives. You then realize how layered it is. It’s the same with any production, but everyone has a different story. The sound guy, the lighting guy, the PAs, the crafty person, there’s tea/drama from everyone, and this experience just deepened the history and the lore for me. So, yeah, it made [hosting SNL] even a little bit more of a dream.
Was Ayo Edebiri’s taping the first time you saw SNL in person?
No, I went to see Billie Eilish’s taping. Sadly, I couldn’t see Ayo’s in person because I was working. I raced home from this job and I literally subscribed to Peacock that night just so I could watch her show live. But it was so incredible seeing her host. Ayo and I met in college while doing comedy, and we both didn’t make the elite sketch group, so to see her killing it up there was so, so special.
When it comes to playing real people, some actors go down a YouTube rabbit hole while others go fishing with their real-life subject. What did your research entail?
Well, I spoke to Rosie, which was amazing. Of course, I got a sense from the script, but I also got to hear her voice and her laugh. I was like, “So were you freaking out?” And she was like, “Yeah, we knew it was a big deal, but also we didn’t.” She’s so cool and smart, and as a testament to [Reitman and Kenan’s] writing, I noticed that the script used words or phrases that she said in real life, so that was very cool. There wasn’t a ton [on YouTube]. I had a different experience than some of my other cast members who were playing back sketches or watching movies. So our conversation and hearing her point of view was really helpful to me.
You have to take artistic license with these types of movies, but I desperately want to believe that Rosie actually put shaving cream on John Belushi’s (Matt Wood) face. Did you ever ask Jason or anyone else about that moment?
Initially, we didn’t have that. The scene just ended, and then, at a certain point, Jason was like, “You need to put the shaving cream on his face.” So I don’t know. I feel like it was maybe just inspiration that Jason had in the moment, but that’s movie magic where you’re like, “Did it happen? Did it not? We don’t know.” But it’s the same as when you’re telling any story. When I tell a story of something that happened to me, the first time I tell it, I’m like, “That’s not really what happened, but now it is.” So there’s a little bit of that kind of movie magic in there.
Besides being a writer, it seemed like she helped keep some of the egos in check.
I could tell that she was definitely good with people, and she was good with different types of personalities. If you have a show like SNL with all these different talented creators and writers, there’s going to be clashing personalities, and she seemed like someone who could maneuver that well.
None of you had trailers on this set. Instead, there was a ‘70s-inspired common room.
Yeah, we basically had a cast camp. We each had our own [dressing] room with 1970s furniture, and then we had this common area with board games and a TV playing SNL season one clips all the time. So it was just really fun, and even after work, we stayed in this little village across the street called Trilith Village. Basically, anyone who was shooting on the lot could stay there, and that felt like a college campus a little bit. You would run into people at the gym, the one coffee shop or the one bar, so that was really, really cool.
There was also an eclipse while we were shooting, and production bought all these eclipse glasses for everyone. So we went outside and looked at it together, which was very fun.
The next time you’re in the driver’s seat on a project, do you think you’ll try something similar?
For sure. Even just thinking back to some of my favorite experiences like Shiva Baby or Bodies, both of those were in one house. The Bodies house was this huge spooky mansion, and the Shiva Baby house had just one bathroom, but there was this instant camaraderie and connection. It’s sort of meta, too. You cut and everyone is still there, as opposed to cutting and not seeing everyone as they’re far away in their trailers. So I would love to try something like that. It’s very fun.
Similar to Saturday Night, if you had to dramatize 90 minutes from your career so far, which 90 would make for the most compelling story?
Oh my God. There’s something to be said for the Covid pandemic. [Filmmaker] Emma [Seligman] and I were both in our parents’ basements, freaking out that no one was going to see [Shiva Baby] and trying to sell Bottoms on Zoom and just being really depressed. That was an interesting era. Honestly, the last five years have been so crazy. My career basically started during Covid, and when we finally sort of moved out of that, there was the strike. So these are the only five years I have so far, so maybe something better will happen down the line and we can do a movie about that, but the last couple of years have been pretty interesting. [Writer’s Note: If Sennott were to actually dramatize her pandemic success story, Moms’ Basements feels like a worthy working title.]
You seem to remain friends with a lot of your former castmates, and having talked to a lot of actors, I’m not sure how common that is. The impression I get is that there’s usually a group text that eventually goes quiet, but maybe it’s a generational thing. Anyway, how do you see it?
I think it’s pretty common, but I guess it depends on the movie. I feel really lucky that I got to meet a lot of really smart, funny, kind people early on. They were around my age, and we were going into the industry together. Emma, Ayo and I met at school, and then I met Molly [Gordon] during Shiva Baby. I then met Chase [Sui Wonders], Amandla [Stenberg], Myha’la [Herrold] and Maria [Bakalova] during Bodies. All of these people were around the same age as me, and we’re all in the beginnings of our careers together, so that really connected us. All of those friends get me. I trust them. There’s this safety there. The only problem is that everyone is fucking booked and busy, so I can never hang out with anyone. I’m like, “You understand exactly what I’m going through, but I’ll never see you because you’re filming in another country for four months.” So the one tricky thing is accepting that everyone is always going to be in a different place. That’s also just getting older. So you’re not always going to get to be in the same city, but when you are, you’re like, “I’m seeing you for dinner tonight, and it’s going to be amazing to catch up like I last saw you yesterday.”
Was it a total coincidence that your Bottoms co-star Kaia Gerber ended up in Saturday Night, as well?
Oh my God, Kaia and I were like, “We’re obviously starting our own multiverse.” We did Bottoms in New Orleans, and then we did Saturday Night in Georgia, but we kept having flashbacks and noticing similarities. So it was so fun to get to play together again in a totally different setting. We kept being like, “PJ and Brittany, here!?” We hung out on set, but we didn’t really have too many scenes together in the movie. We kept being like, “If [our characters] bump into each other, there’s going to be so much drama from high school.”
Another connection is Naomi McPherson as Janis Ian in Saturday Night. Their band, Muna, was a big part of I Used To Be Funny’s soundtrack.
Yeah, what’s really nice is that there’s more and more connections as you keep going. Even our set PA on Saturday Night was best friends with our second AD on Bottoms, I think. Sometimes, you go to an unfamiliar place and you’re a little scared or you feel lonely, and then you’re like, “I actually already kind of know these people.” So that’s always nice.
In I Used to Be Funny, your character picks a book off the shelf, and then she mocks the author’s name, Breann Smordin, except that’s also the name of a producer on the movie. Was that an inside joke between all of you?
Well, we needed to put a name on the book, and then I wasn’t there for the actual picking of the name. But anytime I’ve had to pick a name for anything, it’s impossible. I don’t even realize it, but I put names of people I know into things. In Bottoms, the guy in the cage who’s a wrestler, his name is Tucker. So I didn’t think about it; I was just like, “Uh, we’ll call him Tucker.” The movie then came out, and I got a text from a guy named Tucker that I went to high school with. He was a wrestler, and he was like, “Is this about me?” And I was like, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even realize.” So [I Used to Be Funny filmmaker] Ally [Pankiw] was probably like, “We need a name. How about our producer?” So it was probably a joke, and we laughed about someone mocking your name in a movie and you making that movie.
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Saturday Night expands to movie theaters nationwide on Oct. 11.
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