John Papsidera was casting Saturday Night all wrong.
When he was casting for the sprawling company of actors needed in Jason Reitman’s latest film, he was looking for impressions of people.
The movie is based on the 90 minutes leading up to Saturday Night Live’s first episode, and Papsidera was using actual sketches from the long-running late-night series as casting material. But the sketches obscured the essence of the characters the actors were supposed to portray.
“I called Jason and said, ‘We need to know who they are off-camera, not on-camera.’ When we started using scenes from the script, it allowed us to see past the characters in sketches and more of the human beings playing them,” Papsidera says.
Some of Saturday Night’s actors look and sound like the people they’re playing, like Nicholas Podany as Billy Crystal and Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd. But Gabriel LaBelle doesn’t sound or look a lot like the movie’s lead character, SNL creator Lorne Michaels.
Because as many an SNL impressionist has learned: Sometimes a precise imitation isn’t the best approach.
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Even though LaBelle doesn’t sound like Michaels for most of the movie, in a scene where the producer cuts sketches before airtime, he briefly uses Michaels’ oft-imitated intonation — the one Mike Myers unforgettably infused into Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers films.
It’s as if SNL’s leader and showrunner finds his voice in that moment.
Reitman trusted Papsidera: Their long-running partnership goes back to 2014’s Men, Women & Children, in which Papsidera cast Timothée Chalamet in his feature film debut. Chalamet’s second film was also released in 2014: Papsidera also cast him in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. Nolan and Papsidera have worked together since Nolan’s 2000 film Memento.
“I’ve worked with the same directors and producers again and again and again. I think that’s a testament to them,” Papsidera says. “I think it’s hard to find loyalty in this business, so when I find it, I respect that. I’ve forged relationships and bonds that I think come down to trust.”
He says partnerships also require an appreciation of the other partner as a human being, and of their vision, taste, and creativity.
John Papsidera on Curiosity
Papsidera thought his career in Hollywood would involve trying out for roles, not holding auditions.
“My career started and is rooted in being trained as an actor. I’m always quite curious what people without an acting background are responding to in an audition,” he says.
His BFA in acting comes from Florida State University and he did post-graduate studies at Circle in the Square in New York City.
“Ultimately, it’s about our tastes and preferences as casting directors. My acting background doesn’t change my taste, but it certainly informs the work when you’re watching actors make choices and develop what they hope to be as a character,” he says.
Papsidera began his work in casting as a casting assistant at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. Soon he began casting action movies like Clear and Present Danger, The Net and Anaconda.
Also Read: The 13 Best Sketches in the History of Saturday Night Live
In 1997, Papsidera opened his own casting company. His credits include Oppenheimer, Austin Powers, The Dark Knight, Zombieland, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Venom, and many more.
He also won Emmys for 2003’s Live From Baghdad and 2005’s Lackawanna Blues. His other TV casting credits include Yellowstone, 1883, The Flight Attendant, Westworld and Carnivale.
In all, his casting work has resulted in five wins from the Artios Awards for outstanding casting.
“I pride myself in that recasting a part hasn’t happened to me very much at all,” he says. “I take comfort in the fact that we get it right the first time, most all the time.”
John Papsidera on His Saturday Night Vision
Papsidera notes that most directors who write their own material, including Nolan and Reitman, have a vision of who to cast.
“Chris will have ideas. The longer he sits with a script, the more ideas he might come up with for certain roles, but not necessarily as he was writing,” Papsidera says. “Jason tends to picture people or write things to people when he has a voice in his head.”
But Papsidera tries not to think about actors when reading a script. That’s because he needs 30 possibilities for a role to show the director — not just one.
Sometimes, though, there’s only one person for a part.
“Chris and I would talk about Michael Caine’s roles in his movies and at times, we would discuss casting other actors,” Papsidera says. “But at the end of the day, Chris would look at me and say, ‘Well, who’s better than Michael Caine? So why not use the best actor?’” (You can read more about Nolan’s partnership with Caine on page 90.)
Meta Saturday Night
Papsidera’s job is usually done before the shoot begins. But not on Saturday Night.
“I don’t go to many sets because I always feel like a fish out of water,” he says. “But Jason convinced me to come down to Atlanta to see the set they built for Saturday Night. But it was a trap.”
Reitman put Papsidera in the movie in a role he describes as the movie’s “Where’s Waldo?” moment. He won’t even give clues about how to find him.
Also Read: 11 Old SNL Sketches That Wouldn’t Fly Today
The casting of Saturday Night is layered with meta references: The movie has actors playing actors, a casting director playing whoever Papsidera plays, and one actor playing two entirely different characters.
“I love that a lot of things in the film emulate Saturday Night Live, one of them being that Nicholas Braun plays Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson,” Papsidera says.
Benny Safdie was originally cast as Kauffman, but had to drop out because of a filmmaking conflict.
Reitman and Papsidera discussed recasting the role — but then Reitman suggested that Braun play both parts.
Andy Kaufman, of course, was known for intense commitment to absurd bits. And in Kaufman’s tradition, Reitman didn’t want Braun to admit he was playing both parts.
“Also, in every episode, cast members play different characters within the show multiple times. So Nicholas’s performance mirrors that idea in the film,” Papsidera says.
Saturday Night is now available on video on demand, from Sony Pictures Releasing.
Main image: Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle), Jacqueline Carlin (Kaia Gerber), Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith) in Saturday Night. Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Releasing.
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