Tina Fey Says ‘SNL’ Writers Need to Be Meaner to Each Other Again
Sure, everyone at Saturday Night Live is working together to make a great show, says Tina Fey in the new documentary series SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night. But the idea that SNL is about teamwork is an illusion, she explains. “It is built on competition. It is built for, like, ‘See you at the table.’”
“See you at the table” was an implied threat, by the way. Fey refers to the weekly scrum at the writers’ table to see whose scripts will rise to the top.
“I have to say as head writer, I came in from Chicago and I was ready to fight whoever, but the rewrite tables were tough. They were grouchy,” Fey remembers. “People would take the rundown of the show and just go sketch by sketch and make fun of it, like the title and make fun of it, goof on it, goof on it, goof on it. You would leave the room fully knowing that that writers' room was taking a shit on it while you were gone, and that’s just kind of the way it was.”
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Early in the week, cast members perform prospective sketches aloud around a huge table, up to five hours of reading everyone’s best efforts. From there, only a dozen or so sketches make it to dress rehearsal. More will get cut after that. Dress rehearsal is survival of the funniest, or as Fey says, “the brutal fairness of the process. It kind of separates the wheat from the chaff. Then the dress audience tells you the truth.”
They laugh: it’s funny. They don’t laugh: the sketch is likely headed to the recycle bin.
Lorne Michaels also gets his chance to kick the writers during dress rehearsals, offering an “Are you proud of this one?” when a sketch tanks in front of a live audience.
Working on a show like SNL reminds writers that none of their work is sacred, says Alan Zweibel, one of the show’s original scribes. “Nothing is that good that it can’t be changed if need be.”
It’s a brutal process. “I will say I loved it more than any job I ever had,” says Seth Meyers about his run as the show’s head writer. “And I’m so glad it’s not my current job.”
With more awareness about things like mental health and workplace inclusivity, maybe things have changed, Fey says. Maybe Saturday Night Live has mellowed and writers are kinder and gentler with each other. But if meanness has truly left the building, “maybe it should get that way again a little bit,” she whispers about the kill-or-be-killed competition, a warrior’s glint in her eye. “I think it’s good.”