Lorne Michaels Gave Bill Hader the All-Time Worst Advice on How to Deal with His Panic Attacks
If you sign into BetterHelp and see that your licensed therapist is Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels, best to close the app and try again. The guy might know how to keep a sketch comedy show on its feet for 50 seasons, but he’s definitely not qualified to help anyone through a mental health crisis.
Take the case of Bill Hader. The veteran cast member has been pretty open about his debilitating stage fright on SNL, once having a panic attack while playing Julian Assange during the live show. When an anxious Hader returned to host SNL, according to a New Yorker excerpt from the new biography Lorne, a snappy Michaels stopped by the comedian’s dressing room with some dubious advice: “Calm the fuck down. Just have fun. Jesus Christ.”
Er, that’s probably not the right approach, according to a MyTherapistOnline article titled, “Never in the History of Calming Down Has Anyone Ever Calmed Down By Being Told to Calm Down.” In fact, Psychology Today devoted an entire article to things you should say instead of “Calm the fuck down.” If you have Michaels’ email address, maybe forward it to him?
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But that’s hardly the only time that Michaels was less than effective at dealing with his cast’s mental health. New cast member Chris Farley was on the verge of tears when he confided his dismay to writer Bob Odenkirk. Every time Farley messed up, Michaels told him that he’d hit it out of the park, the comic said. And every time he made the audience laugh, Michaels told Farley he wasn’t trying hard enough. “Chris was mind-fucked,” Odenkirk said. “Lorne clearly felt that if you kept people off balance they’d try harder.”
Kevin Nealon agreed that Michaels is stingy with basic human decency. When Jan Hooks’ mother died, Nealon asked Michaels to offer her a little praise to raise her spirits. No can do, Michaels responded: “I understand what you’re saying, but you’ll find that it’s never enough.”
As rationale, Michaels quoted one of his former therapists to Nealon: “A baby looks at the mother and thinks, ‘Why do you only have two breasts? Why do you not have three breasts?’ It’s an insatiable demand, and you see it in performers, and you see it in writers.”
No wonder SNL’s writers are needy. When their sketches die during a live show, Michaels has been known to turn to them and offer a stone-faced, “You must be very proud.” If a sketch was too pretentious, he might remark, “Can they take the Emmy away?”
In John Mulaney’s opinion, it’s best that the cast and crew don’t get to hear most of Michaels’ running commentary during any given show. “May the cast members go to their graves,” he said, “never knowing the things I heard under the bleachers.”
