Bill Murray Nearly Brought Tina Fey to Tears With ‘SNL 50’ Pep Talk
Bill Murray is used to making collaborators cry mid-production, but those stories usually make it into the tabloids, not The Tonight Show.
We are now just three days away from the highly anticipated, star-studded and Bill Hader-less SNL 50 special when the most revered institution in American comedy will celebrate its half-century anniversary alongside many of its most illustrious alumni. The guest list for the rare Sunday evening episode of Saturday Night Live is more star-powered than the average Oscars ceremony or Met Gala, and with so many returning greats counting on the all-star SNL 50 writers’ staff to come up with a solid show, the pressure has already reverted Tina Fey back into Liz Lemon mode.
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In a joint appearance with her touring partner Amy Poehler on last night’s episode of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Fey revealed that the writing process for SNL 50 has been just as stressful as it was when she was SNL’s head writer. Thankfully, Fey revealed, a surprise motivational speech from one of the show’s all-time greats in the middle of a tense meeting lifted her spirits so high that she almost started to cry as if she was a staffer on Aziz Ansari's shuttered directorial debut.
“Going back to being on the writing staff, basically, I immediately regressed to like — I was just like, so grouchy,” Fey said of her return to work at 30 Rockefeller Plaza nearly 20 years after she first left Saturday Night Live in order to satirize her time there with 30 Rock. “By the way, I’m responsible for, like, two minutes of content,” Fey added of her contributions to SNL 50.
Fey admitted that, as soon as she was back on the big show, she was, once again, wearing her old crummy clothes and eating garbage foods, and her mood was as low as the SNL schedule typically sets its employees’ depression levels. “Then, something amazing happened,” Fey recalled. “I was there the other night in a meeting with everybody … and everyone was just like, you know, grinding down, like, ‘Okay, what’s it going to be,’ this and that, and then an angel appeared in the form of Bill Murray, (who) just wandered into the meeting.”
“He came in, and he was in this, like, incredibly wonderful mood, and he was just like, ‘Hey guys, what’s going on in here? Maybe open a window, you seem like you’re all about to cry!'” Fey said of Murray’s welcome interruption. “Then, he just gave us this pep talk, and I could have started crying because this was the pep talk that I have been dreaming of since I was a kid watching Meatballs.”
“He's just like, ‘The show’s gonna be amazing! I’m so excited! I’m seeing everybody at rehearsals, I feel like we’re all brothers and sisters,’” Fey continued of Murray’s motivational speech. “I kept waiting for it to turn into a bit, and it never did. He just was like, ‘It’s going to be wonderful!’”
Thankfully, the SNL giant was in a good mood and on his best behavior, and Murray was able to lift the spirits of the hall-of-famers who put together this Sunday’s special. It’s just too bad that Chevy Chase didn’t pick the same moment to burst in — an inspiring speech can lighten the mood, but the best way to really get a group of comedy writers hyped would be to have them watch a couple of octogenarians throw hands.
