SNL's Bill Hader is a Natural - Speakeasy

oh hello welcome back to speakeasy i am still paul f thompkins and you will recognize my guest from his many many characters impressions uh sketch work on the television program saturday night live please say hello to bill hader bill hello hello how are you thank you thank you for having me to see you welcome back to los angeles thank you uh you lived here before yes i did snl for how long i moved here in 1999 and then i got snl in 2005. and i was a pa and an assistant editor during that time without any comedy or anything really yeah because you're from oklahoma yeah i'm from tulsa did you start doing comedy there anyway no there was no scene no there was no scene to speak of but my dad actually tried to do stand-up my dad like when i was really young i have never seen any tape i've never seen anything he's very funny so i'm sure it's great and i know i did stand up for luna already the early 80s it was really hot if everyone yes exactly i think he might have done a show in houston at a place where like bill hicks and sam kenneth and like that whole scene was at like once right so comedy was very much in the house as a kid you've racistly consumed it yeah yeah yeah especially monty python was huge early woody allen movies early mel brooks movies um it was bill cosby albums there was a thing if you liked monty python you like that stuff and then you go to school you kind of had something on everybody because other people thought well this is comedy and it was kind of just you know like a i don't know i don't want to bag on anything but just a tv show you know what i mean just like i don't know and and i was like no i know what real comedy is yeah and it was also a sort of a shorthand to get to know uh people who were also into that stuff yeah it was like oh we are like-minded totally yeah if you met somebody who also could quote monty python now i mean it's it's like really nerdy but to me it was it was the same thing as if you saw someone with a rush t-shirt or something you know and i was like oh you and i you know what i mean that idea of come bring someone home and bring someone to your house and you watch you know uh a python sketch or listen to a record or whatever and watching their reaction to it right and having that sometimes they were into it and sometimes you're like because they might all be looking at a picture of your soul yeah yeah exactly here's my soul what do you think you like it you know what i mean it's like and if it doesn't go well then it's yeah it's bad news um so you uh you came out here to do comedy to get into the business well i didn't actually come out here to do comedy i came out to be a filmmaker i was more interested in in movies and directing and writing you got into the production side of things because you thought that was the path that you were exactly yeah i was like learn while you earn kind of thing but at that time were you still harboring ideas of of one day performing like what yeah and i mean i did done stuff in high school a little bit you know um and i was always the guy i was like i'll shoot your short film and they were like you should be in it and i was like yeah but i could shoot it and i could make it look cool like yeah why don't you be in it what ended up happening was i went to the second city show uh and i saw derek waters and simon hellberg and all those guys do a show there and i was like wow people my age are performing comedy i love sketch comedy i was a huge fan of kids in the hall mr show all these other things and so i was going why don't i maybe i should take and uh i started taking classes in 2003. was it terrifying or was it it was hard yeah i did not enjoy it at first but i felt like i moved out here this happens a lot you move out to do something creative and then you get caught in this kind of thing of like well i gotta make money i have to make money i have to pay my rent yeah so now i'm doing these things that i never came out here to do and then you get caught up in it you get caught up in that lifestyle and then i was like i gotta do something creative just something so i was working as an assistant editor but every saturday i went in and i took these classes you know and and i got to go up in front of people and like kind of fail and kind of learn how to like fail less and less or like how to not feel less and less but deal with failure maybe but right and uh and i started a sketch group with mel cowan eric gilkowski and matt offerman nick offman's little brother and then i got crazy lucky because nick offerman's married to megan mullally she came to a show saw me and recommended me to laura michaels so it happened i went from like kindergarten to like harvard there's got to be so much about that that is of course exhilarating but then uh it's got to be such a head trip like i'm sure there were moments where you're like am i ready to do this oh i did not feel confident at snl probably until going into my fifth season wow my first four years i was a complete nervous wreck right friday nights before shows i couldn't sleep i mean i was just like having panic attacks everything because i showed up you know with amy poehler tina fey you know it's second city in la all those people are on the wall you know what i mean and now i'm sitting down with them they're like okay so uh let's figure this thing out and i'm going uh i'm not ready you know whatever you want to do yeah yeah whatever you said just put me wherever i'll just whatever i don't get and i came in with andy sandberg who kind of had his thing you know with the lonely island kristen who was mcgrown lanes and sedakis who was second city chicago and so i was just like shut up and learn from people and and uh i had a funny instance where kristen actually showed up five shows after me and andy and she was her first friday night and i thought well i've been here for five shows i'll help this new girl out you know so i helped her with the sketch and i was like you know i think you made me want to try this and then she's like oh okay really all right you know and then her first table read the first thing she did was target lady and i was like oh she's a genius i don't know i was immediately like oh god i'm such a douchebag but is it nice to know that you're not a delusional maniac who would think it seems like my advice has pain no no there's no way i was like oh you're uh you're christian i didn't realize you were kristen wiig i'm sorry i thought uh i apologize but uh i'm curious because those early days um you know when you're taking the classes at second city it would be very easy to just get discouraged right away you're learning improvisation which is you have to really put yourself out there and you can die a horrible death and it can be mortifying you know as a person who wasn't even imagining a performing path what was it about that that kept you going oh i think just being creative every week and and i got something out of it and to be honest i surprised myself that i was kind of good at it do you know what i mean it was that the instructors there would say hey you're good at this you know and you had to audition to get into your level four and level five and that audition i remember getting laughs and thinking like oh well this is going pretty good you know um but i don't want you to think that i was taking it all for granted it was more of like i was very fearful i was just like well that's the thing i was totally afraid of like the sketch group i was in we we would do shows in a backyard and van eyes and even that which was all of our friends when we were in a backyard in van nuys i was in the bathroom like bill come on man you all right and i was just like all right come on man it's gonna be fine we're gonna have fun out there and i'm like i don't know i don't know i don't know you know and i don't remember how to wear a tie in the first sketch and i was just like i thought it was choking me it was terrible my first snl episode i thought i was gonna pass out i really did i remember i did that al pacino thing and i walked off and i had to go sit down my my bed sit me down and i was just like like shaking and i was like i can't so my thing i mean what calm me down finally at an after party in my fourth season uh laura michaels came over to me and said you know you can stay here as long as you want and i was like really and he was like yeah have fun like relax right you please have fun right because when i see you have like a little fun it's a lot it's great so just go out there and have fun who cares right you're gonna bomb everybody bombs you know what i mean before that was just i made everyone around me nervous they all the they do an impression of me exist oh like i'll be like every game show host i played i'd be back there just going like this and then i'd go oh and then chris kelly who's our stage manager would put his hand on my back and go all right you're gonna be fine you're gonna be like okay and so if you watch i always run out of the game show host because i start running in place because i'm nervous and then i like jog out so if you watch that the stage mirror just kind of pushed me out so you watch it every game show host i play i always jog out like hello like whatever yeah and you have played a lot of game show hosts yeah i know that was it's ironic that everything that scared me on this show which was straight to camera stuff terrified me and anything where i had to drive the sketch meaning you're the host of something which means you're you're facilitating everyone else but you're the through line that's keeping the tempo up going letting how long is that like get a laugh okay let that now come in and you know you keep it moving uh i was terrified of doing those things and those were the two things that i was constantly being thrown into it was always like you're the game show host so we're gonna oh we wrote this thing for you do an update and i'm like but then other times i would go out there just get a little less a little less and then by my last couple like my last show i wasn't nervous at all really finally finally the last show was when i was like that was fun you have been nominated for an emmy twice you're the first cast member male cast member that's what i'm being told yes who tells you this hollywood i'm like hello and it's like listen you did it twice is that i mean what is that like for you when you what was like the first time what was it like the second time oh the first time came as a complete surprise because they come to you every year and they say hey what show do you want to submit to the emmys and i never took it that seriously because i was like we can't get nominated for it you know what i mean i was like i can't get nominated and then um i got a bunch of text messages going like congratulations oh my god about what you know and then it was a really fun day because you could tell even my friends and you know other people were like surprised they were like whoa that's so cool you know i mean like how did that happen um to the point where it was a little insulting yeah a little all backhanded comments like wow well gosh maybe yeah i guess so-and-so isn't yeah that show didn't have a season this year uh and then the second time around it was the same thing where i kind of didn't even think about it and then um my publicist woke me up at 5 45 in the morning and said hey so you got nominated for an emmy uh you're gonna do press in like 30 minutes and i was like you know and i was at the espys the night before with jon hamm ah listen i've been brewing out for hours look i'm all brode out i speak to a lady yeah but it was insanely flattering and legitimately surprising both times i know people say that but it's not like you go into your season going like i'm gonna it's gonna be me right you wouldn't really be thinking about it until it came until they the someone from the show would come together yeah come to you and say hey which is your emmy show and then i always the one i picked this year was the one that i just remember we did it and lauren was saying you had a really good show you know i just remember when he says that so you go oh well that one but i didn't remember what was in it i just remember all the the seth macfarlane season opener remember lauren said i had a good show and then looking back on after i got the nomination stefan's not in that episode which we found interesting i did clint eastwood in that episode with the chair going on the road with the chair and then i did uh this puppet sketch where i was this uh guy from who's in grenada in a puppet class that people seem to enjoy but i think stefan's a reason why it's the most popular thing i mean the thing most people come up to me about right until i get to la and then it's a cross between stefan and the californians people in california people in l.a love the california that is true in new york they're like i don't get like i've had people say to me like in a bodega or something like hey miss no they always call me snl they always go snl man you're great snl and i'm like oh thank you and they go but stop doing that californian thing no one gets it no one understands what you talk i don't get the joke you guys are just laughing you and amazon are just making each other laugh and then i get here and people are like oh my god you know they really like that one which is a bit that me and fred would do at the right at the read-through through table so so you know wednesday is the table read and the whole cast is around this big table with the host it starts when lauren shows up and sometimes we're waiting he's in a call or whatever we're waiting for him for a while so everyone just is kind of sitting there me and fred would do this bit where you'd be like hey man how are you how are you getting home and i was like well i think then i'm going to take sunset and then i'm going to take left and los siena guy and i take the all the way south to pico hook a right and i take that i mean you could also take venice if you want you know it's like it was but it was never giving directions it was just explaining how you were gonna get home right which is for people who don't know people outside of los angeles yeah it is a topic of conversation all the time i hear when i got here my publicist was like how did you get here did you take the ten or eight you know or like you know it's like you almost like you have trivia about yeah directions you know how to get players around and then i can't take credit for it fred armisen and james anderson one of the writers they decided to make it a soap opera which i thought was so funny and then all the whole time we were doing it fred would go hey guys what are you doing here he's kind of doing this voice and then on air he went what are you doing and kristen and i just lost it was it the absurdity of the voice the escalation of absurdity of the voice that would get everybody every time yeah cause you would just change your inflection every time you said anything so like kristen i got her i felt very happy when she hosted she was posing as a guy she had like a mustache on and i go over to her and i was like hey brod but on air i went um brad like that and she started laughing so it's like it was all these like minds everywhere where like fred always could make me laugh and he always kind of was gunning for me and every and if we were in a sketch he was always like because it feels like a triumph if you can break someone it feels like yeah and he's he wrote a hilarious sketch called memory loss theater where i'm a doctor and saying yeah i've this is a theater group all people who have severe memory loss none of these people i've worked with them they will not they remember all their lines and immediately everyone forgets their lines and i'm having to like say that under my breath like hello honey how are you hello honey how are you you know so in my head i was like this is great because fred has to repeat whatever i say i'm gonna like throw him under the bus a little bit sure he's supposed to walk in and go hey everybody and like forget his and then forget his next line but instead he walked in and he was wearing this big puffy new york giants jacket and then was like where do i put this it's like just give it to me and then i just started i was like oh fred like he totally threw me off and then he said something goes does that mean the play's over and i was like no like he totally got me you're preemptive he pre-emptive strike totally got me and i just was like i was so mad that he knew he just knew i had i was gonna try to do something you've got a bunch of films that are in the works some some stuff that's coming out but you're also going to be doing some writing on south park yeah which you've done before yeah yeah i always find it curious because i hate writing and so anyone who willfully goes and does that when they could do something else yeah that surprised me but is that is that part of the process that you really enjoy i do enjoy it i was not that good i felt at writing comedy bits i always i could never do it by myself i couldn't do it like fred or kristen or tina and any of those people where they could just by themselves write this really funny sketch i always needed someone there but the south park thing i did it for two reasons one i love this it's like one of my favorite shows and i love those guys matt and trey and the other reason which is the main reason is i got every time i do it i learned something about story about storytelling about breaking story matt how it always starts as you know the thing of matt saying no this is the point i want to make like this is crazy you know you could kind of go off on another tangent and matt would go no no but this is what we're saying you know and so i was like oh i have a very clear viewpoint like the theme of this is what it is so that everything is in service and in service of this idea yeah and then trey is so smart in the way that if something's funny and it makes us laugh it's like let's just try to hold on to that he's just all the inspiration of like oh this is making us laugh well i know it doesn't make sense right now but we can make this work because we're laughing about this it's almost like recreating that feeling to be in the lunch room with your friends i always think like the funniest i've ever been in my life was in the lunchroom in high school i've never been that funny since we were just you would just we would all everyone is the hardest i laughed and everyone was killing because you had there was no stakes you had no it wasn't going on television there was no anything it was just you and your friends and you're making sure to laugh really hard and i don't sit and write it i mean it's betray they do all the work that that documentary six days here is not totally off i just kind of sit there going like this that's kind of all i do and then i'll go oh yeah that's good the first episode i worked on was the one with uh kanye west where he was a gay fish and that was one i felt very happy with he has that song where he's like [ __ ] snl in the entire cast and i want to strangle a south park rider with a fish dick so he tells me to [ __ ] off twice in that song and i love kanye west i listen to that song so i always get a little like yeah just talking you're welcome like that song you're like oh all right cool to be mentioned to the school to me to mention twice right i mean he wants to kill me but that's all right saturday night live is a famously competitive atmosphere are you a competitive person no i don't think i get competitive i think i get competitive with like myself a little bit where i get harder on myself than with other people or something i mean you do have moments where you're kind of like oh man i remember when lazy sunday happened it was like wow that would have been awesome be involved with that you know what i mean you have moments like that but it's never like anger virgin you know what i mean it's like it's more like that was really good man i gotta start working harder you know what i mean it's more that feeling but it is it's it's made to be competitive like the dna of the place is competitive and always has been right yeah we had a justin timberlake show this past season and they did that five-timers club where like everybody came back and that was the thing a lot of those guys were saying i was like everyone's so nice to each other you know like almost like why yeah it's like oh everyone's like so happy for each other like it's so like that could be a thing here yeah yeah but like like it was like oh it's very much like a compliment right if we're all killing it then the show's good and then we're i mean it's what they it's what they teach you at second city you know it's like you know your whole job is making the other people person look good you know like the guy i always liked was phil hartman because phil hartman was that way where it didn't matter what sketch he was in whether he was caveman lawyer or he was like the dad and those matt foley sketches and you know he was so committed to like whatever he was doing um and by him just being committed what he was doing it just made it all funny it made everything work servicing the material yeah you have to you know do what will you miss the most um i really will miss thursday and friday rehearsals because that was the best because you knew what you were in you know monday and tuesday and wednesday especially you have like audition anxiety where you're doing this thing and you're hoping you're gonna create this thing and put it up on wednesday and see if everyone likes it but thursday and friday it's like you know what you're in i can concentrate on that stuff and then it was really just hanging out with the cast and hanging out with all these people that you really like and are really funny and seeing what they're doing i always liked it when new people came in because you could kind of someone would do something that would surprise you and you'd go wow that's so cool that you you can do that and then that would then influence you in a way and so i on thursday and friday i always loved those days is to see and also with the hosts get to hang out with steve martin and watch his process right really freaking cool and then even though i was terrified being on a live show and doing something that would get a giant laugh and feeling like the anxiety everything going into it and it working there's no other no feeling like that it's worth all the pain will you watch the show oh yeah i think i think uh jason and fred and i were talking about having some sort of like if we're all in la having some sort of like a party a funeral having a funeral party i'm watching it oh wait thank you funeral i call them funeral parties in oklahoma we call them funeral party well gonna be at your mom's funeral party it's a wait guys it's gonna be a party for the dead person well bill uh here's to many happy funeral partners thank you sir thank you and uh bill's movie uh cloudy with a chance of meatballs two will be the second words the second one it will be in theaters uh september 27th bill hater thank you so much thank you so much that is it for this edition don't look into my camera that's it for this edition of speakeasy please join us next time when my guest will be a different person i i did say please sorry and you continued to you're you're still i don't know work you're still doing it how does this work oh you're gonna find out thanks for watching be sure to subscribe and check back every monday to see who i interview next and for more info about speakeasy visit mademan.com

Channel: Made Man

Views: 808,754

Keywords: bill hader, snl, saturday night live, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs (Film), Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2 (Film), superbad, pineapple express, actor, celebrity

Id: Obn6YKJxYs4

Length: 23min 20sec (1400 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 26 2013