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Forty-nine years ago to the day, at the 10 p.m. hour, pop culture was forever changed. It was on this particularly chaotic evening that the iconic words “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!” catapulted Saturday Night Live into the TV zeitgeist and changed the variety show concept forever. While the program may be a well-oiled machine now and also an established launching pad for the careers of mega-stars like Tina Fey, Jimmy Fallon, and Maya Rudolph, back on that fateful first night, things were far from smooth sailing. Sony Pictures’ new film Saturday Night (premiering tomorrow, Oct. 11) chronicles the momentous event and all the drama and comedy that ensued to get the rocket ship that is SNL into orbit.
The period film includes a stellar cast depicting comedy royalty: Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner, Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, Gabrielle LaBelle as Lorne Michaels, and Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris (to name a few). Set in the vibrant ‘70s, the feature is truly a high-energy comedic romp, depicting the stress and high-jinks behind sketch format we love today. To truly capture the essence of these iconic characters and this equally iconic moment in time, famed costume designer Danny Glicker was enlisted.
And while ‘70s-era films are a bit of a specialty of Glicker (whose past projects include Milk and Bad Times at the El Royale) this one hit different in that he was going in as a “fanboy nerd.” In a recent interview TZR, Glicker explains, “I was coming into this movie having already read so many of the autobiographies. I read the Gilda [Radner] autobiography. I read the Gene Wilder autobiography, which focuses so much on Gilda. I read the Steve Martin autobiography, Born Standing Up. I read the Alan Zweibel autobiography.” This existing knowledge and appreciation for the film’s characters gave him added dimension and insight into their off-screen personas and inner psyche — something Glicker always taps into when ideating for any project.
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“To look into every character is extremely time-intensive,” he says. “It’s a crazy deep dive. I create these elaborate documents, I call them books. They’re more than just boards because they incorporate everything from visuals to literary research. So I’ll take pieces from the script and marry them with pieces from autobiographies or biographies and marry them with images, and I create these insanely detailed documents. This takes me weeks and weeks, and I love this process because this is, of course, the time that I fall in love with all of my characters.”
And that, of course, is when the movie magic really happens and the characters’ costumes materialize, bringing them to life. Ahead, Glicker discusses his strategy for Saturday Night and how he managed to capture the faces and icons that would transform entertainment and pop culture forever.
First and foremost, when tackling a period piece like this, what’s your process in terms of research?
This period is one that I’ve spent a lot of time in for other projects. What was interesting for me specifically was that prior to working on Saturday Night, I had just finished another period piece that was also starting in the exact same year, 1975, and then moving forward a couple of years. And I think it’s really important to remember that when you’re doing a period piece, there’s as much variety in the world as there is if you were working on a piece today. You can be a designer doing 100 contemporary pieces and every piece is going to have their own voice. And I think it’s just as important to acknowledge that for a period piece.
In the case of Saturday Night, I really wanted to focus on the authentic, gritty vibe of the world and use the clothing of the world of Saturday Night to express the inner life of these characters in a way that was specific to their rambunctious spirit and authentic to their creative struggle. These are people who were sleeping on couches and floors, so I wanted to really bring that history and that reality through to the clothes. I really wanted to express this kind of baggy, earthy, inventive spirit that was such a hallmark of the mid-’70s, which I think is what this movie is ultimately about.
So in order to accomplish that, I really focus not on this general, ‘What is the ‘70s look?’ type of thing, but I go specifically into the world of each character. And I really try to identify the things that acknowledge the beating heart of every character and try to express that through the clothes.
How time intensive is that?
It’s just weeks and weeks of me getting to feel fresh love for these people, many of whom are real, some of whom were composites, but the idea is that I’m creating this world and having to go back and be like a detective and pick out the clues. And I remember there was this moment with Dick Ebersol when I realized he was wearing Gucci loafers in the research. And I thought to myself, ‘This tells me so much about him.’ I want to honor that and I want to talk about what it means to need your clothes to help tell your story to feel empowered. I located a Gucci belt buckle for [Saturday Night’s] Dick Ebersol because I wanted there to be this constant reminder that this man has a soul and he is trying to show the world who he is. He’s trying to tell people what he’s about.
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So these books cover every inch of wall space in my entire workspace, and they become the document for my whole crew. And I spend hours just staring at it, staring at images that I think I know really well, and then, three weeks in, will reveal something new to me. And sometimes I’ll gather my crew with me and we just look at the images and we talk about them, and it’s really important to have them up. These images cannot exist on some computer file. They cannot exist in some folder. They have to be on the walls at all times. So we can all share these images and all be nourished by them.
Besides Dick Ebersol, was there a particular character that you really loved dressing?
I read all of these characters. So I was reading this script and it was more like a reunion. It was like all these people that were already of living in my heart. And so I had a shorthand with them and I already had insight into their story and an incredible affection for their scrappiness. I loved piecing together all of the characters. The idea was, no matter where you’re looking on this incredibly chaotic screen, there’d always be a piece of that person that you’re like, ‘I know who they are. I don’t have to remind myself who they are.’
I really loved working with every one of the not-ready-for-prime-time players. I loved dressing Mike O’Donoghue. I thought Tommy Dewey was brilliantly fun. I loved, of course, J.K. Simmons as Milton Berle. Willem Dafoe was a revelation [in that his look is] bringing in the entire world of the network suits. For me, it was really about this puzzle and it was about snapping the pieces into place, which of course, is the point of the whole movie, I guess.
What about the script or what about that iconic night in pop culture history was surprising to you?
What I didn’t know prior to working on [the film] was how wrought and tenuous the [first episode of Saturday Night Live] was. I did not know that there’s a version of Saturday Night that was designed to fail, which I think as all artists we can understand. We can understand being involved in something where everyone’s waiting for the shoe to drop. And I think that that’s one of the most interesting pieces about it. Lauren Michaels assembled these incredible performers who were the pinnacle of sketch comedy from everywhere, from Los Angeles, from New York, from Chicago, from Canada, and put them together. In a weird way, it’s so naive to think that they could fail because these people are so brilliant and their whole job was to make something out of nothing, which is what the movie is about, that you take these unbelievable creative minds and put them together.
I think for me, I was constantly trying to use that discovery for myself, the scrappiness, the inventiveness. Because, when I’m reading these books about them, when I’m revisiting all the autobiographies, I’m not seeing them talking about all of their insecurities. I’m hearing them talk about their triumphs. So I got to go back and address these people from their moments of insecurity. I remember I had this major ‘aha’ moment when I was in the fitting with Ella [Hunt], who plays Gilda Radner. We see Gilda in the movie in costume before we see her in person, in her human form. And she’s not revealed in her full Gilda form until halfway through the movie when we see her in the writer’s office. And that’s when we finally start seeing Gilda. I said to Ella, ‘Everything I want Gilda to wear, I want her to look like she’s about to run onto stage and join people. I want her to feel like she can run across the room and just join in a sketch. So what does that mean? That means we need sneakers so she can run across the room. That means a tight top so she can do her incredibly expressive and Gilda clowning.’
Where did you source these looks?
Literally everywhere. We scoured everywhere for existing clothes. But you have to remember, this is 50 years old at this point, the clothes, at least. And then on top of that, I was really telling the story within the piece of mania for vintage clothes that occurred within the ‘70s. So we have these pieces within the ‘70s that are from the ‘50s and ‘40s. And so I’m sourcing everywhere. And then I think it would be surprising to a lot of people to learn how much of it is built. Every shred of clothing on Lauren’s body is created for the movie, the jeans, even the sweater was custom knit for the movie. All of his cowboy shirts.
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Because you came into this film as an existing fan [of the show and characters] did it make for a different creative experience? Did you feel more pressure to get these characters right?
I think that every designer’s job is to come into every project feeling like this is the most important thing you’ve ever done. You have to go in and acknowledge the gravity of a situation because really, what we’re doing is playing dress up. We’re playing the world’s most important and serious dress up game. When I’m playing dress up with an actor, we’re doing it with the goal of locating the truth of someone’s soul, of giving an accurate moment of transformation. The fact that I entered this world having been a lifelong fan of this world absolutely elevated the expectation because I really need it to express the things about this world that I think are important and the things about these people that I admire and respect.
These characters, these actors, these creators that we’re depicting are more than just funny people. And I think that, for me, I really wanted to express their soul, and I wanted to try to both understand for myself and then communicate to the viewer their fragility, their humanity. And I think I went into this project with an enormously high expectation of myself to deliver in a way that communicated to the world why I love this world.
Creatively, do you prefer a period piece over something more modern day plots and aesthetics?
No matter what I’m reading, be it period or contemporary, I really have to connect with the character and what their struggle is. And it’s funny because it doesn’t really sound like a very happy way to view something, but I always read a script and I think, ‘What’s this really about? Why is this person in pain?’ That’s the first question for drama. Every character is in some kind of pain. They can be in creative pain, romantic pain, they could be feeling stuck. And so as long as a character has a heartbeat, I usually end up falling in love with them. There’s eras that I love and there’s contemporary things that I love, but the thing that I really fall in love with is a character who is written with a complicated soul.
