As much excellence as we see on the screen on ”Saturday Night Live“Who just wrapped his historic 50th season, some of the best stories from the actor and the crew, which highlights how much work makes it late in the evening of each week, is about sketches or parts of sketches that were cut.
Take, for example, the viral “Maybelline” sketch, with a trio of artists including host Ariana Grande that makes her best Jennifer Coolidge impression. Under a USG university panel with hair department manager Jodi Mancuso, makeup department manager Louie Zakarian and Cast Member Chloe Fineman (who is in the sketch,) “Saturday Night Live” director Liz Patrick revealed that there would be a fourth Jennifer Coolidge in the scene. “Sarah (Sherman) was there too,” she said, describing the first draft “Maybelline” that she had read. “I was like,” Oh my God. How should we make four people? “But I was open and ready for the challenge.”
Panel participants all agree: to be “open and ready for the challenge” is the type of ethos that is always needed to get the job done for “SNL”, even if they do not know exactly how at a certain moment. “It’s just flying at the seat of your (pants),” Fineman said. “I remembered last year that I did Jojo Siwa on ‘Weekend Update’, and it was so much crazy makeup that we created, and then had an immediate, quick change. So you put it on, and then you wash completely and then we all put on the fact that everyone is so much.
By building from the example that Finemen posted, makeup designer Zakarian explains, “We cannot use makeups that will stay and take too long to take off. So everything has to be planned for” OK, we must be able to do it as fast as (it) can possibly be done, because we never know what will happen from clothing to air. “He adds,” you find out, “Oh, I had 10 minutes here, now I only have five minutes to do the same thing that took us 10 minutes to get into” is a big, big challenge. “
For hair and wigsigner Mancuso was a memorable battle she had against the clock that worked on season 50 when she got a call at 1:00 the day before the show that Mikey Day’s character in the Cold Open had been replaced by Devon Walker -Playing Country’s star Shaboozey, which meant they were now in need of an intricate wig for the need for an intricate wig Dull boring dull boring. “I was,” oh my God, man, this beautiful man’s big dreads. How do I do this? “And for the first time I told one of our writers, Bryan Tucker,” I don’t know if I can do it, “she said.” And he came to my room and he was like, “Do I have to cut this?” And who wants to be that person? “The perk department cannot figure it out.” And we pulled it off, and it was so beautiful. And of course it was cut, but we made it happen! ”
To hear Fineman, Patrick, Mancuso and Zakarian talk more about the craft that went to do “Saturday Night Live” season 50, watch indiegere’s full interview with them above.
“Saturday night live” season 50 now flows on peacock.Indiewire collaborated with Universal Studio Group for USG University, a series of virtual panels celebrating the best in TV art from 2024-2025 TV Season over NBC Universal’s portfolio of shows. USG University (a Universal Studio Group program) is presented in collaboration with Roybal Film & TV Magnet and IndieWire’s Film Framtime. Catch up on Latest USG University videos hereOr directly at the USG University site.
