Interview: Gabriel LaBelle on His Comedic Influences, Building His Confidence, and Trying Not to Be a Mimic in ‘Saturday Night’

“There is a dreamer alive in Gabe’s eyes that is almost impossible to find in anyone else of his generation. You look into his eyes, and you believe that this young man is going to do whatever it takes to make his dreams come true. You can’t fake that. You can’t learn that. He just has it. And I knew that for 90 minutes I could follow Gabe, and he could carry this film on his shoulders…”

When I recently spoke to Saturday Night writer-director Jason Reitman, his face lit up with elation when he got to talk about his lead actor, Gabriel LaBelle. And why wouldn’t it, as LaBelle has come onto the scene over the last couple years as one of the most exciting young talents in Hollywood. Growing up in Vancouver, Canada, LaBelle learned he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps, producer and character actor Rob LaBelle, and become an actor at a very young age. By the age of eight, he was in local musical productions, leading to his on-screen debut in an episode of Canadian TV series, Motive. From that point, he landed small roles in films and television shows like Max 2: White House Hero, The Predator, and iZombie. But his work started to pick up post-pandemic, when he landed the role that would change his career, as he played Sammy Fabelman in Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans.  

As Sammy, LaBelle brought to life a forty-year journey for the acclaimed director, being able to bring his life finally to the screen after teasing it in his work for multiple decades. In doing this, LaBelle delivered an “effortless portrayal of his mighty director” that resulted in a “star-making turn,” per my review from two years ago. It is not easy to bring a legend to screen, but LaBelle was able to do it with the ease that many others simply wouldn’t have been able to capture. And just a few years later, his role in Saturday Night sees him tackling another living legend, Lorne Michael, the co-creator of Saturday Night Live. In my review out of Telluride, I stated that LaBelle “proves himself to be one of the most engaging, bright young actors we have working today” as his performance as Michaels is the glue that keeps everything together as chaos is cascading around him as the first broadcast of SNL approaches and history is about to be made.

In my conversation with LaBelle, we talked about his comedic influences, working with Reitman, getting to lead a massive ensemble that includes Copper Hoffman and Rachel Sennott, his process in creating his version of Lorne Michaels, and what he hopes to do on screen next as well as what he wants to see within future seasons of SNL. We also spoke about what Saturday Night Live has meant to him not only as a person, but, like Michaels and Reitman, as a Canadian citizen, and growing up with the show on in his house and watching it with his friends. It is inside these personal projects where LaBelle shines the brightest, creating complex, layered performances that we hope to see as his career continues to grow.

Ryan McQuade: I want to go all the way back with you. Not necessarily to a person or a time period in SNL, but specifically the first sketch or moment that connected with you, and you realized how special this television show was to you. What did it mean to you?

Gabriel LaBelle: I think it would’ve been, we had the Best of the Commercial parodies VHS tapes, and we also had a little fair on Chris Farley. But I think the moment that really, one of the earliest memories that really bonded my family was, I don’t know if it was Del Taco. It was Andy Sandberg and Jason Sudeikis, I can’t remember who else was in it, maybe Will Forte.

But it was like, “We take our tacos, we deep-fry it and put a pizza in it.”

And then Andy Sandberg’s like, “A pizza? Now that’s a taco,” and they’re about to eat it.

And they go, “But wait, there’s more.” And then it just keeps adding more and more ingredients and then eventually it’s this big and they can’t even eat it.

I remember just all of us, we just kept doing that for weeks after watching.

RM: It’s in a tote bag or something at one point and then they put salsa in it.

GL: Yeah, and they put gravy in it.

RM: No, I love that, because then it then shows you what kind of taste and comedy that you have right from that early get go because SNL is so versatile in the various types of comedy, right?

GL: Oh my God, yeah. And also just, I loved the Chris Farley movies, and I loved Mike Myers and Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell, Adam McKay. I was so obsessed with comedy. I didn’t realize until later that my favorite people came from SNL, even everybody from the lampoons. My parents would say, “Oh, well, this was on when I was a kid.” It just made it very, I don’t know. I remember being a kid, it wasn’t cool to do things with your parents, but it was cool to stay up and watch Saturday Night Live.

RM: It was the only night out of the week you could stay up past nine o’clock, 10 o’clock, right?

GL: Oh my God, yeah. You go to bed and you’re in your pajamas, but then you like, “I can’t sleep.”

And they’re like, “Okay, come on.”

And then you’re sitting there and you’re just in the pillows and you’re like, “Ha ha ha.”

RM: I just remember watching Weekend Update and not understanding half the political references, but thinking that they were the funniest thing on the planet. That was what it all was-

GL: Yeah, your parents are laughing, and the timing’s funny. And the voices are funny, but you have no idea what’s going on, all you know is that it’s funny.

RM: Yeah, exactly. The roots of SNL are deeply Canadian. Being Canadian, was it deeply personal for you then to take on this project given its connection back to where you are from, based on people whose comedic sensibilities reflect the culture you grew up around?

GL: It’s cool because I think all the most brilliant Canadian comedians go to Hollywood and then they don’t put a lot of Canadian roots out to the rest of the world. I feel like a lot of the Canadian stuff stays in Canada, and I think it suffers a little bit over there to an extent. But getting to do a Canadian accent on screen is fun, and Jason (Reitman) is Canadian, and that was something we bonded over. Being Canadian and Jewish is a very interesting perspective, and especially being a Canadian Jew in America, it’s like you’re looking at things a lot more objectively and separated from yourself. And so it’s cool that Jason, myself, and Lorne are all Canadian Jews, but then that also (Dan) Ackroyd is Canadian and Rosie Shuster is Canadian, Mike Myers is Canadian. Yeah, it feels cool, it feels special.

RM: Coming back to this project, and I know that you started talking with Jason, I believe at a London premiere for The Fabelmans if I’m not mistaken?

GL: Mm-hmm, yeah.

RM: And obviously you start having conversations with him about playing Lorne Michaels. That’s such a big tall task to play this big figure in culture, but you’re also coming off of playing another giant figure in the culture. Were you nervous about picking a project like Saturday Night so shortly after being essentially Steven Spielberg as Sammy in The Fabelmans? Was there ever a sense of “should I be playing two icons back to back like this?”

GL: I definitely thought about it. I mean, it wasn’t right back to back because I shot a season of American Gigolo. I shot Snack Shack between it, and then we had the strikes, so I was able to just hang out and be a person so it didn’t feel so fresh. But there’s definitely a moment of, is that? Am I going to be the person they call if they’re making a Woody Allen movie? There’s a part of me that was like, “Oh man.” But no, I would never say no to this project in a million years. But there’s definitely, I didn’t expect to do it. It’s definitely wild. It’s so weird, I don’t know.

RM: You get the script, and there are so many stories going on, it’s not necessarily just one night of the show. It’s an amalgamation of all these stories that Jason got over the course of time. You then have to put your own version on Lorne (Michaels) in the film, but obviously Lorne’s not someone that’s going to open up the vaults for you to talk about his life. So how was your research process to find your version of him, rather than try to mimic or be like Dana Carvey or Bill Hader…

GL: They’re doing caricatures.

RM: Yeah, they’re doing caricatures. Impressions.

GL: They’re doing bobbleheads.

RM: Exactly. How do you then find your way through the research? What was key for you? Was it going back to old interviews? Was it watching the show and finding the rhythm of the comedy in that time period to get in Lorne’s mindset while he was creating it? How was that process for you?

GL: Yeah, I definitely watched old interviews. There’s a great one on the Tom Snyder show. It was literally the week before the first episode, and you have the original cast. Lorne’s introducing everybody and telling the audience what the show’s going to be, and he’s nervous, but he’s composed. You could see how he holds his gaze and the intonations on certain words, his accent. I got access to his, I found his old CBC radio show with Hart Pomerantz or The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour that they had together up there.

There are a lot of old photos so you could see his posture and the way clothes fit him and his expressions. And then there were a lot of great books too. I mean, there’s so much information about the inception and genesis of that show and that era and the personalities involved and where Lorne came from, who he was around, and how he met all of these amazing writers and actors and invited them to work with him and how they were just friends and they were hanging out, making something they believed in.

All of that was in, just to give context to the script, and to give context to the story that Jason wants to tell. He just wants to tell the story of young artists making their dreams come true and bringing the visions to life and all of that was just to give context to. Jason didn’t want us to, he didn’t want me to talk to Lorne. He didn’t want me to fall under mimicry because a lot of people do those impressions.

I just wanted to do enough, get enough of his physicality, enough of his voice so that maybe people who knew him could feel like, “Oh, that feels like Lorne,” but not be the focus of, I don’t want that to be what characters who don’t know Lorne take away from it.

RM: Speaking of Jason and working with him, I mean, he had so many glowing things to say about the experience of working with you, when I talked to him recently. What was like to make Saturday Night with him and the collaboration process that the two of you had on the film?

GL: Jason, I learned so much from working with him. Jason conducts the most positive environment ever. When you think about it, everyone’s playing a real person. Everyone’s going to be judged on how good they are. Everyone is scared and he calms everybody down, and he just brings the best of everyone, and everyone shows up smiling and laughing, and he celebrates everyone’s birthdays, and he has everyone over for board games and movie nights and it’s just a hang. But then also, he knows exactly what he wants from every moment. He made me a lot more relaxed than I ever thought I could be on a set, and he taught me so much about myself indirectly and just championed everybody so amazingly and getting to trust him and learning to trust him even more every day. I mean, it’s one of the most valuable creative experiences of my life that I took with me for a long time and I think I’m a better actor and a better man having worked with him.

RM: Did you, by any chance in your research for the film, watch Death by Chocolate, Jason’s SNL sketch that made it onto the show?

GL: No. I couldn’t find it.

RM: It’s on YouTube if you want to take a look. Just type “Death by Chocolate” and it’s up there.

GL: I didn’t know what the title was. I just looked up “Jason Reitman sketch” and then I couldn’t find it. I got to go see it now.

RM: Working in biopics, there’s a lot of information you want to grab, cram into your performance and you want to get right. But you also, with a large ensemble, there’s this pressure to be on your “A” game the entire time. So for you, how was this experience different for you than when you made The Fabelmans? Did your process evolve and change from working with Steven and to now working with Jason? Did you feel that there were lessons and things that you learned from that experience that made the making of this movie a better experience than probably the first go round of working on a giant movie that has this much massive responsibility?

GL: Oh my God, yeah. I was not as confident on working with Steven as I was working with Jason. I didn’t have the experience and validated, and I didn’t know that what I had just done worked so I was a lot more nervous on that set. I was a lot harder on myself, and I didn’t allow myself much to rest, and I blew a fuse. And so having that experience, I was a lot more responsible with my own energy and my own mental health and staying sane. I was a lot more grounded on this than I was with Fabelmans. It was a lot more unifying, I think, with the ensemble. Not to say that I wasn’t unified with Paul or Michelle or Seth at all. No, they’re very supportive, but they’re twice my age and they’re playing my parents.

And other than Chloe East or Sam Rechner or Izzy Kusman or all the Boy Scouts, I was the youngest one on set by a mile. Whereas on SNL, it’s like everyone… I don’t know, it felt a lot more, it was a lot more social, and I allowed myself to be a lot more social too. So it felt like summer camp, and it was the same set every day, and everyone was there every day and everyone was laughing. I allowed myself to have a lot more fun than I did on The Fabelmans.

RM: There’s two relationships I think that are so important to Lorne in the film, and that is with his wife Rosie, played by Rachel Sennott, and with Dick Ebersol, played by Cooper Hoffman. They are the things that amidst the chaos are able to balance him and able to get him to focus the most. So for you, could you talk about what those characters mean to Lorne in the film, but then also talk about working with Rachel and Cooper in Saturday Night?

GL: I love talking about these guys. I love them so much. I’m always so happy to see them. Rosie Shuster, who’s one of the co-creators of Saturday Night Live, whether she’s credited to it or not. Lorne grew up without a dad and spent a lot of his time in Rosie Shuster’s house. They met when they were kids when they were 14, and he was raised by Rosie and her family. Rosie’s dad, Frank Shuster was a very famous sketch comedy writer and performer and inspired Lorne so much and told him all these stories of old show business and he was enamored with it. Him and Rosie together started writing very young, and they shared a dream of writing comedy. They went all over together. They went to LA, they went to New York, and they left Toronto and they wrote together. They were each other’s creative best friends, and they felt so much about each other.

But by the time the show was going on in 1975, they were individually living separate lives, but creatively still had so much love for each other and worked so well for each other and brought the best out of each other. But they were faced with a question of, should we have really married each other? And so they were in the process of… A couple of years later, they’d be divorced, but they were seeing other people and they were very respectful towards each other. They just loved each other so much, they were best friends.

And working with Rachel was just, she’s just such a delightful, joyous, funny person to be around. Yeah, and she just scooped out the chemistry. People are like, “You guys have great chemistry.” It’s just her. I don’t know how to describe it. If you could just listen to her and be with her, then you’re going to have a blast. So charming and so good.

And Cooper playing Dick Ebersol, who was the business part of show business as Lorne was the show. Dick had the relationship with NBC, and he was a young executive who NBC trusted a lot more than Lorne. They got a great groove going where Lorne would handle creative and Dick would be the network. They had a lot of contention at times because they disagreed, but they worked well together. Cooper is just, I’m so inspired by him. I think he’s a brilliant actor. Every day working with him, I believe… I think he’s a lot better than I am. I don’t know, I think he’s just the coolest. We started around the same time, and we have similar first large experiences. Yeah, I’ll work with Cooper a million times. He’s a great guy, great hang. Getting to work with him, I had known him for a couple of years at that point, so it felt very kismet, it felt very meant to be. I’m very grateful that Jason wanted the two of us together because I’d work with that guy a million times.

RM: Well, they’re both great in the film, but don’t sell yourself short, Gabe. You’re great in the film as well too, so don’t sell yourself short.

GL: Thank you man.

RM: When you’re making a movie about SNL and you’re working with this giant cast, and they’re playing members of the Saturday Night Live crew and everything, was there ever a moment where you were looking at someone and you’re like, “I actually think that person could be on SNL right now.”

GL Oh, yeah.

RM: Was there a person there that you thought could easily translate it over there?

GL: I think everyone. I think all of us, truly. I mean, Nicholas Podany, Emily Fairn, Lamorne (Morris), Dylan (O’Brien), Rachel. Andrew Barth Feldman, fuck, he’s so talented. I think everyone. Literally every single member was so quick, so funny, so talented. Even Cory (Michael Smith), I mean, everyone sings and is just so talented. There’s not a single person on that cast I think couldn’t be there.

RM: Lastly, I wanted to ask you about the future. Saturday Night Live is such a big part of our culture and it’s 50 years in the making, and its future is always fluctuating and changing and people have new definitions of what comedy should be. For you, what would you like to see hopefully in the future of SNL as it continues to evolve? And then for yourself, what do you want to look for in your future projects and roles going forward?

GL: I think with SNL, so I think I’m biased because to get into their mindset of Lorne and why he’s making this movie, it’s very revolutionary. It’s very young people making something that they believe in and finally getting the chance and being raw and I don’t care if you don’t get it, it’s not for you. I think I would love to see Saturday Night Live  be run by young people again. Hungry young people who don’t have full on careers ahead of them, who don’t get comfortable, who don’t get in the routine of, all right, this is just my job now, but people who really, really want to do something different and change it up and bring a style of humor that hasn’t really been represented.

One thing, being of Gen Z, a lot of people make TV shows for my generation and they don’t get it. It hasn’t worked yet because people of my generation haven’t had the opportunity to make anything really yet, not behind the scenes. I think I would like to see a lot younger people show up and bring their perspectives and not worry about ratings and just really being bold. And if you look at some of that earlier stuff from SNL, it’s brutal. They took a lot more risks and they didn’t care if you didn’t like it. But I think, yeah, I’d like to see a lot more young people take over that show. And then for myself, I don’t know. As long as the project means something to the person who made it, and as long as the character is complicated and has a lot going on and I feel inspired, that’s all I look out for.

RM: Awesome. Well, you’re great in this, Gabe. Just wish you all the best going forward. I can’t wait to see what you do next, man.

GL: Thank you very much. Have a good one.

Saturday Night is currently in theaters and available via VOD.