When Cory Michael Smith signed on to be part of the movie “Saturday Night,” it would be his first comedic role. And not just any comedy part, but that of Chevy Chase, one of the most famous American comedians of his time.
Smith quickly realized that while he knew what he would do to make something funny, he had no idea what Chase would’ve done.
“I put the script away, and for about two months, I just watched him in his movies over and over and over until I felt like I could hear his voice in my head,” Smith says. “I made these charts in Google Docs of what he would do in performances, certain physical behaviors, speech patterns, facial expressions, and when he would do them and why, and tried to find patterns.”
Only then, once he had that ingrained in him, did he feel like he could drop his instincts and tap into Chase.
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“I had never really studied someone before this, but it really was obsessive studying to the point where I was really in a flow,” Smith says. He even wrote several jokes, channeling Chase, that made it into the script.
The movie “Saturday Night” follows the 90 minutes leading up to the inaugural episode of “Saturday Night Live.” The cast includes Dylan O’Brien, Rachel Sennott, Lamorne Morris, Kaia Gerber and Gabriel LaBelle, portraying the original cast and crew of “SNL”’s first season.
While he was auditioning for Chase, Smith — whose acting credits include Todd Haynes’ “May December,” “Carol” and “Wonderstruck,” as well as “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” on Broadway — was convinced he wasn’t going to get the part. He recalls thinking “’I don’t think I’m the guy for this, but I love Jason Reitman, and what a cool project. I’ll take a swing at it.’”
“And then every audition I kept getting called back,” Smith says. “I was like, oh s–t. Yeah, this might happen.”
Once he was cast, the challenge of bringing Chase to life set in. He approached the comedian anthropologically, trying to unearth what drove him into comedy.
“Something that’s really interesting that I wanted to figure out is every comedian, there’s a reason that people want to make people laugh. There’s usually some past experience that you can glean why this person wants to make people laugh, to alleviate pressure or to bring attention to themselves, or struggling with depression, whatever it may be. They just need to laugh,” Smith says. “And so I was able to sort of learn a lot about his childhood and his family, and understand that his father was very intelligent. His need for being seen as intelligent and witty, his need was high. And he had a really challenging relationship with his mother, and he sought out comedy and being a goof and making other people love him, I think, as a compensation for that. And while that’s not explored in this film, it’s not a biopic on Chevy Chase, it’s really helpful as an actor, anytime you can sort of attach yourself to the why someone is doing something.”
Smith, who grew up in Columbus, Ohio, didn’t find acting until late in high school. He thought about being a pianist, but after visiting conservatories at age 15 decided that wasn’t for him. His mother is a nurse and worked at a medical malpractice law firm, and Smith started shadowing some of the lawyers, wondering if that might be his direction.
“I grew up doing community theater, but I didn’t see it as a real career path until the end of high school when I did one play where I was six different characters, and it was the first time where I felt like I could feel the craft of it being separate from just having a good time doing it,” he says.
Now based in New York, Smith found it easy to identify with the Big Apple dream of “Saturday Night.”
“At the end of the movie, Lorne, played by Gabe LaBelle, has this great monologue about what ‘Saturday Night Live’ really meant when it started, this very optimistic, idealist idea of what he wanted to showcase and what he wanted it to feel like, the spirit that he wanted to capture in there. And it does feel specifically like a 20-year-old’s idea of New York, the grit and the glamour and the late nights and the potential hookup and the thrill and the energy of this city,” says Smith, who moved to the city 15 years ago. “And despite not being in my 20s anymore, I am still in love with the energy of this city.”
