Category - Entertainment
Bill Hader Reveals Mental Health Struggles on ‘SNL’ & What Lorne Michaels Told Him
An excerpt from Susan Morrison’s upcoming Lorne Michael’s biography, Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live, published in The New Yorker, lays bare Bill Hader’s mental health struggles while hosting the sketch show and the advice Michaels gave him to quiet his mind.
Michaels has long cultivated the reputation of a brilliant yet imposing and somewhat unapproachable auteur, a personality Morrison’s book seems to confirm rather than refute. “Lorne just stands back and lets them cannibalize each other,” Alec Baldwin says in the book of Michaels’ approach to managing his casts. Morrison is more direct: “To some, Michaels will bark, ‘Don’t f--k it up,'” she writes.
One of those people was former cast member Hader, who starred on the series from 2005 until 2013. He has returned twice to host, in 2014 and 2018, in addition to several cameo appearances. Though Hader’s eight-year tenure on SNL was widely acclaimed and birthed a number of memorable characters, he was often “prone to anxiety attacks” on show nights. One of the more severe episodes, apparently, came during one of his hosting gigs. Hader “remembers Michaels coming to his dressing room when he hosted and snapping, ‘Calm the f--k down,’” Morrison writes. “‘Just have fun. Jesus Christ.’”
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However, the author notes that Michaels does not treat all cast members with the same tough love. “Different personalities, he believes, require different approaches,” she says. “With others, he is warmer. Molly Shannon treasures the memory of how, when she was nervous just before going onstage, Michaels would ‘reassure me with his eyes.'”
But according to many who spoke to Morrison, that sort of reasurement wasn’t commonplace. Current and former cast members have talked about the intensely competitive nature of working on the show. Andy Samberg revealed last year on Kevin Hart’s Heart to Hart interview series that he left the show after seven years because he “just kinda fell apart physically.” “It was taking a heavy toll on me,” he explained, “and I got to a place where I was like I hadn’t slept in seven years basically.”
Hader told Variety in 2019 that he was “a bit of a basket case” during his time on the show. “It could not have been easy on my wife at the time. I was so consumed with work and anxiety,” he said. “Sometimes I felt like people thought, ‘Oh, he’s just wanting attention or something.’ It was like, ‘No, man, I’m legit. I’m freaking out right now.’”
You can head to The New Yorker to read the full excerpt. Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live hits shelves on February 18. You can pre-order your copy here.