Lorne Michaels hopes SNL outlasts him, according to Morgan Neville.
Lorne Michaels wants Saturday Night Live to “continue on into the future”.
The 81-year-old comedian created the hit TV show in 1975, and he hopes it continues after he’s gone, according to Morgan Neville, the director of a new documentary about Lorne.
Neville told People: “I don’t know if he’s ever really gonna choose to retire because he is the show and the show is him, but he’s not gonna run the show for another 50 years. I think he cares about the show. He wants the show to continue on into the future.”
Neville believes it would take more than one person to fill Lorne’s shoes when he eventually steps down.
He said: “I think he wants it to continue, but I think it’s gonna have to be a couple of people to do his job. I don’t think it’s one person because I think he does so many different things.
“Chiefly, he manages the funny people. It’s the managing down, the writers and the comedians, but he’s also managing up. It’s all the network people and the sponsors, and that is such a complex game.”
Meanwhile, Lorne recently revealed that he wants the UK version of Saturday Night Live to be “cooler” than the US equivalent.
The comedian shared his vision for the UK version, which launched in March.
Speaking at a question-and-answer event in Los Angeles, Lorne explained: “My design for it was that it would be the cooler of the two shows, and it would be the thing they beat us up with that. That it’s smarter, funnier, more original, and it had to be that.
“It had to be its own thing. It couldn’t be an imitation of what we do.”
Lorne talks “all the time” with UK producer James Longman and head writer Daran Jonno Johnson. However, he ultimately wants the UK show to build its own identity and style.
He said: “It has to be their show because I can tell you how I would do it — I’ve been doing it for 50 years, and it’s pretty well known how I would do it — [but] you have to do it your way.”
Lorne Michaels ‘wants Saturday Night Live to continue’
