Gabe LaBelle Tells Seth Rogen the Secret to Becoming Lorne Michaels

Gabe LaBelle has a knack for embodying real people with daunting legacies. After his breakout role as a young Steven Spielberg-esque character in the director’s autobiographical magnum opus, The Fabelmans, LaBelle’s next big challenge came courtesy of Jason Reitman, who cast him in Saturday Night, an against-all-odds origin story about the frantic 90 minutes leading up to the very first episode of Saturday Night Live. It wasn’t until later that the 22-year-old actor learned he’d be stepping into the shoes of a young Lorne Michaels, portrayed in the film as a scrappy upstart trying to keep the chaos in check. It’s a role that demanded equal parts reverence and restraint—LaBelle avoided doing one of those ubiquitous Lorne impressions, he explains—eventually earning him a Golden Globe nomination. To unpack the head trip of portraying one of the most iconic figures in television history, Labelle reunited with his Fabelmans costar and three-time SNL host Seth Rogen, who knows a thing or two about Lorne Michaels himself.

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GABE LABELLE: Hey.

SETH ROGEN: What’s up? Good to see you.

LABELLE: You too. How are you?

ROGEN: Okay. How’s it going?

LABELLE: Good. I’m about to move apartments.

ROGEN: Nice. Are you staying close by?

LABELLE: I’m going to go a little more east than I am now.

ROGEN: I was actually just going to text you and invite you to our Thanksgiving. I don’t know if you have plans yet.

LABELLE: I’d love to. I’m not going home so yeah, I’d appreciate that. 

ROGEN: No problem. It was good seeing you at Whole Foods the other day as well.

LABELLE: It seemed like you had a big pack of meat. 

ROGEN: I had many pounds of meat that I was going to barbecue that night. 

LABELLE: Amazing.

ROGEN: Alright. I think we’re supposed to focus on the film which I’m more than happy to ask you many questions about. How did this movie first come on your radar? Did Jason [Reitman] call you or text you or what happened?

LABELLE: He was actually in London at the UK premiere of The Fabelmans when everyone got COVID so it was just me and Stephen [Spielberg]. And even then there were so many COVID scares. We had all these plans to do these dinners but it was just so locked down. Anyway, I met him there and then he wanted to get coffee the next day and so we met. He just talked about being Canadian, Jewish, and what family members escaped what tribe of people that were trying to kill them. Then he told me about this movie and he goes, “I’m just trying to meet young people to get an idea of who’s out there for casting.” It wasn’t until a month later that he’s like “Yeah, because [I’m] thinking of you for Lorne.” And I was like “Oh, fuck, I didn’t realize.” And then it wasn’t until June that I was asked to audition.

ROGEN: He actually called me and asked me about you during his decision-making process.

LABELLE: Really?

ROGEN: He did. I sang your praises. 

LABELLE: What questions would a director even ask about that? “Are they an asshole?” 

ROGEN: It was kind of that. He was like, “Did you enjoy working with him? What was he like on set?” I said you worked very hard and were very focused. But I also said that you aren’t afraid to make sure that you have a good understanding of what’s happening in the scene. I would see you do it on The Fabelmans all the time, carving out the space for yourself to gain an understanding of what was going on in the scene, and making sure that you had a good handle on what you were supposed to be doing and to serve it. Do you think you do that?

LABELLE: Yeah. Because if I don’t know what I’m doing, then I’m stuck in the middle of the ocean. The scene that we did was changed so many times that by the time we were actually there I remember being really nervous about that and you want to be as least nervous as possible when you’re on Steven Spielberg’s set.

ROGEN: I was very nervous as well. Steven basically told me beforehand, “I don’t like talking about the scenes, and I don’t like getting asked a lot of questions by the actors.” I would talk to Tony Kushner a lot, actually. I found myself going over to Tony and being like “Explain to me the scene as though I’m a fucking moron.”

LABELLE: [Laughs] He would do it even if you asked him to or not.

ROGEN: Yes, exactly. What did you think of Jason Reitman when you first met him?

LABELLE: I thought he was a really nice guy. When I met him at the party, I didn’t have a face to any of his work so it wasn’t until Steven and I continued to do the rounds that he’s like “Oh, he’s a tremendous director, he did this and this and this.” I’m like “Oh my god, he did that and that and that.”

ROGEN: [Laughs] That’s Jason Reitman.

LABELLE: But getting to know him was so disarming because he’s very humble and fun to be around. It’s nice to come across those people in the business.

ROGEN: Very much so. Especially when your father’s one of the most iconic comedic filmmakers of all time, that really ruins a lot of people right off the bat. [Laughs]

LABELLE: Did you know Jason beforehand?

ROGEN: I’ve known Jason for years. We’ve almost worked together a few times and he’s friends with Charlize Theron, which is actually how I think I first spent time with him and met him. I would see him with her and at her parties and events. And I knew his father a little bit. When I first moved to L.A., one of my first callback auditions was for his movie Evolution with David Duchovny and Orlando Jones.

LABELLE: Oh my god.

ROGEN: It was cool. So how did he first describe the movie to you? 

LABELLE: He told me that he wanted to do a 90-minute straight shot. Not even any invisible cuts, but a total play. We didn’t do that because I think every smart person in his life told him not to.

ROGEN: It’s hard. The show we just did [The Studio], every scene is one shot, so it’s like a series of one-ers.

LABELLE: Oh, seriously?

ROGEN: Yeah. I mean, there’s one whole episode that’s one shot but there’s some stitching.

LABELLE: I remember you telling me about that episode as you were writing it two years ago when we were doing all the press for The Fabelmans.

ROGEN: Yeah, that’s when it started.

LABELLE: The trailer looks fucking amazing.

ROGEN: Oh, thank you so much. It’s a hard way to shoot. And we did do a lot of trickery, stitches and handoffs and stuff like that. And the idea of not doing any of that is fucking insane.

LABELLE: Yeah. But anyway, he told me he was thinking of doing it in one shot and then he pitched to me that it would be 90 minutes, and that it would end on “Live from New York, it’s Saturday night!” He told me the stakes of the film, how it was never meant to actually work, and how they were all against Lorne. 

ROGEN: Lorne’s a notoriously tough nut to crack, I guess you would say. Actually, Lorne produced the movie The Guilt Trip, the one I did with Barbra Streisand. We shot it while SNL was off, so he was basically just hanging out on set as a producer all day. I spent all day every day with him for months. But it wasn’t like SNL Lorne. It was movie producer Lorne, which is a very different Lorne.

LABELLE: How was he different?

ROGEN: Because the producer of a movie doesn’t run the show, the director of a movie runs the show, and the stars of the movie more run the show. A producer leading up to shooting can do this and that, but as you’re actually filming, a producer’s usually just sitting there watching us, unless there’s a problem.

LABELLE: Just eating chips.

ROGEN: [Laughs] Exactly. It was funny because he was just relaxed and social, and what’s funny is Evan [Goldberg], my partner, had never met him outside of that context. So Evan just spent months sitting next to Lorne in a director’s chair and chatting. And he was like “I don’t get why everyone’s so intimidated by this guy. He’s a lovely dude who just sits around and tells stories all day.” And I’m like, “It’s like you’re meeting the king outside of the castle. It’s a different thing when he’s in the captain’s seat.” So, did you meet him? How did it work? How did they get the rights? I don’t know how they fucking made this movie. [Laughs]

LABELLE: Jason has known Lorne forever because Ivan and Lorne knew each other and they’ve worked with the same actors. And Lorne was always very supportive. They interviewed everyone alive from the building on that night, too. In terms of rights, they’re public figures, so I think there’s legally more liberty. But personally, I don’t think Jason would’ve done it if Lorne hadn’t given him his approval. And Jason advised me not to talk to Lorne.

ROGEN: Interesting.

LABELLE: Which was weird. Because my experience with Steven, in playing another real person, was like, I interviewed him on every scene, all his childhood trauma. I was used to that process.

ROGEN: He was there all day, every day in real time informing what was happening.

LABELLE: I wanted to talk to Lorne and Jason was like “No, I don’t want you to.” He goes, “He’s a different guy now than in his twenties.” Also, “I don’t want you doing a mimicry of him.” He advised me to have a lot more of my own personality into the character than Lorne. 

ROGEN: He’s also been impersonated so much. He’s a specific dude surrounded at all times by some of the greatest impressionists that have ever lived, so odds are mimicry will arise.

LABELLE: I remember when I actually did meet him at SNL. He invited us to watch the show right before we started shooting and I remember thinking, “He doesn’t even sound like that. They’re doing caricatures.” Jason was like, “I just want to tell the story of a young artist chasing their dreams, defying the odds.” But I still wanted to get his physicality, his voice, certain intonations of words, the way the clothes fit him, his posture, and his accent. 

ROGEN: That’s amazing. And wait, so you did go to a taping of SNL before you started shooting?

LABELLE: Literally the first day before we started shooting.

ROGEN: Was that informative? Did it change the energy? 

LABELLE: It didn’t change anything because we were going to shoot and then we had a writer’s strike and then an actor’s strike. We started filming a year after I was cast, so I was locked in on my prep. But the whole cast was there. I think it was Nicholas Braun who slapped my shoulder and was like, “There’s Lorne.” It was like we were in a safari, it was the first time I’d seen him.

ROGEN: I’ve been to the show a lot of times. There’s so many things when you’re there where you’re like, “They do this in such a weird way.” It’s because they haven’t changed it in 50 years. The schedule is insane, the way they shoot it, the fact that the sets come up like a fucking small elevator. Actually, the first time I hosted, Lorne literally said to me the opening quote that is on the screen in your movie.

LABELLE: Oh my god.

ROGEN: I was freaking out, my opening monologue wasn’t written until 6:00 P.M. on Saturday evening or something like that. And he literally said those exact words to me: “We don’t do the show because it’s ready, we do it because it’s Saturday night at 11:30.” It was very comforting and something I never forgot. 

LABELLE: Oh, man.

ROGEN: Had you been to 30 Rock before?

LABELLE: For the audition I went to 30 Rock and I went to the ice rink. That was really my only time there.

ROGEN: I remember talking to Lorne about it and being like, “This building is just fucking like a city.”

LABELLE: It’s massive.

ROGEN: And again, in his very Lorne way, he’s like “Well when anything’s new they build cathedrals for it. And when television was new they built a cathedral to television and radio, and this is the cathedral.” 

LABELLE: Wow.

ROGEN: And it really is. It’s a building with an energy unlike any other. The staircase that connects the host dressing room and goes up to where the other things are, I’m like “Oh, I smoked weed in that staircase with Steve Higgins and Kenan Thompson one time.” It is a mystical place that most people don’t ever get access to. It must have been cool when you finally saw it. 

LABELLE: Oh, yeah. I didn’t appreciate how amazing the production design and set design was until we were watching. We got to the building and I knew how to get to Lorne’s office. I knew where the bathroom was. It was literally like “Oh, I’ve been here.” 

ROGEN: You really have. No, it was mind-blowing. When you are the star of a thing, how conscious you are that it’s all revolving around you, and therefore that means you can do much less at times and you can do much more at times. Is that a thing that you’re thinking of as you’re doing it?

LABELLE: I understand that the emotional throughline is through my eyes. I wanted to convey that this is Lorne’s first time doing it, so he’s nervous like any of us are doing something for the first time. I really wanted to convey that fear and that doubt. But he’s also calming everyone down around him and managing the situation around him, so he’s never going to tell anybody that he’s nervous. But I will say, the pressure I felt from The Fabelmans, I don’t think anything will ever amount to that.

ROGEN: No, never. For me either. I happened to be sitting next to him [Steven Spielberg] at a show at the Hollywood Bowl a few weeks ago, and I couldn’t have been more nervous and awkward the entire time. It is impossible to not be scared around Steven Spielberg. And then to have to perform for him is genuinely the scariest thing you could do in many ways.

LABELLE: Playing these people in The Fabelmans, it wasn’t like everyone knows who Bob Dylan is so everyone’s going to have a say. 

ROGEN: It’s even worse, yeah. Everyone could think you did a great job and he might know you did a bad job.

LABELLE: Exactly. It’s insane. But I will say, whenever he’d cry I’d feel really good.

ROGEN: Oh, yeah, real good. I love making that man cry. Jason seems like a hard guy to make cry.

LABELLE: Jason didn’t cry, but he had a sentimental face to him.

ROGEN: He does have a sentimental face to him.

LABELLE: Jason’s a lovely guy. He was great.

ROGEN: No, he really is.

LABELLE: Throughout the strikes he’d have me over for movie nights all the time, getting to know his friends. I’ve never gotten that time with a director leading up to a shoot before, and that was crazy valuable.

ROGEN: He’s a real sweet dude and a very talented filmmaker. And he has good taste in actors.