John Mulaney offered fans a taste of the upcoming SNL biopic on Monday night—or at least, his version of it.
Guesting on Late Night with Seth Meyers, the former SNL writer devoted some time to discussing Saturday Night, the movie that dramatizes the behind-the-scenes happenings at the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live, whose tense first trailer was just released last week.
“I worked for five years at Saturday Night Live, but I had no idea the kind of pressure cooker that it was,” Mulaney said. “Apparently it’s high-stakes.”
“I’m very excited about this movie that’s coming out,” Mulaney added. “Being an insider in Hollywood, I don’t have to wait to see the movie. I got the script.”
Noting that he wasn’t actually involved in the film (and has only seen the trailer), Mulaney presented an alleged scene from the script for he and Meyers to read—one he teased as particularly prescient. “When you hear it, your hair will stand up on your neck.”
The pair then acted out the scene, “Young Lorne Hails A Taxi.”
“Take me to Rockefeller Center. I’m gonna go do Saturday Night Live, a new show on NBC,” Mulaney as Lorne Michaels says.
“TV at night?” Meyers’ cab driver replies. “That’ll never work.”
“F**k you, you f**king dumb cabbie,” Michaels replies. “It’ll be so famous and good at sketch comedy.”
While it’s safe to assume that scene is not quite real, it is true that Saturday Night depicts a high-stakes environment at SNL. Director Jason Reitman described the film as a “comedy-thriller” in a recent interview.
Saturday Night is set to take place in real-time in the 90 minutes leading up to the broadcast of SNL‘s first-ever episode. It hits theaters on October 11, the 49th anniversary of that broadcast.
