\n<\/p>\n
\n\tIn comedy, few are as influential \u2014 and elusive \u2014 as Jim Downey.<\/p>\n
\n\tDuring his 30-year tenure as a writer on \u201cSaturday Night Live,\u201d he penned era-defining sketches like Chris Farley\u2019s \u201cChippendales Audition\u201d and defined the show\u2019s political satire with Dana Carvey\u2019s George H.W. Bush (\u201cna ga da it\u201d) and Will Ferrell\u2019s W. Bush (\u201cstrategery\u201d).\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tFor many years he was the voice of \u201cWeekend Update,\u201d launching with Norm Macdonald a comedic crusade against O.J. Simpson that resulted in both of them getting fired by NBC. (Downey returned two years later and eventually retired in 2013.) Lorne Michaels has called him the \u201cvoice\u201d of \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d and the \u201cbest political humorist alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tOutside of occasional appearances on \u201cSNL\u201d and a memorable role opposite Adam Sandler in \u201cBilly Madison,\u201d Downey has remained mostly behind the scenes, rarely granting interviews. Until now.<\/p>\n
\n\tThis year, Downey stepped into the spotlight as the subject of the Peacock documentary \u201cDowney Wrote That,\u201d in which people like Conan O\u2019Brien, John Mulaney and Bill Hader praise him as one of the greatest comedians of all time. And Downey also had two acting roles, playing a jolly member of the Christmas Adventurers Club in Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d and a bubble-blowing middle manager in Tim Robinson\u2019s HBO series \u201cThe Chair Company.\u201d \n\tI do think it breaks down some barriers. It makes it easier to try something you might be afraid to work up in private and hand in to somebody. The way I write is I work it out on my feet \u2014 talking it down, pitching it to people, and changing it as I go. By the time I write a script, it\u2019s really just a record of something that\u2019s already been worked out. I don\u2019t find it on paper; I find it in conversation. The lack of sleep definitely affected the writing and performing in all kinds of ways. It made the whole thing feel more heroic.<\/p>\n \n\tIn the beginning, almost everything we did \u2014 whether it was truly new or not \u2014 felt<\/em> new. It was like walking into a virgin forest and cutting down 200-foot trees. There was so much uncharted territory. But 40 or 45 years later, a lot of that ground has been covered. That\u2019s one of the reasons I have so much respect for the last group I knew well \u2014 Bill Hader, Jason Sudeikis, Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, Amy Poehler, Will Forte, Kenan Thompson and that whole crew.<\/p>\n \n\tComedy had evolved by their time. They could do certain things we couldn\u2019t have done in the \u201970s or \u201980s, simply because audiences were more innocent back then. There were sketches we did in those early years that wouldn\u2019t even make it out of a read-through today. Sensibilities have changed \u2014 tightened, in some ways. You can say audiences have become too politically correct or too sensitive, but arguing about it doesn\u2019t really help. What matters is not just what people find funny, but what they\u2019re comfortable being seen<\/em> laughing at. In a live audience, that\u2019s a big factor.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tJim Downey in \u201cDowney Wrote That\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRalph Bavaro\/PEACOCK<\/p>\n \n\tIt started as a tribute to the writers and performers we\u2019d lost, but it became something else. It became about all the material we could no longer do. Things that had to be retired forever. Some of it was borderline offensive, but in a comedy-offensive way. And some of it \u2014 well, it just wouldn\u2019t work anymore, because it would genuinely upset people. So in a strange way, I think we actually had a little more artistic freedom in the \u201970s and \u201980s. Maybe less conceptual freedom, but more freedom to take risks. Comedy keeps evolving, though \u2014 hopefully expanding, getting smarter, reaching new places.<\/p>\n \n\tI spent most of my time working with Bill Murray on something for the Radio City Music Hall show, which was on Friday. The anniversary show was Sunday. Coming back after all that time was strange. I\u2019d retired in 2013, so it had been 12 years since I\u2019d been in that kind of setting. To be honest, it was a little frustrating. The Radio City work took up so much of the weekend that I missed seeing some old friends. I caught up with a few people but completely missed others. The big after-party went on all night. There were something like 1,100 people there. And it actually left me kind of sad and emotional. I realized there\u2019s never going to be another one of those, and for some people I saw, that was probably the last time I will see them. So it wasn\u2019t quite the pure fun I\u2019d hoped it would be.<\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s funny you say that. The feeling I had at the 50th anniversary was very similar to the feeling I had in May of 1980 [when most of the cast and crew, including Lorne Michaels, left \u201cSNL\u201d]. We thought of that as the last season. I remember being very emotional.<\/p>\n \n\tOK.<\/p>\n \n\tThis isn\u2019t a word, but he was our version of Jerry Lewis. He was wild and unpredictable, not to everyone\u2019s taste, but an incredible combination of real brilliance and occasional goofy, low-brow-ness.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe person whose sense of humor was closest to my own. Incredibly principled and fearless. He did like to make people laugh \u2014 he lived for that \u2014 but he had really high standards about ways of getting to that.<\/p>\n \n\tHe was willing to do things that he knew wouldn\u2019t get huge laughs, but he loved them. I always think about how much he paid attention to language. He had this very Midwestern fondness for odd turns of phrase. [When I was head writer on \u201cLate Night,\u201d] we once did a bit where we had this weeklong project upgrading his desk, adding little features. The NBC crew guy was there with a power drill, and Dave said, \u201cMy dream is for \u2018Late Night\u2019 to get its own three-speed drill \u2014 and someday, God willing, a variable-speed drill.\u201d I remember thinking, nobody in the history of comedy is ever going to get a laugh out of \u201cvariable-speed drill.\u201d But that\u2019s what I loved about Letterman. It was about the language. And he was the king of dry.<\/p>\n \n\tIndispensable. He protected and encouraged writers and performers, but, importantly, he didn\u2019t protect the performers more<\/em> than the writers. Nobody protected writers like this guy. He\u2019d go to bat for us when the network tried to screw us. Lorne fought for us, and he had the clout to actually solve problems. He was brilliant at negotiating with the network. He was very smooth\u2014I don\u2019t want to say \u201cslick,\u201d but he could be extremely charming.<\/p>\n \n\tThe only time he ever really ran into trouble was during the [NBC executive] Don Ohlmeyer years. Ohlmeyer\u2019s secret weapon was that he didn\u2019t get Lorne\u2019s jokes. The kind of things that had always worked for Lorne \u2014 his wit, his charm \u2014 just didn\u2019t land. Most network executives are at least somewhat sophisticated and have a decent sense of humor. Ohlmeyer wasn\u2019t. He was kind of a thug, immune to Lorne\u2019s charm.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tLorne Michaels and Jim Downey<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNBC via Getty Images<\/p>\n \n\tIf Lorne ever leaves the show, I can\u2019t imagine anyone replacing him. I haven\u2019t met a person who could do everything he does. There are people who might have the comedic stature to keep the network and the critics at bay, but no one who can do it all. He\u2019s indispensable.<\/p>\n \n\tThose are the two I was thinking of. I just worry that no one has the mystique Lorne has. They maybe have their own kind of mystique, but it\u2019d be rough. I think it was Gilbert Gottfried who once said \u201cSNL\u201d is beyond good or bad, that it\u2019s a restaurant in a good location. But people need to remember that Lorne made it<\/em> a good location. It was a shitty location \u2014 a derelict neighborhood, metaphorically speaking. In the 1970s, there was nothing. They were showing Johnny Carson repeats or something. No one watched television on Saturday night, much less at that time. Half the country was in bed by the time our show came on \u2014 probably more than half. And yet, within a year, people were interrupting parties saying, \u201cHey everybody, it\u2019s 11:30!\u201d and everyone would crowd around the TV. That had never happened before. I\u2019m sure it stopped happening a long time ago, but at the time it was extraordinary.<\/p>\n \n\tIn the \u201970s, brunch was a big thing. After the show, we\u2019d have an after-party, and sometimes an after-after<\/em> party. We\u2019d get home around 5 a.m., wake up around noon, and crawl out to some restaurant for an omelet and a Bloody Mary. If you went to the bathroom and walked past the other tables, you\u2019d hear people reciting sketches from the night before. Sometimes you\u2019d want to correct them and say, \u201cExcuse me, it was Land Shark<\/em>, not\u2026\u201d whatever it was. I wish I\u2019d been older, more experienced, to appreciate it fully. It\u2019s a very heady thing to have as your first grown-up job.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \n\tHe was already a comic figure to us 30 years before he announced for president. I remember writing a Trump piece in 1984 or \u201985, and then another one around \u201987 that was a kind of \u201cGift of the Magi\u201d sketch. In it, Donald and Ivana Trump had given each other these profane, tasteless gifts \u2014 Trump bought the doors of the Sistine Chapel for the garage at Mar-a-Lago, and Ivana had ruined some sacred piece of art for a cheesy decoration. He always seemed like this beat-up, ridiculous character. I never had a great, fresh take on him.<\/p>\n \n\tI do think it\u2019s important to make fun of people, but to try to keep your own animus out of it \u2014 not out of fairness or respect for the MAGA audience, but because anger just makes the comedy less funny. Stridency makes it harder for me. Maybe others would disagree, but I was sick of him before he even ran for president. If I were still there, having to deal with him every week, I\u2019d go crazy. I love James Austin Johnson\u2019s impression. The way he plays Trump, with these insane mind excursions and wandering all over the place \u2014 is exactly right, and those pieces are really well written.<\/p>\n \n\tEvery once in a while, I\u2019ll have an idea. I don\u2019t try to think of them, but something may pop into my head while I\u2019m driving, and some of those ideas are so perishable they\u2019d only work that week. Sometimes I\u2019ll call into \u201cSNL\u201d and say, \u201cHey, I\u2019ve got something if you want it.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tDuring his first term, Trump kept bragging about having the lowest Black unemployment rate in U.S. history, and I gave Michael Che an \u201cUpdate\u201d joke that went, \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure during slavery times it was zero.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tI really wanted to write Al Gore for eight years. I thought he was such a strange, interesting character, and a fun person for Darrell Hammond to play. A lot of my friends said, \u201cOh, you lucked out \u2014 Bush is going to be so much easier to write than Gore.\u201d And I totally disagreed. I thought Gore would\u2019ve been much more fun. Bush fit too easily into that \u201cdumb hick\u201d stereotype, and that\u2019s mostly how he was portrayed. Gore, to me, was weirder, more nuanced, and more interesting.<\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s shockingly informal. I don\u2019t quite know what to make of it. I guess there\u2019s nothing I can do about it legally. Trump\u2019s tweets are just kind of semi-literate, but Vance can actually bite. I want the government to have a sense of decorum. You can be funny and<\/em> dignified, but that was\u2026 I was shocked.<\/p>\n \n\tI was never a fan. You have to earn the right to break. And you earn it by having a long track record of committing to the material, playing it straight, and not<\/em> breaking. Then, every once in a while, you\u2019re allowed. I never objected when John Mulaney would give Bill Hader Stefon jokes he\u2019d never seen before on-air, and Hader would fight like hell not to break. That, to me, is fine. Phil Hartman, for instance, may have been in more sketches than any cast member in history, and he broke exactly once, in a piece Jack Handey and I wrote. The set started to collapse around him. All hell broke loose. Everyone else in the cast was breaking, and Phil held out for as long as he could, but eventually he lost it. Then you had guys like Horatio Sanz, who I don\u2019t recall ever not<\/em> breaking. It always seemed cheap to me.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tNorm hated it. He thought it was an easy laugh. He used to say comedy is like Russian slaw: the cheap stuff can drive the good stuff out of circulation, because it\u2019s easier to make. He used to say his least favorite audience members were the ones who laughed and said, \u201cOh, that\u2019s cute.\u201d It\u2019s too cute. Too cloying. So, put me down as a hard no<\/em> on breaking.<\/p>\n \n\tNo, it unfolded in a completely organic way, moment to moment. The night before I did the show, I was talking to Paula Davis, one of Conan\u2019s producers, and she said to me, \u201cYou just need to have an \u2018I am blank<\/em> to be Conan\u2019s friend\u2019 thing ready.\u201d I called her back and said, \u201cHas anyone done \u201cI am entirely unashamed\u201d? Then, driving over to the studio, I realized I needed to think of something to justify it \u2014 it was kind of a tail-wagging-the-dog situation. I don\u2019t think I told them I was going to say \u201cJeffrey Epstein,\u201d but I didn\u2019t really know what I was going to do beyond that.<\/p>\n \n\tThere were also things we talked about but never got to, which is why I\u2019m supposed to go back and do Conan\u2019s podcast again, probably in the next couple of months. We were going to talk about Norm Macdonald \u2014 that was something we never got to. We spent so much time on the Epstein stuff. We might even return to Epstein, just for fun. It was wild, though, the way that bit had legs.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \n\tI thought that character was funny, but I also wanted to play it straight. On set, Paul doesn\u2019t rehearse a lot with the actors. He tends to trust you, like, \u201cYou know what I want, right?\u201d Then he\u2019ll fine-tune it. We ran through it a few times, and he asked me to try a few different things, but basically, I just wanted to make him happy. I\u2019m a huge fan of Paul and his work, so my attitude was: as long as you\u2019re sure I\u2019m not going to ruin your movie, I\u2019m thrilled to be here. I\u2019ll give you whatever I\u2019m capable of giving.<\/p>\n \n\tWe all played around. \u201cSemon demon\u201d was in the script. Some of the other lines Paul said we could take in different directions. But, no, I wasn\u2019t out there winging it. I\u2019ve written for other people for so many years, and I know how much it means when a performer really tries to do something the way you wrote it \u2014 the way you intended and imagined it. There\u2019s always room for surprise, but I don\u2019t have any ego about being a performer. I just go, \u201cHere\u2019s what you like,\u201d and when I\u2019d see Paul smiling behind the camera, I figured I was doing it right.<\/p>\n \n\tI have outside interests, personal things. What a lot people like me do now is send goofy emails or texts to old friends, often other writers. I\u2019m constantly texting back and forth with George Meyer, who wrote for \u201cThe Simpsons\u201d and worked with me at \u201cLetterman\u201d 45 years ago. Jack Handey, another great writer, and I have had this running joke for more than 40 years where we write each other emails or call each other as attorneys threatening to sue one another. It involves this mix of performance and writing \u2014 we create these fake legal documents and send them back and forth. It actually takes up a fair amount of time. Sometimes Jack will call, and when I see his name on the caller ID, I won\u2019t pick up because I can\u2019t think of anything to say as my angry attorney character screaming at him. So a lot of my comedy energy gets burned up in those ways.<\/p>\n \n\tSomewhere in my texts and old notebooks, there are things I\u2019d like to pursue at some point. I may do a guest writing week at \u201cSNL\u201d again \u2014 I could walk in with a couple of sketches I\u2019ve already thought about, just because I\u2019d like to see them done. I think Lorne vaguely doesn\u2019t trust that someone my age could write something that appeals to an 18-year-old audience \u2014 and he may well be right. He trusts me if I\u2019m writing something political, because that\u2019s more grown-up stuff anyway. But I still have sketch ideas I\u2019ve always wanted to try.<\/p>\n \n\tOne was an instructional video about texting while driving responsibly.<\/em> It would just be explaining that there\u2019s a right way to text while driving and a wrong way, and we\u2019re here to show you. That\u2019s probably something that would run into standards issues, by the way.<\/p>\n \n\tYes, because it\u2019s taking a lighthearted approach to a serious problem. Back in the \u201970s, our standards battles were more like, \u201cYou can\u2019t say \u2018pussy,\u2019 it\u2019s a dirty word.\u201d Then later there was one where you couldn\u2019t say \u201cbastard\u201d \u2014 not because it was considered a dirty word anymore, but because it might be offensive to children whose parents weren\u2019t married. So the reasoning changed. And now, you\u2019re more likely to run into notes that say, \u201cThere\u2019s nothing funny about X.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThere\u2019s always a degree-of-difficulty factor in comedy. That was something Norm and I were really in sync about. There are certain things you know are going to get a laugh. You don\u2019t need to be proud of it. It\u2019s like this: if you can get a 13-year-old kid to enjoy sea urchin sashimi, that\u2019s a real fucking achievement. Getting him to like banana cream pie is not. You don\u2019t say, \u201cDid you see that? He ate it right up!\u201d Yeah, of course he did \u2014 it\u2019s fucking banana cream pie.<\/p>\n \n\tOur favorite \u201cUpdate\u201d jokes made the audience go: \u201cOh, you fuckers. I disapprove of what you\u2019re doing, but I have to admit it\u2019s funny. I can\u2019t help it.\u201d That\u2019s very different from the reaction: \u201cWhat you did isn\u2019t really funny, but I agree with your political stance, so I\u2019m going to applaud anyway.\u201d We always preferred the jokes that made people feel a little bad for laughing, not because they were cruel or dirty or juvenile, but because they pushed against comfort a bit. A lot of our O.J. Simpson jokes fell into that category. At a certain point, the relentlessness itself became part of the joke \u2014 the fact that we just refused to stop doing them.<\/p>\n \n\tI agree that comedy should be challenging. What I hate is pandering. I think most of us do. You still see a little of it on the show sometimes, but for the most part, the show\u2019s done a pretty good job of keeping its standards \u2014 trying to do things the right way, not taking shortcuts, not getting too corny, lazy, sappy, or warm and cuddly.<\/p>\n \n\tThis interview has been edited and condensed.<\/em><\/p>\n In comedy, few are as influential \u2014 and elusive \u2014 as Jim Downey. During his 30-year tenure as a writer on \u201cSaturday Night Live,\u201d he penned era-defining sketches like Chris Farley\u2019s \u201cChippendales Audition\u201d and defined the show\u2019s political satire with Dana Carvey\u2019s George H.W. Bush (\u201cna ga da it\u201d) and Will Ferrell\u2019s W. Bush (\u201cstrategery\u201d).\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[3897,16214,17892,8362,17893,7983,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-30532","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-bit","9":"tag-downey","10":"tag-jeffreyepstein","11":"tag-jim","12":"tag-obaa","13":"tag-snl","14":"tag-trump"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
In a phone interview with Variety<\/em>, while Downey is on vacation in Bermuda, he\u2019s joyously long-winded and generous with his time. When I suggest a word-association game, instructing Downey to provide just one- or two-word answers, he can\u2019t help himself, gushing for minutes on end about his friends and collaborators. While our conversation was initially slotted for 20 minutes, it runs over an hour, with Downey thwarting multiple attempts to set him free. \u201cGo ahead, I\u2019ll take all the questions you have,\u201d he says when I try to wrap at the 45-minute mark. And, 20 minutes later, when I thank him for \u201cgoing long,\u201d he corrects me: \u201cNo, this has not been a long interview. Keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t\tYou famously shared an office at \u201cSNL\u201d with Bill Murray. Is there something about the lack of sleep and personal space that breeds comedic creativity?\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tYou say in the documentary that you were once the youngest writer on \u201cSNL\u201d and once the oldest. What was the biggest change in the show between those years?\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tYou helped put together the \u201cIn Memoriam\u201d segment on \u201cSNL50,\u201d which honored the characters and sketches that haven\u2019t aged well.\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tWhat was it like coming back for \u201cSNL50\u201d?\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tFrom a viewer\u2019s perspective, it did feel like a culmination, even though the show is, of course, continuing.\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tI\u2019d like to play a word association game, if you\u2019re up for it. I\u2019ll give you a name, and you say the first thing that comes to mind.\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tAdam Sandler.\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tNorm Macdonald.\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tDavid Letterman.\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tLorne Michaels.\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tWhat will happen to \u201cSNL\u201d after Lorne retires?\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tTina Fey and Seth Meyers are the names that get brought up.\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tYou finally left \u201cSNL\u201d in 2013, two years before the rise of Donald Trump as a major political figure. Were you sitting on the sidelines saying, \u201cPut me in coach!\u201d?\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tDo you have an example?\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tIs there a politician you wish you could have satirized more?\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tYou\u2019ve often described your political comedy as apolitical. What do you make of the Trump administration attempting to infuse comedy into their rhetoric? The DHS recently quoted your monologue from \u201cBilly Madison\u201d in a social media post defending ICE.\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tWhat is your take on breaking? It seems to be more embraced these days at \u201cSNL\u201d than in the past.\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tYour Jeffrey Epstein bit on Conan O\u2019Brien\u2019s podcast became an internet phenomenon. Was that spontaneous, or was Conan aware you were going to do that bit on the show?\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tYou played a member of an exclusive white supremacist group in Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s \u201cOne Battle After Another.\u201d When reading the script, did you anticipate how funny the film would play on screen?\u00a0\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tDid you improvise at all?\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tAside from calling into \u201cSNL\u201d every once in a while, what do you do with your ideas? Are you writing something? Are you trying to act more?\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tLike what?\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tReally?\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tBut isn\u2019t that the point of comedy? To find the funny in things that aren\u2019t funny?\t<\/h5>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"