Bill Hader is a certified film nerd, a walking, talking Letterboxd account ready to discuss Federico Fellini or Billy Wilder at the drop of a hat. So it was no wonder that he geeked out when esteemed movie director Martin Scorsese dropped by Saturday Night Live for a comedy cameo.
While Scorsese has never hosted, he has a long history with the show and Lorne Michaels, according to Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live. Scorsese met up with Michaels in Italy at a Bob Dylan concert afterparty in the 1970s. A man whom Michaels identified as a dealer connected to Scorsese laid out lines of powder that sent several sniffers vomiting out a window (the stuff was heroin, not cocaine); Scorsese was hospitalized for addiction soon thereafter.
Later, Michaels rented spare offices in his Broadway Video building to Scorsese. The director also showed up with Robert De Niro for SNL cameos on the night Joe Pesci hosted in 1997.
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But Hader wouldn’t get his shot with Scorsese until 2012, when the director appeared with Sacha Baron Cohen to promote The Dictator during Weekend Update. “It was better than Raging Bull,” Scorsese stammered under the threat of electric shock.
Hader freaked when he found out Scorsese was in the 30 Rock building, he recently told Ari Aster on the A24 Podcast. “I just went into his dressing room and immediately I’m like, ‘I’m going to go see a Shirley Clark movie tomorrow,’” Hader said, the first line in a string of movie babble that he remembered as “blah blah blah blah blah.”
Scorsese was polite to Hader. “I just wanted to rap with him so badly about movies,” Hader said. “And I could tell he was like… ‘Good! Oh yeah, you’re great. Yeah, you’re great.’”
The interaction didn’t last long as one of Michaels’ minions arrived and yoinked Hader out of the room. “The producer pulled my shirt, like, ‘Bill, get out of his dressing room, please,’” remembered an embarrassed Hader. The whole scene sounds like something out of a Chris Farley Show sketch.
Hader realized he’d committed a Farley-esque faux pas. “That’s one of those things like for two weeks, I’m like, ‘What the fuck was wrong with me? Why did I do that?’”
Fellow superfan Aster understood all too well. “I’ve only met (Scorsese) so many times,” he confessed, “and every time I’m paralyzed by the need to make him love me.”
Hader ran down a list of other famous directors he’s met since his goof-up, but none of those interactions inspired the facepalms he gave himself after invading Scorsese’s personal space. Fortunately, the director seems not to have taken offense.
“I’ve seen him since then,” said Hader, “and it was great.”
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