Season on SNL: 1st Famous for: Being the newest addition to the SNL cast and a member of New York's The Upright Citizens Brigade (co-founded by Amy Poehler)
On whether he gets hit on more now that he's on SNL: "Yes," says Moynihan. "But then they ask for tickets. So, no."
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Come on ladies! Give Bobby a date without trying to get tickets!!!
Bobby Moynihan is such a nice guy! We bolded the Bobby stuff. Read on...
I am a Saturday Night Live junkie - so much so that at times I have trouble hiding how big of a fan when that little thing called professionalism may be at stake. It was so apparent in the interview I conducted with current featured player Bobby Moynihan - a self-described "SNL" nerd himself - that he casually mentioned the prospect of me attending a show.
Now I could tell Bobby was a really nice guy, but I thought he was just trying to be polite. I was pleasantly surprised (read: screamed like a 12 year old girl!) when a week later he followed up on that invitation and asked if I wanted to hang out in the writers' room for the March 14 episode Tracy Morgan was hosting. Answer: Yes...yes I would.
You know how some companies advertise "behind the scene" tours but really there is nothing "behind the scenes" about it? This was going through my head right up to the point that Seth Meyers and Keenan Thompson had to slightly move out of the way - in the surprisingly narrow hallways - so I could get past them and take my seat in the writers' room. Yes, I was in studio 8H. Yes, I was backstage at "Saturday Night Live."
When you enter the writers' room on the ninth floor, the first thing you notice are the photos of every cast member lining the walls in, from what I could tell, no particular order. For example, Tina Fey's picture was right next to Rob Schneider's. From the doorway there's a window on the right that looks down to the studio on the eighth floor from which the writers' (sort of) watch the show from a table in the middle of the room. Lining the room are couches and chairs that I have to assume have been there since 1975. This is where the people that have no business being in that room sit. This is where I sat.
The room was crowded. Before the show started Bobby Moynihan came up to say hello. He mentioned usually the room is not this crowded but 30 Rock had finished shooting for the season and half the cast and writers were in attendance. And yes, I had noticed Scott Adsit - looking very non-Pete Hornberger in a full suit - and Judah Friedlander - looking very Judah Friedlander in his trademark hat - walking in and out of the room. And this would be a theme for the evening: random celebrities walking in and walking out. At one point Bill Paxton from Big Love walked in. On my "Air Rundown" sheet I noticed there was a "Big Love" sketch scheduled right after Weekend Update. This was true, but Paxton had no part in it.
Surreal became my word of the night. Being in a room that I had read so many stories about was surreal. Watching the "Saturday Night Live" broadcast with the people that actually wrote the sketches was surreal. Watching the show and having Will Forte politely tap me on the shoulder so he could get by was surreal. Watching Seth Meyers on the closed circuit television wearing a suit give his sign off from Weekend Update, then, five minutes later, having a white tee-shirt wearing Seth Meyers leaning in the doorway watching the same closed circuit television was surreal. Being told we could not go on set to watch Kelly Clarkson - usually everyone in the writers' room can watch the musical act from the set but on this night it was too crowded - and sharing a look of disappointment with Judah Friedlander was surreal. On the way back up to the writers' room, almost being run over by a very focused looking Tracy Morgan in the stairwell was...well, that was just scary; that was one intense looking dude.
After the show an exhausted and a bit deflated looking - he had a sketch cut at the last minute - Bobby Moynihan asked if I wanted a tour of the set; Bobby Moynihan asks a lot of questions that there is no possible chance I would ever say "no" to. He needed to stop by his dressing room to change before we went down to the set. While I was waiting outside his dressing room I had never felt so out of place in my life. Andy Samberg and Bill Hader were hanging out to my left discussing Hader's John Malkovich impression that he had done on update earlier. Casey Wilson, Fred Armisen and his fiance, Mad Men's Elisabeth Moss, pass me in the hallway. Kristen Wiig and a couple friends were hanging out in her dressing room to my right. It's kind of like being the nerdiest dude at a party (this is something I have experienced quite often) with really cool people - so cool, in fact, that you don't care that you're not talking to anyone ... you just want to be able to say, someday, that you were there.
I finally see a familiar face. I have no idea what came over me, but the nervousness was gone and I went straight over and started talking to Chris Parnell. Now, I really don't know Chris Parnell, but I had spent about 45 minutes on the phone with him for an interview ... close enough. I think it took him a minute to remember who I was, but I didn't care. The man who plays Dr. Spaceman was, at this point, the only semblance of reality I had to cling onto.
I've been in a lot of small television studios before including David Letterman and Conan O'Brien. "Saturday Night Live" is bigger than those ... but not by a lot. There are surprisingly few seats in the studio, hence the almost impossible nature of getting a ticket. Bobby suggested going up on stage for a photo; I was almost scared to do so. I almost felt like I should just keep my eyes shut like Indiana Jones when Belloq opened the Ark of the Covenant. Also, to be honest, I felt a little nerdy taking photos. Bobby made it clear I could hang out in the studio the rest of the evening taking photos and not be able to come close to the amount of photos he had already taken. OK, fair enough. So, yes, for a few moments I was standing right where every host had stood before me: Steve Martin, George Carlin, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken ... I almost shouted out, "We have a great show tonight! Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are here! Stick around!" -- I did successfully fight off this temptation.
Bobby said there was something he wanted to show me on the side of the set. We walk up a few stairs and turn around to see a sign that says, "Watch Your Head." Bobby told me to look closer. Right after the warning was the word "Farley." Chris Farley used to hit his head so often on that sign as he went down the stairs that he carved his name into the sign as a reminder. Moynihan said it was also a reminder to him ... a reminder to never forget where he is and how special that really is. Even on a night, like this one, where an important sketch was cut at the last minute, he still works in a place where that sign exists. Bobby Moynihan says that he never forgets that sign. You know what? Neither will I.
Wow. That is phenominal. Bobby is such a nice guy. I doubt Bobby did this for free publicity (for him and the show), but that's what he got.
Some important information was revealed here:
(1) Bobby's one of the nicest guys on the planet.
(2) The pictures on the walls aren't in order.
(3) SNL lets lots of people hang out and watch, which is pretty cool.
(4) Bill Paxton was there but not on SNL. He must have heard about the Big Love skit and wanted to see it (but not be in it; not sure if he got that offer).
(5) Bobby had a sketch cut at the last minute from the latest episode of SNL.
Who here isn't an unabashed nerd when it comes to Saturday Night Live? We read all the books, collect the DVD's, study the history. You know who else is a self-admitted Saturday Night Live nerd? Bobby Moynihan. The difference? He's actually on the show.
Bobby joins us for a look back on his first -- and what turned out to be a historic -- year on the show and what it's like to work side-by-side with Beyonce Knowles, Justin Timberlake, Jon Hamm, Anne Hathaway and James Franco; plus, why he's looking so forward to March 14th. Again, it's always great to speak to someone who so obviously loves what they do.
Mike: You worked on Conan O'Brien's show, right?
Bobby: Yeah, yeah. A couple of years.
Mike: How would you describe the difference between doing a sketch on Conan -- the preparation involved -- or Upright Citizens Brigade, as opposed to SNL?
Bobby: I guess it's weirdly similar. [On] Conan, it was like: here's your bit and we're not going to tell you what it is until you get there (laughs). We're going to rehearse it once and then we're going to tape it live. It didn't go out on TV live but you only had one chance to do it so if you screwed up ... that was it. So, it was similar ... I guess it was actually the same exact thing except it's on a much bigger scale at SNL ... where it's in history forever so it's nerve racking (laughs). But, I did a lot weirder stuff on Conan; a lot of fat guy in his underwear stuff.
Mike: What was your first meeting with Lorne [Michaels] like?
Bobby: It was so amazing. I felt so lucky, I left the building that day going: The chances of getting SNL are so minuscule but at least I got to have that experience. At least he thought of me enough to even bring me in. It was the coolest thing in the world.
I felt like I was lied to, a little bit ... I worked with a couple of guys from SNL at Upright Citizens Brigade before I got it and everyone was kind of prompting me like: Don't do bits, don't try to be funny ... it was essentially: be yourself but don't be yourself, because, I'm kind of an idiot (laughs). I went in there and weirdly enough it was like talking to an old friend; I felt like I was on a first date. I was nervous and he was just asking me about my family and he seemed really interested. And he was asking me a lot of old SNL questions -- and I'm a super nerd about it.
He was like, "Do you see anything in my office you like?" Which I thought was funny.
And I was like, "That mug over there is the 'Worlds Best Boss' mug that you used for the Rainn Wilson episode on The Office sketch.
He was like, "Oh that mug next to those Emmys," (laughs) so he's a funny dude.
Mike: I wonder: Is it harder to come on in the middle of the season -- like Casey [Wilson] did or like Michaela [Watkins] and Abby [Elliott] just did -- or start fresh at the beginning of a season.
Bobby: It's weird. I feel so lucky for the timing of everything ... I came in with all of the Sarah Palin stuff right at the beginning of the season. I think I came in at the best time but also the hardest time because we had ten shows in eight weeks.
I know a lot of the other cast-members were like: This is pretty crazy, it's never like this. Now that we are going into two weeks on/two weeks off for the rest of the season it's almost like it's not work. It was every single week ... plus the Thursday shows. You just start and the next thing you know you're in a moose costume with Sarah Palin ... I can't believe there's only six episodes left in this season.
Mike: I've been guilty of this as a viewer: You get comfortable with the cast then, all of a sudden, someone else has been added and as a viewer you are like, "Well now, who is this?" Do you think it's more important, at first, to just get as much screen time as possible or to establish reoccurring characters like Mark Payne?
Bobby: Obviously it's good to get screen time and all that stuff ... The Mark Payne thing, I've been doing that for years and I can't believe that it got on in the first episode and that I've done more since then.
My second episode, one of the writers wrote that "Of Mice and Men" sketch I did with James Franco and I was petrified because it was just me and him. It was one of those sketches where it's not a bunch of fart sounds, it was like you had to think about it a tiny bit ... the last thing I want to do is screw up, at all. Half because I don't want to get fired and half because I respect the show so much.
Mike: You wrote the Beyoncé sketch... That got a lot of attention.
Bobby: The story of that sketch is insane to me because I came in on Monday and went up to one of the writers, John Lutz ... who I think is a genius ... and I was like: Hey man, I've got this dumb idea for Beyoncé where me and Andy [Samberg] are the backup dancers. I just thought it would be funny to get in those outfits and do that. Essentially it was like: That's a great idea but she won't do it. When she's done the show before she likes to really focus on her performances...
But, we wrote it up anyway and handed it in and it didn't get picked and it was just, you know, she's not going to do it. On Thursday me and Andy saw her and went into her dressing room and we were just like, "hey," and she was super nice -- the most angelic creature you've ever seen -- and we told her the idea and she started laughing and she's like, "You're going to get in those outfits?" and we were like, "yeah, that's the plan." She was like, "That's amazing. I'll do it, but I'll do it if it's pre-taped because on the night I want to focus on the performances."
Lorne was like, "We're not going to do it, we don't do pre-tapes." So ,that was it. The next thing you know they're on the phone with Justin Timberlake and he's in town. An hour later he comes over and convinces Beyoncé to do it live ... if you look at the picture it's Paul Rudd, Beyoncé, me, Andy and Justin. I feel like it's one of those things where somebody superimposed me into that picture ... from the time I pitched the idea, exactly a week later, I'm sitting at my house looking at it in Entertainment Weekly and I was just like: What the hell have I done?
Mike: Is there an inspiration for Mark Payne?
Bobby: (Laughs) I was a bartender at a Pizzeria, Uno's, for nine years. The people I worked with were amazing but it was quite possibly the most miserable time of my life (laughs). Just being a bartender at a chain restaurant ... a lot of that stuff is real, people that I came in contact with, bits of information that I kept over the years. The last line of that sketch was, "Oh snap, I left my kid on the bus," and I actually heard somebody say that -- one of my co-workers. You write that down: so that just happened -- I'm going to remember that the rest of my life.
That's the way I wish I had acted towards customers; I wish I had just been a maniac and said whatever I wanted to and not care about the consequences. The Uno's that comes up a the very beginning of the sketch is the Uno's that I worked at; They went and shot the one I actually worked at.
Mike: I do love your impression of Snagglepuss. Where did you come up with the idea that we really needed a parody of a Hanna-Barbera cartoon?
Bobby: The first time I auditioned you had to do some characters and some impressions and impressions terrify me. You look at people like Bill [Hader] and Darrell [Hammond] and Fred [Armisen] who are just mimics. They talk to you for two minutes, they get down to your essence and can do you perfectly. But, I'm not like that.
I did Turtle from Entourage and Hurley from Lost for my first audition. They weren't really impressions as much as they were just chubby dudes with beards that I resembled. For my second audition, when I went back a year later, I think I did Nathan Lane, Jack Black and I had to do something else ... and the only impression I think I do well is Snagglepuss and I've been doing it since I was a kid.
On the subway there to the audition I was like: I've got to throw in another impression. At least it will make them laugh that I did it; that I actually showed up in front of Lorne Michaels and did a Snagglepuss impression. Then it's one of those things where, like, that Prop 8 stuff was going on and I was like: Oh, who would be good to comment on this? Then you get that idea that it might be funny if it's Snagglepuss. Then it's like: This will never get on the air, but, at least it will get a laugh at the table. Then it ended up getting in ... be careful what you wish for.
Mike: You guys are off this week, right?
Bobby: Yes
Mike: Have they announced the next hosts yet?
Bobby: It's The Rock, Dwayne Johnson [March 7] and then Tracy Morgan after that [March 14] which I'm super psyched for ... this is first time coming back since he was a cast member and he's super excited to do it but he's also, you know, I think he's a pretty legendary maniac. I just can't wait to see what's going to happen! And my dream of quite possibly being in an "Astronaut Jones" is ... I think that's one of the funniest sketches in the world. I want Tracy Morgan to be insane.
