Dan Aykroyd
PH: Is it a big deal to you to be a star?
Aykroyd: Wel, you know, star spelled backwards spells rats. Every coin has two sides. And being a star is not my profession. I wouldn't call myself that, I think I'm an originator, a creator-writer, you know? Performer is a better word than star. But of course, we operate on a star system. You have to produce, and you have to be profitable for the megacorporations that back you. That's if you want to continue to be a star.
PH: What if it all ended tomorrow?
Aykroyd: I could adapt very easily to doing some other things. I feel I've reached the pinnacle of success in this industry; I've worked with the great directors of our time: Spielberg and Landis, Pressman, to name just a few. I've won an Emmy award for my work on "S.N.L." and appeared on television and been appreciated and had people come up to me with smiles on their faces, filled with goodwill. It it all just went away tomorrow, I've done it.
PH: Who came up with the idea for "Saturday Night Live?"
Aykroyd: It was Lorne Michaels, primarily. Also Dick Ebersol and David Tebet, an executive at NBC.
PH: Did they call you for an audition?
Aykroyd: There were massive cattle calls. I went to one, saw the number of people there, and said, "I will not audition. I am not going to do a piece, I'm not going to do a reading, I'm not going to do anything. I'm going to go in and say hllo to Lorne because he's an old friend; I'm going to meet the director and then I'm leaving." I was in the room for about a minute and a half. I wasn't going to get lost in a sea of 150 performers. I know my talents and capabilities and limits. I know that I'm best in a one-on-one situation. I fyou want me to work for you, you've got to hire me and give me a try. I want some faith. And these guys knew my work. Lorne knew me from Second City. We talked about the show and he said, "If it ever comes to fruition, would you like to be involved?" I said, "Certainly." But he hedged on hiring me, and he hedged on hiring John, too. And Bill Murray.
PH: Why?
Aykroyd: Because he saw three turbulaent males who potentially could have been harmful to the harmony of the enterprise.
PH: So was there disruption to the harmony?
Aykroyd: All the time. I put my foot through the wall once because I thought the writers were being maligned a little bit. We'd write a piece, we'd set it, and then Lorne or Dave Wilson, the director, would come and say, "This has to be changed." We'd end up changing, changing, changing right up to air time. Andit screwed everybody up--the cue-card people, the prop people didn't know whether they were coming or going. So I finally put my foot through the wall and said, "Hey! Let's do a piece and at a certain point just stop." There was a little revolution there, but nothing that couldn't be worked out. No grudges ever borne. Sometimes people wouldn't agree on certain characterizations or on who should be assigned what role. The person left out of a scene might make a fuss. But these were just little things that went on all the time in the natural order of a working day.
PH: When the show first started, did you have absolute confidence that it was going to work?
Aykroyd: No, absolutely not. I thought that we'd do seven shows and it probably wouldn't go anywhere. But then it caught on, and the medium was there, the opportunity was there to do anything. So I jumped in and gave my all.
PH: How did you develop the concept of the coneheads?
Aykroyd: I was watching television and realized that people's heads are only a certain height on the screen. And then I thought, wouldn't it be great if they were four inches higher? And so I just drew that picture up. And after I drew that up and the Coneheads were on the show, I saw this cartoon called "Zippy, the Pinhead." I hadn't seen Zippy before, but he was pretty different anyway. He isn't from outer space and he's just a pinhead, not a conehead. I drew the original graphic up, and then Tom Davis and Lorne and I developed it. It was done in concert--it wasn't just one man's effort.
PH: Is that how most routines were worked up?
Aykroyd: Yes. It was such a terrific thing. The writer could write a piece and then just go down and produce it. He would make sure all the props were correct; he wold sit there and nurse his piece along right to the air time. So every writer was really a producer. It was a real workshop. I'd work with the director, with the sound people, the camera people--I'd work on the camera angles, things like that. Everything was done with the cooperation of lots of people, but each individual writer could really carry the ball on his pieces.
PH: Did you have more freedom doing that show than you have doing films?
Aykroyd: When you do a film, it's pretty much rigidly scripted. But "S.N.L." was too. It's funny to say that, because, of course, the effect was supposed to be so spontaneous. But we'd spend eight hours just blocking sketches for the cameras--moving very slowly, taking positions, repeating lines. It was interminable. We'd spend two days of the week just standing there, moving from mark to mark, going throught the action again adn again while the cameras were set. those were a really a tough couple of days. So then when Saturday Night came, you couldn't possibley deviate from the script. Once the script was set and the cards were set, that was it. Do you know I never learned a line for that show? the whole thing was on cue cards. I read every word. Everyone did.
PH: Did that ever cause problems?
Aykroyd: I remember one awful time, when Frank Zappa was one. We were doing the Coneheads scene, which Frank loved. We were all in position to do it when Frank, said, "What am I supposed to do? Read these cards?" It totally broke the reality; it was awful.
PH: Why did he do that?
Aykroyd: I don't know. Maybe he thought he was above the whole thing or he was nervous or he didn't like the script. Maybe he thought he was being funny. But in fact the audience sort of gasped. But you deal with that kind of thing. That wasn't the only problem that night. the cone kept collapsing and coming down on my nose, and we were sweating underneath. We used to have to get into those things in a minute and a half.
PH: What does it feel like when the comedy doesn't work?
Aykroyd: Like death. Death on wheels. Terrible. Dying. That's how we refer to it: "I was dying up there." And let me tell you, I have died up there. My brother and I had a routein of two guys who sit down in a restaurant and instead of eating the food, they inhale it whole. So we did this shluuuuuuuuuuurrrppppp inhaling thing. And it died on stage. Nobody laughed. We thought it was the greatest thing. But we kept on doing the sketch until it ended. You just commit yourself when you start a sketch; you can't think about it midway through.
PH: How often did that happen on "Saturday Night Live?"
Aykroyd: It happened sometimes. Oh, sometimes there would be just nothing. No response, no response. We'd finish a spot, the lights would come up, the applause sign would come on, and there was silence. We always had an applause sign, by the way. The audience wouldn't always know when a scene ended. But sometimes they just wouldn't respond. It might have been a result of weak material. Or maybe it was just an off night. Some audiences were a lot thicker than others. Some were real sharp, some were real thick.
PH: When did you start getting tired of the show?
Aykroyd: I guess in the end of the third year. We started to repeat bits and do them over and over agian, and the novelty was lost. And John was called to do Animal House. I was called to do Animal House too, but chose to stay with the show to write. Films were beckoning, though. It seemed that we had to move on.
Also, it was very hard. It was a six-day work week. A hard grind, with no outside life at all.
PH: This didn't bother you in the beginning?
Aykroyd: In the beginning, in the first three years, it was fantastic, because it was the hottest job in town. We were working in Rockefeller Plaza. There was real joy. And impact in the involvement.
PH: Did it go to anyone's head?
Aykroyd: No, because we knew how fast and how volatile this industry is. We didn't hold any illusions. We thought of ourselves as cheap, late-night television actors. That's what John and I used to call ourselves all the time. And even when we were out in Hollywood we'd say, "Hey I don't know why we're on this film set. We're just cheap, late-night television actors." And that was fine with me. I was a cheap late-night television actor who made people laugh. That was good enough for me.
PH: Did you have a sense all along that everything was going to work out as well as it did?
Aykroyd: I've always thought that certain things can be controlled, but fate is prettty random. I believe that, to a certain extent, you can direct things to happen the way you want by positive thinking. By negative thinking, too. If you want something badly enough, and you positively about in the tradition of Glenn W. Turner and Norman Vincent Peale, then things can happen. You can become great and do great things if you think that way. If you think negatively, negative things well occur. Then wild card, obviously, is that you don't really have any determining ability in being able to plan everything.
PH: Is it a big deal to you to be a star?
Aykroyd: Wel, you know, star spelled backwards spells rats. Every coin has two sides. And being a star is not my profession. I wouldn't call myself that, I think I'm an originator, a creator-writer, you know? Performer is a better word than star. But of course, we operate on a star system. You have to produce, and you have to be profitable for the megacorporations that back you. That's if you want to continue to be a star.
PH: What if it all ended tomorrow?
Aykroyd: I could adapt very easily to doing some other things. I feel I've reached the pinnacle of success in this industry; I've worked with the great directors of our time: Spielberg and Landis, Pressman, to name just a few. I've won an Emmy award for my work on "S.N.L." and appeared on television and been appreciated and had people come up to me with smiles on their faces, filled with goodwill. It it all just went away tomorrow, I've done it.
PH: Who came up with the idea for "Saturday Night Live?"
Aykroyd: It was Lorne Michaels, primarily. Also Dick Ebersol and David Tebet, an executive at NBC.
PH: Did they call you for an audition?
Aykroyd: There were massive cattle calls. I went to one, saw the number of people there, and said, "I will not audition. I am not going to do a piece, I'm not going to do a reading, I'm not going to do anything. I'm going to go in and say hllo to Lorne because he's an old friend; I'm going to meet the director and then I'm leaving." I was in the room for about a minute and a half. I wasn't going to get lost in a sea of 150 performers. I know my talents and capabilities and limits. I know that I'm best in a one-on-one situation. I fyou want me to work for you, you've got to hire me and give me a try. I want some faith. And these guys knew my work. Lorne knew me from Second City. We talked about the show and he said, "If it ever comes to fruition, would you like to be involved?" I said, "Certainly." But he hedged on hiring me, and he hedged on hiring John, too. And Bill Murray.
PH: Why?
Aykroyd: Because he saw three turbulaent males who potentially could have been harmful to the harmony of the enterprise.
PH: So was there disruption to the harmony?
Aykroyd: All the time. I put my foot through the wall once because I thought the writers were being maligned a little bit. We'd write a piece, we'd set it, and then Lorne or Dave Wilson, the director, would come and say, "This has to be changed." We'd end up changing, changing, changing right up to air time. Andit screwed everybody up--the cue-card people, the prop people didn't know whether they were coming or going. So I finally put my foot through the wall and said, "Hey! Let's do a piece and at a certain point just stop." There was a little revolution there, but nothing that couldn't be worked out. No grudges ever borne. Sometimes people wouldn't agree on certain characterizations or on who should be assigned what role. The person left out of a scene might make a fuss. But these were just little things that went on all the time in the natural order of a working day.
PH: When the show first started, did you have absolute confidence that it was going to work?
Aykroyd: No, absolutely not. I thought that we'd do seven shows and it probably wouldn't go anywhere. But then it caught on, and the medium was there, the opportunity was there to do anything. So I jumped in and gave my all.
PH: How did you develop the concept of the coneheads?
Aykroyd: I was watching television and realized that people's heads are only a certain height on the screen. And then I thought, wouldn't it be great if they were four inches higher? And so I just drew that picture up. And after I drew that up and the Coneheads were on the show, I saw this cartoon called "Zippy, the Pinhead." I hadn't seen Zippy before, but he was pretty different anyway. He isn't from outer space and he's just a pinhead, not a conehead. I drew the original graphic up, and then Tom Davis and Lorne and I developed it. It was done in concert--it wasn't just one man's effort.
PH: Is that how most routines were worked up?
Aykroyd: Yes. It was such a terrific thing. The writer could write a piece and then just go down and produce it. He would make sure all the props were correct; he wold sit there and nurse his piece along right to the air time. So every writer was really a producer. It was a real workshop. I'd work with the director, with the sound people, the camera people--I'd work on the camera angles, things like that. Everything was done with the cooperation of lots of people, but each individual writer could really carry the ball on his pieces.
PH: Did you have more freedom doing that show than you have doing films?
Aykroyd: When you do a film, it's pretty much rigidly scripted. But "S.N.L." was too. It's funny to say that, because, of course, the effect was supposed to be so spontaneous. But we'd spend eight hours just blocking sketches for the cameras--moving very slowly, taking positions, repeating lines. It was interminable. We'd spend two days of the week just standing there, moving from mark to mark, going throught the action again adn again while the cameras were set. those were a really a tough couple of days. So then when Saturday Night came, you couldn't possibley deviate from the script. Once the script was set and the cards were set, that was it. Do you know I never learned a line for that show? the whole thing was on cue cards. I read every word. Everyone did.
PH: Did that ever cause problems?
Aykroyd: I remember one awful time, when Frank Zappa was one. We were doing the Coneheads scene, which Frank loved. We were all in position to do it when Frank, said, "What am I supposed to do? Read these cards?" It totally broke the reality; it was awful.
PH: Why did he do that?
Aykroyd: I don't know. Maybe he thought he was above the whole thing or he was nervous or he didn't like the script. Maybe he thought he was being funny. But in fact the audience sort of gasped. But you deal with that kind of thing. That wasn't the only problem that night. the cone kept collapsing and coming down on my nose, and we were sweating underneath. We used to have to get into those things in a minute and a half.
PH: What does it feel like when the comedy doesn't work?
Aykroyd: Like death. Death on wheels. Terrible. Dying. That's how we refer to it: "I was dying up there." And let me tell you, I have died up there. My brother and I had a routein of two guys who sit down in a restaurant and instead of eating the food, they inhale it whole. So we did this shluuuuuuuuuuurrrppppp inhaling thing. And it died on stage. Nobody laughed. We thought it was the greatest thing. But we kept on doing the sketch until it ended. You just commit yourself when you start a sketch; you can't think about it midway through.
PH: How often did that happen on "Saturday Night Live?"
Aykroyd: It happened sometimes. Oh, sometimes there would be just nothing. No response, no response. We'd finish a spot, the lights would come up, the applause sign would come on, and there was silence. We always had an applause sign, by the way. The audience wouldn't always know when a scene ended. But sometimes they just wouldn't respond. It might have been a result of weak material. Or maybe it was just an off night. Some audiences were a lot thicker than others. Some were real sharp, some were real thick.
PH: When did you start getting tired of the show?
Aykroyd: I guess in the end of the third year. We started to repeat bits and do them over and over agian, and the novelty was lost. And John was called to do Animal House. I was called to do Animal House too, but chose to stay with the show to write. Films were beckoning, though. It seemed that we had to move on.
Also, it was very hard. It was a six-day work week. A hard grind, with no outside life at all.
PH: This didn't bother you in the beginning?
Aykroyd: In the beginning, in the first three years, it was fantastic, because it was the hottest job in town. We were working in Rockefeller Plaza. There was real joy. And impact in the involvement.
PH: Did it go to anyone's head?
Aykroyd: No, because we knew how fast and how volatile this industry is. We didn't hold any illusions. We thought of ourselves as cheap, late-night television actors. That's what John and I used to call ourselves all the time. And even when we were out in Hollywood we'd say, "Hey I don't know why we're on this film set. We're just cheap, late-night television actors." And that was fine with me. I was a cheap late-night television actor who made people laugh. That was good enough for me.
PH: Did you have a sense all along that everything was going to work out as well as it did?
Aykroyd: I've always thought that certain things can be controlled, but fate is prettty random. I believe that, to a certain extent, you can direct things to happen the way you want by positive thinking. By negative thinking, too. If you want something badly enough, and you positively about in the tradition of Glenn W. Turner and Norman Vincent Peale, then things can happen. You can become great and do great things if you think that way. If you think negatively, negative things well occur. Then wild card, obviously, is that you don't really have any determining ability in being able to plan everything.
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