TV - Movies
How John Mulaney's
First Week On SNL
Changed His
Relationship
With Time
By C.M. CROCKFORD
Making "SNL" is a lot of work, as the show involves a six-day work schedule, and if you're on the writing staff, that includes pitch meetings, finding sketches that will fit the guest host that week, and all-night script sessions. John Mulaney learned this lesson during his first week of writing for the show.
Mulaney revealed in a 2020 interview, that after staying up all night working on a sketch, he slept in late. Terrified that he’d be late for the first read-through that afternoon he booked a taxi from Brooklyn to Manhattan, though he arrived on time, he learned that producer Lorne Michaels wasn't even there.
"Read-through probably won't start for another two hours," Mulaney was told upon arrival. That was the point when the comedian recognized that time worked differently for LORNE than it did for the writers. He'd end up staying on that schedule for four seasons before leaving the series to work on his own, very successful comedic projects.