Thirty years ago, Don Ohlmeyer gave Saturday Night Live legends Adam Sandler and Chris Farley the ax. It’s funny how no one will ever make a nostalgic biopic about O.J.’s old buddy.
Naked Gun actor and former It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia guest star Paul Walter Hauser is playing the late comedy great Farley in a forthcoming biopic about one of SNL’s all-time most popular cast members, and the Emmy-winner is doing his due diligence on a role that means so much to so many members of the entertainment community. When Farley passed away in 1997, he left behind an immense body of work and a personal impact on almost every comedy A-lister of his era, and a pro like Hauser knows that you need to treat such a legend with reverence and respect — looking at you, NBC.
As a part of his pre-preparation for the yet-untitled Farley film, Hauser spoke to many other SNL giants from the era about their personal experiences with Farley, having sensitive discussions with David Spade, Tim Meadows and, of course, SNL creator Lorne Michaels, who fought against the network’s decision to fire his young star back in 1995.
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Said Hauser of his research in a recent talk with Entertainment Weekly, “I think it’s a difficult subject to talk about because everyone feels horrible about how it went and how it ended.”
Well, everyone Hauser could talk to, at least. When the Farley biopic premieres, Hauser should remember that Ohlmeyer is looking up at them and shaking his fist.
Hauser reported that, while the SNL greats understandably still feel some resentment about how Farley’s time on the show ended, “There’s also great glimmers of fond remembrance and humor as they retell some of the funniest stories about Chris.”
“I think Lorne Michaels is more matter of fact. I think David Spade’s more anecdotal, and he’s probably understandably trying to think of some of the good times,” Hauser said of each legend’s approach to talking about Farley and his legacy. “And then I think Tim Meadows is the most interesting of the three that I’ve spoken to, ‘cause he knew Chris the longest. He met Chris back in the Midwest before SNL.”
Presumably, Farley’s unceremonious departure from SNL will be a major beat in the third act of Hauser’s biopic, and it won’t reflect very well on the network that decided that Farley and Sandler, arguably the two most iconic SNL performers of the decade, didn’t deserve their spots at 30 Rock. Ohlmeyer fired them against the urging of series creator Michaels, as Ohlmeyer and the network seemingly decided that the show was becoming too popular with younger audiences and needed to bring its focus back to Boomer network executives who vacation with remorseless murderers.
“All the Baby Boomers, Don foremost among them, thought they knew the difference between good SNL and bad SNL,” Michaels lamented of the decision to fire Farley and Sandler in his recent biography, Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live. “I said, ‘Don, it’s generational. For you, a good show is Bill Murray as the lounge singer.’”
But, with TV critics continuously blasting SNL and its Season 20 cast, Ohlmeyer decided that a change was needed, and he began his cuts with the two cast members who exemplified the best of SNL in the 1990s.
Now, as Michaels and NBC make the latest wave of cuts to the SNL cast, the comedy kingmaker still feels the sting of the show’s biggest mistake — I wonder how Michaels will come across in the (hopefully not posthumous) Emil Wakim biopic in 30 years.
