When it comes to Chevy Chase, the grouchy old son of a gun has been nothing but consistent in his total and utter dismissal of everyone around him.
Jason Reitman screened “Saturday Night” for Chase and many other SNL alums, and he tells the Fly on the Wall podcast that Chase’s reaction was exactly what you’d expect from such an off-the-cuff and unpredictable human being:
So, Chevy comes in to watch the movie, and he is there with [wife] Jayni and they watch the film, and he’s in the group, and he comes up to me after and he pats me on the shoulder and goes, ‘Well, you should be embarrassed’ […] I’m trying to balance [his reaction], because, in my head, I know, ‘Alright, I’m getting my own Chevy Chase moment that’s 1,000 percent only for me right now’ […] But also, I just spent like two years of my life recreating this moment and trying to capture Chevy perfectly, and also even in the ego, find the humanity and give him a moment to be loved — no, none of that shit played. He’s not talking about that stuff.
Cory Michael Smith played Chase in “Saturday Night,” and it was probably the best performance of the entire film, a role filled with zingers and one-liners. Reitman said he “tried to identify one thing” about each character, which for Chase was “an ego that needs to be humbled.”
Chase has long been known as a very difficult actor to work with. A few days ago, director Chris Columbus mentioned how he quit “Christmas Vacation” because Chase was “treating me like sh*t.” That sounds about right, and coming from the man who was fired from “Community” after allegedly calling co-star Donald Glover the “n-word” during a heated confrontation with the show’s creator, Dan Harmon.
Chase’s SNL co-star, Dan Akroyd, had a very different reaction to “Saturday Night,” praising it as a “masterpiece.” Sadly, the $25M film failed to find an audience, and received mixed reviews from critics.
Taking place in “real time,” 90 minutes before the first Saturday Night Live episode aired on October 11, 1975, Reitman’s film tackled the young comedians and writers who attempted to launch the skit-based show. The film starred Smith, Cooper Hoffman, Gabriel LaBelle, Nicholas Braun, Willem Dafoe, and JK Simmons.
This was basically Reitman’s riff on Inarritu’s “Birdman” — lots of long takes that exuded constant comic tension. It was a also a very humorous film, and the gags kept coming at a feverish pace. There wasn’t much depth to the whole thing, but it was a decently entertaining and well-directed film.