Jon Lovitz on Casino Jack, Replacing Phil Hartman and Lorne Michaels' 'Cheap Shot'

Jon Lovitz still gets visibly annoyed when the subject of a 1991 Saturday Night Live joke is the topic of discussion. On Dennis Miller's last show, there was a short sketch where Lorne Michael's asked Miller, "You're not going to come back every week to hang out on the set like Lovitz, are you?" (Lovitz, who had left SNL the year before, had made four cameos during Miller's final season.) When Miller responded, "No," Michaels continued, "Because that would be pathetic. I mean, the man has no life ... I mean, thank God every now and then he gets a movie." Of course, it was a joke, but that doesn't mean Lovitz wasn't livid at the "cheap shot."

Before we get to that episode, though, there's Casino Jack. In the late George Hickenlooper's final film, the former SNLer stars as convicted felon Adam Kidan, who pled guilty to wire fraud charges stemming for a purchase of a casino cruise line associated with the infamous lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Movieline spoke to Lovitz about this new role, but once he opened the door with a reference to Saturday Night Live, the subject quickly turned to his beginnings at The Groundlings, his disbelief that Al Franken is a U.S. senator, the no-win situation of replacing Phil Hartman on News Radio, and his feelings today on being called "pathetic" by Lorne Michaels.

You were responsible for one of my first hard lessons of life. In Big, Josh Baskin is paid $187.30. I was getting a $10 a week allowance at the time, but then you come on screen and complain about how little money that was.

[Laughing] Right... to live on! Your parents said, "Yes, if you had to live on it but you have everything paid for." That's hysterical.

When I was doing the research on your character, Adam Kidan, I was surprised to learn that he had won awards like the American Jurisprudence Award in Legal Writing and Research. I wouldn't have guessed that from your portrayal.

I didn't know that either to be honest. I saw some pictures of him on the Internet and of him walking into court. I read all of the stories about everything and some quotes that he said. I had to know the story because that would help me understand the script better, but, mainly, I just played the character. You have to play the character that's in the script because that's the dialogue of the scenes.

Did you ever meet the real Kidan?

A lot of the script changed after George [Hickenlooper] met Jack Abramoff in prison. It was about five times, and maybe the fifth or sixth time he brought along Kevin Spacey. So you combine that with the fact that they met him and he was doing impressions and everything, so they kind of wove that into it. And Kevin said that they wanted to humanize the guy and make him a person. George asked me if I wanted to talk to Adam Kidan and I said, "No." Because the guy's in prison, it's a real guy. And Gus Boulis was killed, and the two guys that Adam hired to work in this thing were arrested for the murder. They weren't convicted, but... So Adam Kidan said to George -- who was worried about how he would be portrayed -- "I don't mind about the wire fraud but don't say that I killed a guy." You know, it's just suspicious! So I don't want to be involved with someone like that. So, at the end of the day, I play the character that's written in the script. It was an interpretation of [the script].

With that interpretation, do you feel you upped the sleaze factor?

Well, maybe. But, you know, one of the first things that you do when you get a script -- I was a drama major at UC Irvine, one of the first things my teacher taught me was that you read a script and you try to figure out the characters. The first thing you can do is write down everything on a piece of paper everything that someone says about your character. And when you do that, you get a pretty clear picture of who the guy is. It helps tremendously. But the point is that Kelly Preston has a scene where she says to Kevin, after she meets me, "What are you doing with that guy? Why would you do business with somebody like that?" She's repulsed by the guy. So that tells me that I have to do something, play it so that it gives her reason to say that. It's a movie, I wanted to make a contrast from before he met Jack Abramoff and after when he's getting all of the money. He's saying that he's fine, but you look at the guy and say, "Eh, I don't know." Then I get on the ship and my hair is slicked back, I look all Miami Vice. That's all done on purpose.

What do you think Adam would think of your portrayal of him?

I have no idea. Honestly, I don't know. But if he said, "I'm not like that," I'd say, "Yeah, well, I couldn't agree more." I'd say that if I'm anything like him, at all, it's sheer luck. There really isn't much stuff on him. If there had been a lot of video tape of him talking, then I would have really studied it and gotten him down, but there wasn't. Because on Saturday Night Live, there going to have the presidential debates, so you would play whoever you resembled the most. It's luck. So it turned out that I closely resembled the most Dukakis. And they go, "You're going to play Michael Dukakis." I had never heard of the guy until he ran for president. So you look at a tape of him and Al Franken helped me by noticing he does this thing where he goes, "Ehhhhh." So that you watch and then you imitate the guy. But with this, there were two pictures.

Thinking back to those SNL political sketches from the late 1980s, is it strange to you that Al Franken is an actual senator now?

Yeah! It's unbelievable! I mean, it's just... You know, he hired me -- he and Tom Davis -- for Saturday Night Live. And Al writes political stuff but I never thought in a million years that he would be an actual senator. And I mean, to me, it's a huge achievement and I'm very proud of him. It's just unbelievable, "Al's a senator?" I mean, holy crap. But it doesn't say anything about him that I'm so surprised. I just didn't know he had that in him, it's like you underestimate people, but I never thought of it in a million years that he'd be a senator.

If you look at his arc, it makes more sense. But if you just think back to SNL then look at now, it's a little more shocking.

It would be like me being a senator! You would never imagine it, but then if one day I was -- believe me, I never will be nor could I be. It's amazing, what an achievement. And from what I hear they like him a lot. He's known as a real hard worker, which he always was. He's very, very blunt. I know him and when he first got elected, I was like, "Oh my God, what is he going to say?" Because he'll just say things, he'll say what he thinks. But from what I understand he's been really holding back a lot and not doing all of the press. He wants to prove himself, be quiet and work hard which I think is great.

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