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

You were in The Groundlings, correct?

Yes. Well, I did plays in high school, I was a drama major at UC Irvine for four years and did 21 plays. And then I went the Film Actor's Workshop for a year and a half, then I went to New York for a year. I couldn't get anywhere so then I came back when I was 25 and started with The Groundlings.

When you were with The Groundlings, was SNL even a goal? When you were at The Groundlings, SNL was still produced by Dick Ebersol and had an all-star cast that included Billy Crystal and Martin Short. That version of SNL wasn't very conducive to young performers.

No. I had a friend of mine from college that got an agent. I asked how he did that and he said, "I was in a play, they saw me, you have to get seen." My dad had told me about The Groundlings when I was 20, so I went to a show and saw Paul Reubens doing Pee Wee Herman at Midnight. And I called the next day and this guy, Tom Maxwell, from North Carolina said [mimics a southern accent], "Yeah, come on down!" And that always scared me. So, five years later, I decided to go and Tom was still there. I never thought I would be on Saturday Night Live. Tom had the funniest line ever when I got the show, because before that it was Laraine Newman and Tom goes, "Boy, it's like clockwork, every ten years." [Laughs and starts clapping.]

The year before you came on, it was called "The Steinbrenner Season" because of all of the high priced talent.

I remember my girlfriend would say, "You should watch it, it's funny again." And Billy Crystal is on and Christopher Guest, it was hilarious. I never, never imagined that I would be on that show in a million years. What happened was I got in the main company of The Groundlings in September of 1984 and then we had a new show in '85 and I was doing my liar character. In March I was getting all of these calls and people in The Groundlings were saying, "Jon, congratulations, that's so great," over and over. Like 20 of them but no one was saying what it was. I had no idea. I called up Tom Maxwell and asked, "What's going on?" He said, "You don't know? Oh! We're going on The Tonight Show! You're going to do the liar character." I asked when and he said, "Thursday." I go, "What?" We're both screaming and it's so exciting. So I got an agent and the agent said, "What about Saturday Night Live?" I said, "I have a better idea, why not land on Pluto?" But luckily I did a show that summer with Phil Hartman for the Olympic Arts Festival called Chick Hazard and Laraine Newman saw me in it. She befriended me and recommended me to Lorne. And then I got a movie with Charles Grodin and he recommended me to Lorne, so those two I always credit for really helping me get that show.

You mentioned Phil Hartman. When you went in to News Radio to replace him, was that a no-win situation?

Yes. Because I knew that the show was going to be canceled that year anyway because Phil told me that it was the last year of the show.

So it had nothing to do with his death one way or another...

If he hadn't been killed, if he had just done the show, the fifth year, that was the last year, period. And I said, "People are going to think it got canceled because it's me." But they didn't write me a character, that's the thing. [Executive producer] Paul Simms asked, "What do you want your character's name to be? I go, "How about Max because I like the name Max and Louis is my grandfather's name. But who am I? Where am I from? What do I do?" And then in that week's script it said, "Well, I think I'll be on the radio. I'm Max Louis, but who am I? Where am I from? What do I do?" What? I looked at him and go, "You just repeated the conversation we had about questions about my character?" And there was no character. There wasn't one so, one show, I just went nuts to see if anyone says, "don't do that." And they didn't. I just played it really weird, just to see if anybody would say, "What are you doing?" And no one said a word. It was hard, there was no character. And it was tough for everybody that season anyway because everybody loved Phil and it was very tough. But I liked doing the sitcom, the actual job. You know, that was fun, but, emotionally it was... I don't know. And the people blamed me.

Did they, under the circumstances?

Well, they would write, "He tried to replace Phil." And the first thing that I said when got it was, "I can't replace him." Who can? I can't fill his shoes. I'll do my thing, but I can't replace him.

With SNL, if you read the Tom Shales book, things didn't end well between you and Lorne Michaels because of a joke they used on Dennis Miller's last show about you being "pathetic" because you still came around the show so often. Are things better between you and Lorne today?

I've always been friends with Dennis. I got a call... I didn't like that. I thought it was a cheap shot. And Lorne actually called Brad Grey who's the head of Paramount who was my manager and said, "Oh, there's a joke. We love John, it's just a joke." I found it humiliating. Because the fact is that I would be in New York and Al would hear about it, actually, "Hey, you're here? Can you come do the show?" They kept asking me to go on. So I said "All right." So, I was there a lot, but they kept asking me to come back and do different sketches. And then they go, "Are you going to keep coming back like Jon Lovitz? That's pathetic." I was really upset. I was mad. Who wouldn't be? Because it wasn't true! They kept calling me. I mean, I liked doing it and everything. I like being there and I like going back. I'm fine now but when that happened I was really pissed. Yeah, and hurt because it was humiliating. I mean, what do I have to do with Dennis leaving the show? And, of course, I knew the joke wouldn't work because the audience liked me a lot. So, when they did it, it just fell flat. I watch it at home and I knew everyone in the audience was going, "why are they going after him?" It made no sense.

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