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.
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.
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.