Oprah Presents Master Class with Lorne Michaels

Lorne Michaels: Everyone knows when it matters. The brilliance of the show (SNL), and I don’t mean the on-air brilliance, I mean the brilliance of it as a form, is that everyone is necessary till the end. If that guy isn’t there to put that prop in your hand or that music cue comes in late or the writer didn’t get those changes to cards… everyone needs everyone else.

It’s a team sport. Its one of the reasons why I so connect to baseball. You play a whole season. You know, it starts in spring and its still cold, and the it ends up in… now it ends up pretty much close to winter and it gets cold again. During that time there’s a rhythm to it. You get use to the rhythm of it and you know that its incremental. And that there’ll be slumps and there will be periods where you’re not hitting. And everybody understands the off day.

When the show isn’t good, its not as if we don’t know it. It isn’t as if we just love them all. That audience just becomes quiet… you’re taking full swing at the ball, and if you miss, you know you missed. And performers will come off after a piece where there were misfires and you will see… just the look on their face. And quite often you will make eye contact. I see what they see and you don’t go, “Oh, it was way better than you thought it was.” You go, you don’t say the word ‘shake it off’, but that is what it is. Its like, you know, you’ll get ‘em the next time. And hopefully they do. 

Oprah Presents Master Class with Lorne Michaels / Aired: 01/30/2011