Ella Hunt is a talented actress and singer with an impressive array of credits including Apple TV’s Dickinson, Anna and the Apocalypse, and Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1. Hunt plays legendary comedienne Gilda Radner in Saturday Night, an excellent comedic thriller directed by Jason Reitman about ninety minutes before the first episode of Saturday Night Live. In the film, Hunt is part of an ensemble of some of the best and most exciting young actors in the business. She recently spoke to Immersive via Zoom.
[This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.]
Let’s talk about Gilda Radner and Saturday Night, I think it’s a unique film, the way it’s told… How did you first get involved with this project?
I’d heard about the project. When the audition came through for me, I was like, there’s no world where I’m going to get to play Gilda Radner. This is crazy, and my agent sort of dared me, and I’m so glad he did because immediately fell in love with Gilda. I felt like our voices couldn’t be more different on the surface but I found that we have a very similar vocal resonance.
When I first met with Jason, our session together was just so much fun. He gave me a hundred notes, so many notes that I had to repeat them back to him on the spot. It was just very freeing to work with a director as confident as Jason. Afterward, I got a call while I was in Hudson’s Bookstore about to get on a plane home to England for Christmas, they told me I’d got the part and I burst into tears.
First, what was the research like on this project? I mean, Gilder led a pretty interesting life outside of SNL. How much did you delve into that, even if it’s not used in the movie, just back-of-the-head kind of stuff?
There’s so much out there to read and learn about Gilda, I tried to focus my prep on that moment in time and learning about her childhood. But I got curious about the broader spectrum of Gilda’s life. There’s an amazing documentary called Love Gilda, which was a fantastic resource for me.
Did you talk to anyone who knew her?
I was able to speak to Alan Zweibel, who was one of Gilda’s closest friends and key collaborators. Alan filled in the blank spots for me and grounded me. She was such an empathetic, generous person, and kind person. So that kind of became the star of my focus.
Did Alan know anything about that specific day, like that first show?
There’s one nugget, and we don’t see it in the film because the film finishes before we see Gilda’s first sketch. She was nervous. Alan went up to her and asked her how she was doing, and she kind of laughed at him and was like, “How do you think I’m doing?” He told her just that he was going to stand right by the camera, and that she should just look at his big old shiny forehead, deliver the lines to him, and she’d do a great job. I think certainly in their early SNL days, while she was getting her footing, she was performing to make Alan laugh.
So what was it like working with Jason on set? How much did he already have figured out versus how much freedom did you have to kind of experiment?
Jason had kind of meticulously prepared and shot the film already with background actors before we came to set. So in terms of the choreography of the movie as a whole, he had, I’m sure other people have mentioned this to you already. He had built out a lot of that without us, but he also left a lot of room for improvisation and for us to bring our interpretations of these people into this environment.
He’s an incredibly confident director and he has a very straightforward way of delivering his direction, which I appreciated, especially in a film like this where you have 80-plus speaking roles and so much going on at all times.
He talked about chaos and how eager he was to represent chaos on screen in a way that he hadn’t quite been able to achieve before. It was a hyper-immersive experience, but we were all incredibly aware that we were in safe hands and that he knew exactly the film he was making.
What was it like working with the ensemble? Like you said, there are 80 speaking roles, it must’ve been kind of surreal there. You’re on a fully dimensional set. There’s live music being played at some points. These iconic figures are circling you.
What’s special about this script is that every character has a moment. So every day we’d be able to witness somebody fully embodying Billy Crystal or Chevy Chase or Rachel Sennott as Rosie Schuster, which was a delight. It was like being an audience member and performance partner.
I’ve never played a role like this before, and it was daunting to step into these shoes, but I felt like my naivety and vulnerability were kind of safely matched by being in such incredible company.
Was there anyone specific you gravitated towards?
Emily Fairn (Laraine Newman), Kim Matula (Jane Curtain) and I played the first female generation of the ‘not ready for prime time players’. We had a lot of fun building out their relationships with each other and what they were in that environment because I think at the time it was an incredibly misogynistic workplace and a lot of people didn’t think that they should be there.
Were there any specific challenging scenes that you can think of?
Doing Gilda as a construction worker, and recreating the hard hat sketch was the thing I was most excited to do… but also from a vocal standpoint and a physical standpoint, it was a crazy thing to do because it’s like a dream within a dream.
It took some time to work out, and I’m really glad that we shot it three-quarters of the way in when I was firmly into Gilda’s shoes. It ended up being my favorite day on set, having been nervous beforehand. Then I felt free and adrenaline-filled, and I just didn’t want it to end.
So you would say that would probably be your favorite scene as well?
I think the scene between Gilda and Belushi at the Ice Rink is probably my favorite. It was our first night shooting, so to be having this moment in my life where I’m shooting with a director that I have admired since I was a kid playing a comedic icon and shooting at the Rockefeller Ice Rink. I feel like Jason and Gil Kenan captured Gilda’s voice in that monologue.
What’s it like being on the other end of this film?
I’ve loved movies since I was a little kid. It’s always been my dream to be in them. So to get to be a part of a movie that I just on a personal level think is a great movie, is a dream come true. To see people responding to it the way they are, and especially to see people feeling inspired by the film and reminded of these people that they loved or discovering them for the first time, that’s cool.
I’m delighted and I’m relieved because these were big shoes to step into for all of us. I have so much love and admiration for Jason. I am so glad for him that I think he was able to make the film that he wanted to make because it’s just hard to make cinema and there are so many obstacles and so many things that can go wrong. I think that we were kind of blessed on this, that it just came together.
Saturday Night is now available to buy or rent and in theaters.
