Director Morgan Neville on filming Lorne Michaels for new doc: ‘It was like making a nature documentary’

For decades, Lorne Michaels has made America laugh as the man behind the scenes of NBC’s Saturday Night Live. But for the most part he’s remained just that, behind the scenes.

The new documentary Lorne aims to change that, although its director, Morgan Neville, tells ABC Audio Michaels didn’t make it easy.

“I mean, the first day of shooting is literally what you see in the documentary, which is the cameras come out of the bags and Lorne vanishes,” Neville says. “Slowly, we got closer and closer. It was like making a nature documentary, and he kind of became a little more used to it.”

But while Michaels didn’t like talking about himself, plenty of people had no problem talking about him, with Michaels’ famous friends and colleagues, like Paul Simon, Steve Martin, Tina Fey, John Mulaney, Adam Sandler and more, contributing to the film.

“People do love to talk about Lorne, because for all of them, he looms large in their own stories,” says Neville. “You know, for a lot of them, he’s the reason they became famous or successful.”

The film also takes viewers inside the making of SNL, with cameras filming parts of the process most regular folks never get to witness.

Neville says the SNL footage was important because the film’s “not just Lorne’s backstory, but the dynamics he’s created and really the culture,” noting he wanted to capture that “while it still exists.”

And while moviegoers will indeed learn a lot about Michaels, they may still come away thinking he’s a bit of a mystery, and Neville’s OK with that.

“You know, Lorne is the Wizard of Oz, and on the one hand you want to learn about the Wizard of Oz,” he says, “but you also don’t want to demystify him to the point where he’s not the wizard anymore.” 

Lorne opens in theaters Friday.