Lorne Michaels has seen a lot of stars come and go through the doors of Saturday Night Live. So it's not surprising to hear the advice he gave one former cast member stuck with him years later.
Michaels has an interesting reputation among those SNL alumni willing to talk about him. While most ex-Saturday Night Live stars willingly admit they own Michaels their careers, others have been frank about the criticism and coldness Michaels could convey with his feedback.
Will Forte had a similar experience during his tenure as a Saturday Night Live cast member. Forte came to Studio 8H from a job writing for David Letterman. That transition from writer to performer wasn't an easy one.
"If I wrote something for myself, then I knew exactly how to do it," Forte said on Hot Ones. " But if somebody else wrote it for me, I would oddly hold back a little bit."
The former cast member also described the frustration he felt at Late Night with David Letterman if a performer didn't live up to Forte's expectations for a bit. "In the back of your head, you'd be going 'oh, they should've hit that, they should have stressed that word.'"
Forte managed to get out of that mentality following a chat from SNL boss Lorne Michaels. "Lorne gave me a little talking-to after my third year, and kinda set me straight," Forte said. "He said 'get out of your writer brain,' and I did."
It's hard to imagine Will Forte "holding back." He's known for his over-the-top characters and committing to a bit as well as anyone in Saturday Night Live history.
But knowing what we know now, a chunk of the credit goes to Lorne Michaels. Not only did the SNL boss see something in Forte to add him to the cast, but he knew the right buttons to push to make Forte one of the most beloved cast members of his era.