television

Three hours of prime time real estate, more than 30 musical acts bookended by lightly rehearsed comedy bits and a Radio City Music Hall’s worth of huge stars. What could go wrong?
Potentially everything, actually. But somehow, SNL 50: The Homecoming Concert director Beth McCarthy-Miller not only managed to land the plane with the February special, but she corralled some of the biggest stars in the world for one of the most dazzling, surprise-filled nights of music in recent memory.

And, not for nothing, it all happened with way less rehearsal time than you could ever imagine.

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“They called me a year and a half ago and asked me and I absolutely said ‘yes’ right away. … I’m a total music and comedy nerd,” Emmy-nominated director McCarthy-Miller tells Billboard about her return to multi-cam TV after a career that has included stints behind the camera for episodes of Veep, The Good Place, Modern Family, 30 Rock and an 11-year run as SNL‘s director. “I would do anything for [SNL creator/producer] Lorne [Michaels], who was so instrumental in my career. It was like going back for a high school reunion.”

Sure, if your high school class included Lady Gaga, Eddie Vedder, Bill Murray, the Backstreet Boys, Miley Cyrus, Bad Bunny, Post Malone, the living members of Nirvana, Snoop Dogg, Jelly Roll and Cher.

Those are just some of the acts that McCarthy-Miller juggled on show night in the penultimate prime-time celebration of the beloved sketch series’ 50th anniversary. The programming also included the three-hour SNL50: The Anniversary Special that aired two days later, as well as the earlier mind-bending Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music documentary directed by The Roots’ Questlove and the four-part SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night docuseries on Peacock.

In other words, tons of competition for booking and viewers’ eyeballs.

Beth McCarthy

Barry Goldenberg

McCarthy-Miller knew it was a monumental task, but she was up for it and, frankly, after working with Michaels to see who was available (and not) and putting the million little pieces together, she can now confidently say that “there is nothing I would change.”

Billboard hopped on the phone to chat with McCarthy-Miller about the show and to find out why she is now fully convinced that The Roots can play any song ever recorded.

You worked on the legendary MTV Unplugged with Nirvana, but whose idea was the surprise Post Nirvana performance with Post Malone and the living members of the group?

Dave Grohl was involved early on, and there was always interest in the Foo Fighters and possibly [Nirvana bass player] Krist [Novoselic] joining them. I know during COVID, Post did a YouTube Nirvana show with Travis Barker, and I think it became a natural segue. Dave and Krist had used St. Vincent and other singers before for the FireAid show and the guys just really enjoyed playing with him. After rehearsal, I went back to check on everything with [guitarist] Pat [Smear] and Dave, and they were like, “That was fun!”

The unexpected collabs really ruled the night. You also had Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard doing a Queen cover (“Crazy Little Thing Called Love”) at the top. How involved were you in piecing those together?

The Miley thing was a combination of everyone asking, “What would you want to see?” I think Miley wanted Brittany, and that was a Lorne and Miley thing. … [show co-executive producer] Mark Ronson had a lot do with the pace of the show and where people should go and when. It was definitely a combined effort.

I have to ask, were there any of those collabs that didn’t happen that you went for? Frequent SNL guest Justin Timberlake couldn’t make it because he’s on tour, but who else did you reach out to?

There were people who were just not available who would have been great. Timberlake, not available and also for the Sunday show. I think Bruce Springsteen wasn’t available and people who were asked who made their mark on the show but were just not available. It was definitely tricky to try to represent as much as you could without being able to represent everybody obviously and represent different genres. I thought it all kind of worked out beautifully.

I saw someone ask, “Why didn’t they have Ashlee Simpson come back for a redemption arc?“

[Laughs] I’m sure Ashlee wouldn’t have enjoyed that phone call either. Or just have her come out and do a little hoedown dance during someone else’s number? I think we left the comedy to the comedians on that show, which was great. Everyone was having so much fun and would show up early for rehearsals to watch. Bill Murray hung out almost the whole day when he was rehearsing. So he rehearsed his [Nick the Lounge Singer bit] all day with the girls [Maya Rudolph, Cecily Strong and Ana Gasteyer], and then he came out and was just hanging out watching the rehearsals when Backstreet Boys were rehearsing and he was singing at the top of his lungs in the empty Radio City Music Hall along to the Backstreet Boys. Everyone was so happy to be there and be part of the show.

Another highlight was Lady Gaga doing “D–k in a Box” with Andy Samberg. Did Gaga need convincing to join in on that? It was also fun to see cast members incorporated into musical numbers, like Fred Armisen playing drums for Devo and the B-52s.

Gaga was in for that and she was not necessarily performing. She was definitely doing the “D–k In a Box” bit and we had somebody fall out and she then performed [“Shallow”]. We had T-Pain and Bad Bunny, and Eddie Vedder was so funny as Captain Jack Sparrow.

What was the rehearsal time to swap Gaga in for that bit?

You mean besides no rehearsal? We rehearsed that whole show in two days. So we had about 45 minutes to rehearse that [Lady Gaga] bit. I had pre-blocked it with stand-ins just so I knew where we were going. Then we literally got everybody [Gaga, Samberg, Eddie Vedder, Lonely Island, T-Pain, Bad Bunny] up there for 45 minutes and they did a run-through. I think T-Pain didn’t even come to the run-through.

Were there any worries about catching a stray by dipping into the Drake/Kendrick beef with the Marty and Bobbi bit singing “Not Like Us” with Will Ferrell and Ana?

No. I thought it was hilarious. If anyone is gonna take that as a diss, they need to find a sense of humor somewhere because that was so funny. Will and Ana threw that together with [longtime SNL writer] Paula Pell in about 24 hours.

More than 600 musical acts have performed on SNL over the years, so how do you start cutting down the list for your show?

Well, you start cutting it down by the people who say no. [Laughs] No, but it’s really hard and thank God they had done that great documentary that Questlove did, because it really encompassed how important music is to SNL. Because everyone was really represented quite well in that. So then it was just decisions on what was going to be on the main show and what was going to be on Friday night show. I thought the Paul Simon/Sabrina Carpenter thing was perfect for the Sunday show. I think for a minute that was on the Friday show, then it went to the Sunday show, and Paul on the Sunday show was perfect, just where it should have been.

Who was your must-have? Who did you chase to no avail?

A few, of course. There were definitely people who weren’t able to be there who would have been great: Mick Jagger, Springsteen, Stevie Nicks. But the other side of it is, you couldn’t get everybody and I thought every genre on music that’s been on SNL was represented in that show.

Jimmy Fallon worked his ass off in that opening “Soul Man” bit.

He was working very hard and very out of breath.

Did it feel mean in retrospect to make him host and talk so much right after that?

[Laughs] It was always his idea to do some opening number, and I thought that was the perfect representation and Jimmy does stuff like that better than anybody else. It was a little difficult for the poor guy to do that, but he did do it in run-through, but I don’t think he hit it as hard. He was, literally, out of breath. But every comedian or musical performer, you put an audience in front of them and they take it up to 11.

Tell me about something we didn’t see onscreen that blew your mind. Or something that really captured the vibe of the moment for you.

In general, the whole thing felt like a family reunion. People were sticking around to watch other people rehearse, and people were coming over from 30 Rock to Radio City to see other people rehearse. The unsung heroes of that Friday night show were The Roots. Those guys worked their butts off and were literally thrown into the fire a couple of times and having to work out and learn songs in 15 minutes, get off stage and then come back in half an hour. And then, on the live show, Brittany Howard’s guitar went out and stopped working and the guitar player from The Roots [“Captain” Kirk Douglas] picked up that guitar solo on the fly. It was amazing. They can pick up a song in five seconds and they were also playing in all the musical comedy bits too!

There were so many A-listers in the audience that it could have been a typical stuffy awards show vibe. So were you surprised by their freakout over Backstreet’s “I Want it That Way”? Tina and Amy were singing like high schoolers, Adam Sandler, Paul Rudd were shouting along. Even Jerry Seinfeld got in on it.

When they rehearsed and they do what they were gonna do, and they said, “Now you sing,” I was like, “Oh no! It’s an industry crowd, I hope they’re gonna sing!” But literally every person knew every word. Paul Rudd, Pedro Pascal, Jerry Seinfeld was singing with Brian [Littrell]. It was nuts. Every time I cut to the audience, I’ve never, ever had a better cut-away experience in my life where every time I cut to a shot there was some incredibly famous person singing at the top of their lungs having the greatest time of their life.

What do you think it was about them that go everybody so excited?

I think everybody was so psyched for that experience. I said to Lorne, “You’re literally watching your legacy in front of your eyes.” It’s kinda nuts. I think everyone has a deep appreciation for Lorne and what he’s accomplished, and I think everyone just came to have fun.

One of the things that really grabbed people was Pedro Pascal just losing it to DEVO. When you saw that, were you like, “Oh, we need to cut that immediately”?

Yes, it was nuts, it was crazy. Every time I cut to the audience they were having the time of their lives. Pedro literally gyrating to DEVO was, I think, my favorite cut-away of the whole night.

Was there anything that did not go as planned that was a pleasant surprise or an “oh sh–” moment?

I think almost everything happened the way it was supposed to happen magically, which I will tell you did not happen in run-through. The fact that on-air it all happened the way it was supposed to was a Christmas miracle. We made every changeover, but there was one really big changeover where we had Jimmy in the audience and he was supposed to go over to talk to Sandler, and Sandler wasn’t in his seat because he’d just done the Post Nirvana intro and he was backstage talking to people. So then he just freewheeled it, which was amazing, and we were able to make the turnaround a little faster on the night of the show so he wasn’t there laying with egg on his face for too long. Other than that, everything happened the way it was supposed to happen.

I still sing “Star Wars, nothing but Star Wars” all the time, so tell me how the Bill Murray lounge singer bit came together?

I think [longtime SNL writer] Jim Downey wrote it for Billy, and then Billy asked for three of the girls and they tried to get who was available. Ana, Maya and Cecily agreed to do it and they rehearsed it in the lobby of Radio City and then came onstage and rehearsed it the day before the show.

The four-part series showed you how tight rehearsal and writing is on the show, but it sounds like your show was just as harried, if not more.

It was crazy nutty. It was two days of rehearsal and then show day, and we did a little rehearsing on show day before we did a run-through. We ran through the whole show just once.

It seems like you tried to pay tribute to so many through the song choices, like Eddie Vedder tipping his hat to Tom Petty with “The Waiting,” or David Byrne doing “Heroes” or Chris Martin with Bonnie Raitt…

It was definitely a conscious decision and Eddie [Vedder] was going to do “The Waiting” and we asked if he could say something about Tom [Petty] at the end of the song. He said he would do it in the middle during the break and then he said something completely different at run-through than he did during the show! He mentioned more of the musical artists on the show [during run-through], and then on air he did a tribute to the cast members.

What does it take to get Cher to put on those assless chaps again?

C’mon! How crazy is that? That she looks like that at her her age. I’m embarrassed of myself because I don’t look like that and I’m a lot younger. And how amazing did she sound?

The cast are used to staying up all night writing and long hours to get the show on air each week. But when you think about putting together this show, what was the biggest challenge now that you’ve had time to think about it?

The most challenging part was just getting the show rehearsed and on the air without any disasters. Also the difference between an hour and a half and three hours and also the difference in doing it at Radio City and having these huge band changeovers. It was logistically a lot more difficult… just putting all the pieces together. It was like a Tetris puzzle, so if one piece fell out you were in big trouble. Like when Brittany’s guitar stopped working, I said, “Oh God, I hope this doesn’t keep happening to us tonight.” And it didn’t and we were all good.