'Saturday Night' Director Jason Reitman Says Chevy Chase Told Him He "Should Be Embarrassed" About Film

The film chronicles the tumultuous ninety minutes before "SNL" debuted in 1975.

One of the original cast members of Saturday Night gave Jason Reitman a very positive evaluation of his picture.

"Chevy loves to say the thing you're not supposed to say," the screenwriter said in the introduction of a recent Fly on the Wall podcast. Chase's response to the film. The film chronicles the tumultuous ninety minutes before Saturday Night Live's inaugural broadcast 1975.

"So, Chevy and [wife] Jayni walk into the room to watch the movie together. He then approaches me and pats my shoulder and says, 'Well, you should be embarrassed,'" Reitman reminded Dana Carvey and David Spade, the hosts.

Spade said, "You couldn't even write it better," while the audience chuckled. Craig "knows that's funny, the roughest thing you could say to a director in the moment, or right up there," Carvey said.

Reitman clarified that he tried to defend Chase's remarks at the time.I think to myself, 'Well, I'm trying to balance it because I'm having my own Chevy Chase moment that's 1,000 percent entirely for me right now.

' Additionally, it's pretty pure from a comedic point of view, which is sort of remarkable," he continued. However, I also spent almost two years reenacting this scene and attempting to portray Chevy in the best possible light. I also tried to find the humanity in his ego and give him a moment to be loved, but none of that worked. 

He isn't discussing those things.

Cory Michael Smith played Chase, Gabriel LaBelle played Lorne Michaels, Rachel Sennott played Rosie Shuster, Dylan O'Brien played Dan Aykroyd, Ella Hunt played Gilda Radner, Lamorne Morris played Garrett Morris, Emily Fairn played Laraine Newman, Kaia Gerber played Jacqueline Carlin, Matt Wood played John Belushi, Kim Matula played Jane Curtin, Cooper Hoffman played Dick Ebersol, Nicholas Braun played Andy Kaufman/Jim Henson, and Willem Dafoe played David Tebet.

When casting each character, Reitman "tried to identify one thing" about them, and for Chase, that was "an ego that needs to be humbled."