He feared sounding too earnest, but Lorne Michaels believes that what “Saturday Night Live” does each week for the last 51 years is truly important.
Sitting for a rare interview with NBCUniversal Entertainment chief Donna Langley after the Los Angeles premiere screening of “Lorne,” the new Focus Features documentary about his life and career, Michaels reflected Tuesday on what’s kept him coming back time and again. Now 81 years old, the producer said simply, “Being around funny people … It’s an exciting place to be.”
“And also,” he said, “to be able to comment on what’s going on from that perspective, and particularly in a time, which is almost always, when it’s deadly serious.”
“At this point, because we’ve been on for 51 years, I think we’re almost a branch of government,” Michaels joked. “We’re allowed to say the things. Somehow we earned it. And whoever’s president, at least so far, has allowed it to go on.”
#SNL creator Lorne Michaels sat with Donna Langley at the L.A. premiere of the new documentary about his life and career on Tuesday.
— TheWrap (@TheWrap) April 15, 2026
Asked what keeps him coming back for more, his answer was simple: "Being around funny people … It's an exciting place to be."
"And also," he… pic.twitter.com/xuHeSqbzwL
The elusive creator and founding executive producer of NBC’s iconic sketch series pointed specifically to this last weekend’s no-holds-barred “Weekend Update” with Michael Che and Colin Jost as an example of what the program gets away with saying about today’s political leaders. (Both hosts eviscerated the ongoing war in Iran and President Donald Trump’s handling of the ceasefire.)
“I think in the face of totalitarian government, I don’t think comedy really does much good — I think the totalitarians win every single time. But there is something of a safety valve in a culture, which comedy is a really important part, and being able to even think those thoughts –” Michael said, jumping to his thoughts on “Update” — “Or, you know, last week on ‘Update,’ Jost and Che really went after things, but it was what was bubbling up in the air with the war, with all of that.”
“What I’m getting at, I don’t mean to sound as earnest as it will, but I thought what we were doing was important,” he said, reflecting on why “SNL” started in the first place. “I don’t think I could have done it without that belief. And it turns out, after 50 years, it was important.”
On Saturday’s “Weekend Update,” Jost and Che laid into the most pressing political matters of the week, as they often do. First mocking President Trump’s now-notorious “praise be to Allah” Truth Social post calling Iranians “crazy bastards” while threatening to blow up the nation’s bridges and power plants, Jost joked that the president might sound like he is a “radical terrorist,” but to remember he’s “already been to a paradise with 72 virgins.” From there, the segment pulled up a photo of the president with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Che, meanwhile, joked that Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu is “the man controlling our military” and that Vice President JD Vance’s mascara was running after 21 hours of failed peace negotiations with Iran.
Watch Saturday’s “Weekend Update” below. “Lorne” is in theaters Friday.
