It’s been 21 years since Bill Hader first made us laugh on “Saturday Night Live.” His debut on Oct. 1, 2005—featuring his sharp Al Pacino impression (“hoo-ah”)—kicked off a legendary eight-season run on television’s most powerful launchpad. With his other uncanny celebrity impressions, like “Dateline NBC” correspondent Keith Morrison (“Oh, that’s terrible”), and original characters, like Stefon (“New York’s hottest club is…”), audiences quickly fell in love with Hader’s ability to completely dissolve into a character.
Now, the “SNL” alum—who went on to co-create, direct, and star in HBO’s Emmy-winning “Barry”—is taking on another famed persona, the titular Dr. Seuss character in Alessandro Carloni and Erica Rivinoja’s animated film “The Cat in the Hat” (in theaters Nov. 6). Hilariously, this isn’t his first time wearing the striped hat. Hader actually played an adult version of Cat in a 2014 “SNL” sketch, though he admits the memory completely slipped his mind. “I had kind of forgotten about it, honestly,” Hader says with a laugh. “You do a lot of sketches when you’re there.”
He also cleared up internet speculation about the film’s trailer, which features Cat doing the actor’s viral “Alan dance”—a nod to another sketch of his. Hader reveals the meta-joke wasn’t his doing. In fact, when asked if he pulled anything at all from his “SNL” days for inspiration, Hader notes that everything he needed was already right there on the page. “It was such a good script, and I’ve known Erica and Alessandro, the directors and the writers, for a while, so it was easy working with them,” Hader explains.
Looking back at his early career milestones versus where he stands now, Hader reflects on his growth, from comedy to drama to voiceover. When asked what’s changed about him as a performer since his very first sketch, he shared a grounded hope. “Anytime I see myself on ‘SNL,’ I’m kind of rigid and I’m not projecting loud enough,” he says. “So I would hope that I’m more confident and a little more relaxed.”
The Cat is definitely confident, and Hader’s signature ability to capture that fan-favorite agent of chaos is on full display in the new film.
For actors who maybe feel trapped by their famous work, how do you prove you can do more?
The biggest thing is: Learn to write. If you can write, you can control your destiny a bit. And if you can learn to write and you’re OK not making a ton of money, then you’re kind of fine. Because if it’s about the work, then you can make that thing and show a side of yourself that no one else has seen. For a long time, I was always cast as crazy authority figures [because] I was in “Adventureland” and “Superbad” and these other movies. So it became this huge thing where I was always that. And then because you’re from “SNL,” it was being kind of typecasted as a kind of big comedy performer.
The other thing was, I would talk to casting agents and I would say, “Can I do a dramatic reading? If you guys are doing table reads, think of me because I’ll come and I’ll read a couple of parts and do whatever I need to.” Avy Kaufman was one of the casting directors, and she was casting this movie “The Skeleton Twins.” They wanted another actor, but he was really expensive. [Laughs] And she went to the director and said, “You know, he can do it. That guy from ‘SNL’ could actually do it. I’ve seen him do it.” You have to kind of find different avenues to prove yourself.
The animators used the lipstick cam to capture your facial expressions and mannerisms in this film. Did that change your approach when voicing the Cat in the Hat?
Not really. For me at least, I don’t want to really think about it. And I kind of put myself in the directors’ hands and let the directors say, “Try this, try that.” I’m more of that kind of a person, instead of working everything out meticulously.
“Cat in the Hat” Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
The directors also gave you a lot of freedom to improvise in the booth. When there’s so much play involved, how do you keep your performance grounded?
You’re just trying to find whatever the emotion of the scene is. You don’t want to corrupt that or sell it out. That’s one thing I’ve learned over the years—I think there are times you just try to go for the joke and whatever the big laugh is. But if you can stick to the emotion and the true feelings of it, then you allow the situation to be funny. That tends to be the best stuff.
What’s your best advice for an actor trying to get better at improv?
Oh man, it’s so hard. I’m not that great at improv. At UCB, there’s a sign that says, “Don’t Think.” That’s their motto. And it’s true. The other thing you could say is: Don’t think, and don’t worry about failing. Because you’re gonna fail and eat it. You’ll probably do it a lot. I do it all the time.
You just have a better relationship with failure and tripping over yourself. The other thing that improv is good for is, it forces you [to] listen to the other actor. You have to be very in tune with what the other person’s doing. I’ve done that where you’re improvising with somebody and they already have all these ideas in their back pocket, and they’re just throwing them out instead of listening and not trying to control the situation and letting it bloom. It’s a thing they teach you—you try to make each other look good.
The cast for “The Cat in the Hat” is also pretty stacked. You’ve got Quinta Brunson and Tituss Burgess, but you’re recording a lot of this separately. Is it hard to connect with one another doing voiceover work?
The nice thing is that Erica and Alessandro—they were in the room with us. They just keep the mic open and you’re trying all types of things with them, which, for a performer, it’s great. Instead of: You do a line, they stop, you wait, and your energy then goes down. And then you gotta try to get the energy up to do the next line. They made it a rolling thing. You felt like it was a conversation with them.
Do you think it’s possible to learn how to be funny?
It’s hard. I’m very lucky that both my parents are very funny, my sisters are very funny. And I was raised around watching really great kinds of comedy, like “Monty Python” or “This Is Spinal Tap” or those early Mel Brooks movies. [So] I don’t know. I don’t know if you can learn to be funny.
Anytime someone’s like, “Well, what is comedy?” and they try to start dissecting why something works and something doesn’t… It’s intangible. I don’t know what it is. It’s just a thing that happens, and if you try to pick it apart, it loses its magic.
“Saturday Night Live” Courtesy MovieStillsDB
What’s your secret for not losing your voice after a long day of recording?
I’m actually not very good at that. I drink tea, water, and not a lot of coffee because that’ll dry out your voice. I did just direct and act in a movie and I blew my voice out on that, and it was because I wasn’t drinking enough water, I wasn’t drinking tea, and I was doing take after take of just screaming, and I completely blew out my voice.
You have to take care of it. When you don’t, you’re in trouble. I never had the guts to do anything on Broadway or any sort of theater stuff, but I have friends who do, and they’ve lost their voice, and they’re just like, “It’s a nightmare.”
What advice were you given when you were just starting out that still resonates with you?
Someone said to me, like, “Persistence plus talent equals luck.” You just have to do everything. I would do improv. I would shoot short films with friends. And now there are so many avenues that weren’t there when I was doing this 25 years ago. So, just the act of doing it—you get better and you fail.
And that’s the big thing, is just to fail, because you’re going to. I always had a real fear of failing. Most people do, and you’re in this anxiety of, “I’m gonna look like a fool.” Once you get past that, and you don’t care about it, it gives you this confidence to just try it. Keep trying things. Everybody I know who has “made it,” from “SNL” or [anywhere], they just did everything. That’s the common denominator.
When I met Kristen Wiig, she was a nanny and doing stuff at Groundlings. And I think her and her husband at the time were the landlords in an apartment building. You know what I mean? Like, she was doing all these things.
And the other thing is: Be inspired. Because as you get older, too, and you get beat down by stuff, you try to do things that you think the industry’s gonna like. And I’ve done that, and I’m always wrong. But the minute I said, “I want to do a thing about a hitman who wants to be an actor,” which is what I wanted to see, then they were kind of like, “That’s interesting.”
Is there a film that helped you get through those early days of acting that you still look to for inspiration?
Wow, there are so many movies. I can’t just say one thing, but I know as an actor I really love the movie “The Last Detail” with Jack Nicholson, [and] “Taxi Driver.”
I love a movie called “Love and Death.” It’s a Woody Allen movie with Diane Keaton—her performance in that. That and “Annie Hall.” I just thought they were perfect comedic performances, in my mind. “Nights of Cabiria,” the [Federico] Fellini movie. I rewatch that a lot. But anything that’s just inspiring…where you see people making inspired choices.
“Documentary Now!” Credit: TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy
As an avid fan of “Documentary Now!” is there any hope that you will get back together with Fred Armisen and do another episode or another project?
I would love to. I love Fred. He’s one of my best friends. We text, I think, every day. We’ve texted every day since our last “SNL” episode. So I would love to do it. It’s just our schedules have been crazy. And then I was doing something for HBO and I was exclusive to them, so I couldn’t do stuff at IFC. So, you know, that’s the way it works.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
