Judd: And you have to act and work the other sketches, too.
Louis: Yes, it was high pressure. Very high pressure.
Judd: How do you remember it all?
Louis: Well, because you fucking better know it. You fucking better know it. I mean, I had to switch the order. I had to change stuff. I just told myself, Don’t try to remember this. Make these decisions and they’ll be there for you when you hit the moment. I loved it. This kind of thing to me is the most worthwhile life experience. I’m standing at the door to SNL after all that shit, and Gina the stage manager is counting off and my hands are on the door, and I just started chuckling. I was like, This is fucked up. This is live television. This is fucked up. And I went out and it just—it was all there for me and I was able to sail. The audience was at the right place. They looked a little critical but I felt like, It’s going to be okay. I’m going to bring this material and you’re going to like it. Fuck, did that feel good.
Judd: And that was the day that you realized Lorne knows what he’s doing.
Louis: He knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s so smart, but he scared me. And I needed to go in scared.
Judd: You like being scared?
Louis: I remember when I was a kid, Billie Jean King was doing that Battle of the Sexes thing—I don’t remember if it was happening when I was a kid or if I saw a show about it. But I was so impressed with her. She reminded me of my mom and I just thought she was the coolest person and I hated Bobby Riggs because my mom was a single, working mother. They toured together and did these interviews together, and he was always going, like, women should just go back, put on a tight shirt, and make me a steak. He said this amazing shit and she’s just sitting there with a smile on her face. And they turned to her and they say, “How do you feel about all this?” And she says, “Well, all this does is put pressure on me. Everything he says just means that I have to beat him.” She gets this big smile on her face and says, “I love pressure.”
Judd: Wow.
Louis: And I never forgot it. I was like, fuck that. That was such an interesting notion—that pressure, give me, give me, give me, because all that’s going to do is make me better. Like, eating pressure. Having it be fuel. I like that. Whenever I realize, Uh-oh, this is fucked up, I don’t feel ready, this is going to look bad if this doesn’t go well, I get that physical feeling. I don’t like that feeling, but I like the whole arc of it. You need the whole arc for it to be good. When you win and you do well, it feels great.
Judd: Was that an historic moment for you, hosting SNL? Was that one of your dreams?
Louis: When I worked at Conan, SNL was right next door and I used to go through SNL to get to the commissary, just walk through the studio so that I could smell it. I loved the fucking smell of the place. I didn’t want to be a sketch performer or anything, but the idea of hosting it? I never thought that I would be that guy. I was very happy to get the shot, terrified to get the shot.
Judd: I can’t imagine how scary that is.
Louis: I was really scared.
Judd: Like, How am I going to learn how to talk off of these cue cards?
Louis: Yeah, everything. Everything. How am I going to do any of this? I thought, I’ve got to get a writer to help me. I’ve got to bring a guy in. Everybody does that. But then I was hanging out with Amy Poehler a lot and she said to me, “Don’t bring somebody in. Just give yourself to the process.” So I just showed up and said, “What do you guys want me to do?” And I let them lead me through it. But the second time I did it was the best because I had the benefit of experience and I was so excited to do it again and I knew a lot more about it and all the people were junior. There were all these young kids and I found myself teaching some of them, and that was a nice feeling. Anyway, it is fun to be part of old hallowed things.
Judd: How long do you think you can do your show for?
Louis: I don’t know. I feel like I have to take it year by year. This year was a totally different experience than last season. I didn’t do it like a job. I decided I don’t need to go and try to make movies or anything. This show was a good job. It’s a good thing to be doing creatively. I had this thing that I was going to make a movie. And I’d been saving it and I said, Fuck it. I’ll make an episode out of it. So I cut it into two pieces and I made it an episode and it’s a whole flashback thing.
Judd: There’s a type of storytelling, and movies are not hospitable to it. It’s a miracle when shows fall together and you feel like, Oh, this is the right idea for the right person and shit’s about to go down.
Louis: TV shows are about getting the right tuning. It’s like trying to crack a safe. Once you get it, it starts paying off like a slot machine creatively—like, I created a machine that makes paper cups, you know. I just sit there and stack them. And it keeps running as long as people want paper cups.
Judd: Whose voice is in your head that’s wise?
Louis: A collection of people. My mom is a big part of that for me. She’s got a calm and thoughtful approach to things and, yeah, it’s her, it’s me—I feel like I’ve invented a lot of that for myself. Sometimes it’s friends like Chris Rock, who is one of the smartest people I know. It’s different people who have said stuff to me and then things I’ve learned.
Judd: My mom was very manic and up and down—you know, super nice but also super screaming and crazy. You get that implanted in your head. Like, if you have the solid mom implanted, moments come up like SNL—like, Here we go, you’re walking out onstage. And that’s the voice that takes you out there.
Louis: That’s right. I mean, it’s funny. Chris Rock is a lot of those for me. I remember when I did Lucky Louie, I was really scared. That was my first series, my first real job. And right before I went out I thought, This might not go good. And I called him and said, “I have a feeling this might go badly,” and he said, “You’re damn right it might. It’s very likely to go badly and all those people are working hard and you better fucking step up. You better do something to not let that happen.” And I was like, Shit, that’s right. There’s a few people like that. Paul is another. Paul Kozlowski, this comedian that was in Boston when I was coming up. And I had a kind of doldrums moment once, on the steps of a comedy club, and I said, “This is really hard. This is hard. I hardly ever get on the stage and when I do the crowds suck.” And he said, “So get out, then. There’s too many comedians. Get the fuck out. Quit.”