Bill Hader explains why his fan-favorite SNL character Stefon never got a movie. Having risen to fame thanks to his 8-year stint as a major player on Saturday Night Live, Hader has now moved on to the auteur phase of his career, garnering critical acclaim as star and creator of HBO’s dark comedy Barry. But though Hader has clearly gone far beyond being just an uncanny impressionist and oddball comedic actor, questions are still asked about some of his most famous SNL creations, including hilariously bizarre – and somewhat divisive – Weekend Update character Stefon.
One question that indeed comes up for Hader is why Stefon, unlike many other fan-loved SNL characters, has never gotten a movie. Now Hader himself has explained why such a movie not only hasn’t happened, but wouldn’t make any sense. Speaking to The New Yorker, Hader revealed that the idea of a Stefon movie has come up, but explained why he’s steered away from going down that particular seemingly safe road. Check out what Hader said in the space below:
Oh yeah, a hundred per cent. It’s this weird combination of being open, but also clearly knowing what you don’t want. Like, nah, I don’t want to do a Stefon movie. It didn’t work as a sketch! That’s why it was on “Weekend Update.” And the reason people liked it is because I kept laughing.
Hader Is Right To Shoot Down Making A Stefon Movie
Movies based on SNL characters have of course occasionally been hugely successful, the biggest example being Wayne’s World, which took Mike Myers and Dana Carvey’s slacker pair to the big screen and headbanged its way to $183 million at the box office. But for every good SNL-based film there have been many bad ones, like misguided projects A Night at the Roxbury, It’s Pat: The Movie, Coneheads and The Ladies Man, to name just a few.
When SNL movies like those fail, it’s generally because they’re centered on one-joke characters who don’t translate at all when put at the center of big screen stories. Hader clearly realizes this, and is obviously correct in his assessment that Stefon is the ultimate one-joke character, and therefore would not make it on the big screen. Indeed, Stefon is worse than a one-joke character, because as Hader explains, the thing that makes people laugh isn’t even the intended joke, but the meta-joke of Hader not being able to contain his own laughter (a circumstance brought about intentionally by Stefon co-creator John Mulaney, who notoriously would change scripts at the last minute to trip up Hader).
More than just being a one-joke SNL character that doesn’t even work as a joke, Stefon is arguably built upon offensive gay stereotypes, and that’s just one more reason why Hader is correct in his conviction that Stefon should be left in the past. Hader himself doesn’t need Stefon, as Barry proved he’s a creator who can do a lot more than just play a silly character from SNL.
Source: The New Yorker
