Jason Reitman explains why his Lorne Michaels is so young in Saturday Night
The Fabelmans’ Gabriel LaBelle was nine years younger than the man he portrays while filming the SNL history flick
Photo: Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images (Getty)
At a mere 21 years old, Gabriel LaBelle has already portrayed two titans of his industry on the screens in which they cemented their own legacies. While his 2022 character in Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans was technically named Sammy, it was pretty obvious that the fictional young filmmaker was an extension of the director himself. Then this past January, it was announced that LaBelle would be playing Lorne Michaels in Saturday Night (previously titled SNL 1975), a film from director Jason Reitman about the very first episode of the iconic variety show. While Reitman clearly thought LaBelle was up to the task of being “the metronome” for the rest of his players, the announcement was initially met with a bit of skepticism. Michaels was 30 when the first episode of SNL aired—why cast someone that much younger?