‘SNL’ cast member Jane Curtin assumed viewers were ‘really stupid’

Jane Curtin was an essential contributor to Saturday Night Live‘s first season in 1975 — but she didn’t think anyone with taste would watch the show.

Curtin recalls having anxiety while performing on SNL‘s first-ever broadcast on Oct. 11, 1975, the two-time Emmy winner said in a New York Times interview to commemorate the show’s 50th season.

“I never really paid much attention to the audience,” she said. “I thought, well, anybody that’s watching this must be really stupid. It gave me a lot of angst. So the way I dealt with it was, I was in this bubble, and we had a job to do within the bubble.”

Curtin said that her life outside the SNL bubble changed very quickly once the show started making waves. “You’d pass by people and they would shake,” she explained. “They had a physical reaction to you, because they could feel the energy behind what was happening at 30 Rock. And it was very, very exciting.”

The comedian didn’t anticipate the need to provide material at her callback after auditioning for the show that summer. “I walked in the door,” Curtin remembered, “and they said, ‘OK, what have you prepared?’ The classic anxiety dream.”

Once she was hired onto SNL, Curtin wasn’t sure how to make her voice heard. “I was quiet and nobody paid any attention to me,” she explained. “I didn’t know how to pitch. I had never had to do that in my life.” She remained confident, however, that she’d have some utility once the show began. “They’re paying me. So it would be foolish of them not to use me,” she recalled thinking.

Curtin was one of the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players on the show’s inaugural season, alongside Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, Gilda Radner, Michael O’Donoghue (who stopped performing after a few episodes to focus on his duties as head writer), and George Coe (who only stayed through the show’s premiere). Curtin remained on the show until 1980, and went on to find success on sitcoms like Kate & Allie and 3rd Rock From the Sun.

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In Jason Reitman’s new film Saturday Night, which dramatizes the 90 minutes leading up to the show’s first-ever broadcast in 1975, Kim Matula portrays Curtin. The movie also stars Gabriel LaBelle as Lorne Michaels, Cory Michael Smith as Chase, Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris, Dylan O’Brien as Aykroyd, Ella Hunt as Radner, Matt Wood as Belushi, and Emily Fairn as Newman. The film is now playing in select theaters and will expand to more screens on Oct. 11.