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As the clock ticks closer to 11:00 PM in Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night, everything we know about late night television will begin to change. As a young troupe of comedians, writers and actors gather together at NBC, the chaos and anxiety of what will ultimately become the first episode of Saturday Night Live are seen throughout various wardrobe pieces, extravagant decor, and falling equipment. Offscreen Central had the opportunity to talk with costume designer Danny Glicker about the research behind Saturday Night‘s costumes, how counterculture inspired the world-building, and the callbacks to the 1940s.

Leia Mendoza: Hi Danny! I want to start off by saying that the costumes in Saturday Night are some of my favorite costumes throughout the whole year. After I watched it, I quickly wrote my Letterboxd review being like “How can I steal everyone’s wardrobe in this movie!”
Danny Glicker: That’s so sweet, thank you!

Leia Mendoza: And also, congratulations on the CDG nomination. 
Danny Glicker: Thank you! 

Leia Mendoza: I was reading about this in other interviews, but you’ve said that you’ve always been a lifelong fan of Saturday Night Live, so when Jason [Reitman] called you up, you were already kind of prepared with research and had read a lot of the memoirs and books. Especially coming from a background in knowledge in Saturday Night Live, did you already have your sense of the world building that you wanted to create? 
Danny Glicker: You know, that’s a good question. I really went into this feeling the responsibility of creating the world that these people that I admire so passionately thrived in. I think that so much of the success of their comedy has to do with the scrappiness world that they created it in. It was not a slick world back then, it was not polished, and I really wanted to create this really earthy, dirty, oppressive post-hippie world where we really understood that there was this kind of this spirit of comedic revolution possible. I wanted to take away a lot of the gloss, which we see later in the movie when we see Milton Berle’s world, when we meet Chevy Chase’s wife, we see sort of that higher-end world. But, I wanted to take a lot of that away and show that the groundbreaking comedy was created by people who were really thriving in a world of scrappy authenticity and that’s a hard thing to do with clothes. I kind of put that on me to make sure that the audience felt like we had not slept for a week, we had been sleeping in our clothes and things don’t smell so great. Everything probably reeks of cigarettes and thrift shops in that world of Saturday Night. I wanted to make sure that was communicated. 

Leia Mendoza: One thing I loved is that there is such an emphasis on the clothes being 70s themed, and I feel like the costumes have a lot of motifs to the 40s. 
Danny Glicker: Yes! 

Leia Mendoza: You can see it in the way that Rosie dresses, and I noticed that her platform shoes resemble something from the 40s. The way that Lorne dresses resembles that era. It gives off that energy that their outfits are probably inspired by people they’ve seen throughout their lives or childhoods. What was the process like about blending different eras together throughout all of the characters? 
Danny Glicker: Well, the 40s were a really important influence in the 70s. When we think of platform shoes, bell bottoms, the evolution of a sailor pant, we think of all these things that really start in the 40s. Even more importantly, so many of the characters in this are really countercultural. They’re buying their clothes from thrift shops, so I really wanted to honor the fact that while the movie takes place in 1975, this whole world has clothes moving up to that moment but not from that moment. We have clothes from earlier and people are really wearing their favorite items. In the case of Rosie, her shirt was definitely really inspired by a 50s or 40s blouse that was mixed with a much cooler menswear buy that is showing this marriage of vintage modernity that I think Rosie represents. She has this sort of, classic elegance, but she’s aggressively modern in her intelligence and ambition. 

And with all the characters, it was really about creating this interesting intersection. One of the big visual motifs that Jason and I had discussed was a clash of the generations. Like, if you scanned the studio, I wanted you to immediately be able to tell who the old guard was, like the stagehands, where they were coming from, where they lived, what subway they came on. And then versus the new guard, I wanted there to be this clash of generations. I think that’s really what the show represents. It’s always challenging to sort of create that. I think in the case of Saturday Night, the canvas was so big and there’s so many characters intersecting at all times. Each outfit had to be distinctive because each outfit had to be able to communicate with the other outfit at any given moment. So, there always had to be a distinctive quality and in many cases, that merged from characters in vintage. Tommy Dewey, who plays Michael O’Donoghue, is almost all in vintage for the movie. His character is very much an anti-establishment radical so he’s wearing all these really cool 1940s grungy outfits. I just really wanted the whole movie to be imbued with a sense of history and life between when we got to meet them at this moment of time. 

Leia Mendoza: There’s a clash of generations, which I even feel like there’s a clash of generations between Lorne and Dick Ebersol and how they present themselves. Lorne is in brown and darker colors throughout the film and Dick wears more bluer and vibrant tones, and feels more self assertive in this. I’d love to know about the color schemes, because color schemes show so much in this film. 
Danny Glicker: Each character had to have their own individual trademark because Jason and I spoke early on and our goal was that once we met a character, we would always be able to find them and always know who they were. We would never stop for a second and ask “Who’s that?” again. So, each person had a secret conversation going on with me, the actors and Jason as to what the trademark of this person was. Ebersol, his clothes are very much a nod to an older school establishment. He was very comfortable in the kind of country club world, in the world that the NBC executives would feel very comfortable relating to. He’s the face of their interactions of how the show is being produced. In fact, it’s funny because when I was researching old Ebersol pictures, there’s a funny quote in one of the books where there was a photo of him and it said “Dick Ebersol in one of the rare unpatched clothing he owned,” and he was famous for these patched things. I think it was so shocking to the Saturday Night Live actors and performers and the writers, because it was so well-established in a country club aesthetic. We’re seeing Lorne, The Not Ready For Prime Time Players, the writers in a downtown aesthetic, but they weren’t all from downtown. A lot of them were from Canada, like Lorne. Lorraine Newman is from California, and they all brought their own vibe with them. But really, it was about making sure each person, whether it was their shape or color, or in many cases I tried to imbue characters with layers so as the piece can go on as they continue to unravel, everything was authentic to who they were. Because so many of the characters in this have one outfit, I really had to make sure that once I set the actors out, I was setting them out fully realized and human so they could live their life and that every square inch of their physical existence to who they are. 

Leia Mendoza: Throughout the years of Saturday Night Live, all of the costumes have evolved as different cast members have come and gone. Is there any dream specific era of SNL besides 1975 that you wish that you’ve helped design or make costumes for? 
Danny Glicker: Oh, that’s such a good question! That’s a really, really good question. Saturday Night Live now is unbelievable. They’re magic makers. You see what the costume team accomplishes, and it’s so slick and they’re able to create miracles. I really love when it’s a little bit dirty and yuckier! I  would say maybe if I had to go back to an era, let’s say I would love to go back to the I’m Gumby, Dammit era. The era of Eddie Murphy and Gumby, or Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood. Like, things were still a little grimy. It was like the last gash before the show got really slick. Of course, I wouldn’t mind getting to do a reboot of the Sweeney Sisters because they were a favorite of mine as well. I love the lounge singing Sweeney sisters! I love those costumes, those costumes that have a little yuckiness to them. I have affection for it!

Leia Mendoza: I also love Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood, it’s so good! Eddie Murphy is iconic in that. 
Danny Glicker: He’s such an icon. 

Leia Mendoza: Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me. I love this film and I think the movie just elevates so much more with your costume designs and all of your team’s work. 
Danny Glicker: Thank you, I really appreciate it! I’m really glad it spoke to you because this movie is a love letter to the creative process, so it means so much to me, thank you.

Saturday Night is now available on Blu-Ray and Digital.
You can read our review of the film here.