A Man Worth Listening To: Bill Hader
You can’t fault Bill Hader for being high-strung. Until now, the average filmgoer has known him merely as “Hey, that guy!”—the low-key funnyman who turns up in high-grossing comedies like Superbad or Tropic Thunder, delivers a brief-but-hilarious punchline, and duly departs for the rest of the flick. So it’s easy to understand why he’s jittery about taking on his first leading romantic role in the Judd Apatow-directed Trainwreck, starring opposite Woman-of-the-Moment Amy Schumer. Cut the 37-year-old some slack; he’s not used to having this many close-ups.
Then again, Hader says he’s always been especially neurotic. Even during his Saturday Night Live days. For every time he nailed an impression (from Al Pacino to Julian Assange) or left audiences howling as delirious “Weekend Update” correspondent Stefon, Hader would prepare by hyperventilating backstage. It sounds unhealthy, but it could also be key to his success. Hader’s unease may well be his driving force. It’s the mark of a man who wants to do an exceptional job. And really, at this point, he’s got nothing to worry about.
Growing up in Oklahoma, did you always aspire to be an actor?
No, not really. As a kid I would go between being spazzy and withdrawn. I wasn’t that great at school and I had a lot of insecurities about that. I had a lot of anxiety. But I really loved movies. We didn’t really watch TV growing up; we watched a lot of movies, like Monty Python and Woody Allen stuff. I became obsessed with being a filmmaker. I eventually moved to LA hoping to become one. I worked as a PA and did all these weird jobs for a long time. Then I went through a really bad breakup and made a short film that was not great. I was too embarrassed to show it to anybody. Then a friend of mine who was taking classes at Second City LA invited me to one of his shows. And I figured, “I should try this.” It was a way to keep creative. It’s real easy to stop being creative when you’re working 16-hour days just trying to pay the bills.
I bombed all the time on SNL. It never got easy.
So how’d you go from wanting to make films to winding up on SNL?
Mostly, it was luck. I started taking those Second City classes while I was a nighttime assistant editor on Iron Chef America. A few friends and I started doing sketch shows in a backyard in Anaheim. Megan Mullally saw me in one of those shows, because her brother-in-law was in the group. And she was nice enough to recommend me to Lorne Michaels. When I met him, I didn’t have a manager, agent or anything. I didn’t even have a head shot! But he was really nice and he saw me perform. Then I did an official audition. This whole period took about nine months. And then I got the show! It was very, very sudden.
I have this recurring nightmare where Radiohead recruits me as their new drummer. And I suddenly have to play sold out stadium shows with them and have no idea what I’m doing.
It was exactly like that! One-hundred per cent like that. I remember having my own office. I’d never had my own office before, ever. And then I had Amy Poehler coming in going, “Hey, how are you! Do you improvise?” And I was like, “Uh…yeaaaah?” I was so intimidated. I always felt, especially for about the first four seasons, like someone was going come tap me on the shoulder and say, “What are you doing out there? You’ve got to get out of here.” And I would’ve been like “Yup, you’re right! Sorry!” I was making more money than I’d ever made. And my wife and I wouldn’t spend it. I was just like, “Hold onto this. Because this can all go away tomorrow.” I was like that basically until the day Superbad came out. That’s when I was like, “Aw, this movie did really well in a minute. Maybe if the SNL thing doesn’t work, I’ll still have a job in acting.”
Do you remember a time you bombed particularly hard on SNL?
You know what the weird thing is? Bombing was never a problem. It was more just anticipatory anxiety. But once it’s happening, I’m fine. Because then it’s like, “Ah well, that happened and I messed up.” And you get over it. I bombed all the time on SNL. Will Forte and I would write sketches that would bomb regularly. Very few of them went on air. What really worried me was just hearing the countdown: “Two minutes before air! One minute to air. Fifty seconds to air.” I’d just be like, “Oh my God! I’m going to throw up!” It never got easy.
