‘Saturday Night’: Why Dylan O’Brien Didn’t Over-Prepare to Play Dan Aykroyd (Exclusive)

Dylan O’Brien, Rachel Sennott and Gabriel LaBelle talked to “Extra’s” Adam Weissler about “Saturday Night,” their new “SNL” biopic that chronicles the tense behind-the-scenes chaos before the first broadcast in 1975.

O’Brien shared how he studied Dan Aykroyd, but revealed that director Jason Reitman was also adamant that they not slip into doing an impression.

He explained, “I spent a lot of time watching… young Aykroyd stuff, which I was less familiar with, but then definitely wanted to make him my own. That was like a requirement sort of Jason’s. He was really hell-bent on us not overpreparing with regards to impersonation and just really wanting to embrace our own instinct, as far as our interpretation of the character, and just run with that and trust him.”

Rachel dished on getting to talk to the real-life Rosie Shuster, an “SNL” writer in the early days, and what she took away for the character.

“I got to talk to Rosie, which was amazing… Just talking to her was so great, like, hearing her voice, hearing what she laughed at and, like, this is also how I knew Jason did such a great job with the script… She used phrases or words or whatever that were in the script and I was like, ‘Whoa, that’s cool.’ So then I just feel like I took from her energy, her sort of like cool, funny, smart energy of, like, ability to roll with the punches, and tried to put that into the character.”

Gabriel reflected on the rebelliousness of the original “SNL” cast, saying, “I think these guys had a sense that they were truly doing something that they hadn’t seen on television ever, and I think that was electric for them. They really felt part of it, and I don’t know if that can be compared to anything today.”

Plus, he shared a funny story from the set of when Jason surprised them with Dan Aykroyd on FaceTime!

LaBelle shared, “Rachel and I were about to shoot a scene and Jason walks over with his cell phone… and he’s like, ‘Hey, it’s Aykroyd,’ and he puts Dan Aykroyd on speaker phone right before we do the scene.”

He recalled Dan gave them some words of encouragement, “He’s like, ‘Hi, yep. How are ya? You know, this is a uh, people want to watch this and it’ll be very good for your careers.”

Rachel described it as a “pep talk,” saying the comedian also told them, “Relax, don’t stress, whatever.”

Dylan asked, “And then when you guys tried to put me on, what did he say?”

Sennott joked, “He said, ‘Hang up, don’t wanna be talking to Dylan. All good.'”

Gabriel chimed in, “He said, ‘I don’t wanna be talking to any wolf boy,” nodding to Dylan’s “Teen Wolf” past. Dylan deadpanned, “It’s okay. I’ll follow me forever.”