Bill Hader Breaks Down His 9 Most Iconic Roles

I was?

(rock music)

You know, Seth, and Evan, and Greg Mottola,

you know, they really were so open to

whatever I wanted to do, and I wanted

to give him glasses because when I

grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, there was

a cop that would bust us sometimes,

and he wore glasses, and it just kind of

de-masculated, like we just couldn't be,

we were never afraid of him, because he had glasses on.

And then this idea that he becomes

you know, that he and McLovin are best friends,

that this kid, McLovin, is his best friend,

and I thought that was funny and I remember

what helped me with that character

was Greg Mottola gave me a note.

There's a scene in the movie, and we shot it early,

where Slater busts into a house party,

and McLovin is having sex with a girl.

And he, you know, I played it in a way,

for comedy, I played it big and over the top,

and I was jealous, but I played it for comedy,

meaning, like, What are you doing? You (mumbles).

After a couple of takes of that,

Greg came over to me and he went,

This guy's your best friend,

and he just ran out on you.

And I went, Okay, got it.

And that's the take that's in the movie,

where I'm like, Why did you do that?

Like, why would you run off like that, man?

Like, why'd you do that?

And it just became infinitely funnier.

I remember, I started doing that,

and the boom started shaking, 'cause the boom guy

started laughing, like, everyone started laughing,

'cause it was like, just so real.

And that taught me a big lesson.

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Dave in Hot Rod is based on

a guy I went to high school with.

And the story in that

about him being on acid, and a piece of metal

flying into his eye, that happened to my friend.

I think he took magic mushrooms,

and he went into his,

his garage, and started soldering stuff,

and a piece of metal flew into his eye,

and he called us, and was like,

Hey, can you guys take me to the emergency room?

Apparently, someone told me he saw the movie,

and then said, Wow, that was nuts.

You know that scene where the piece of metal,

the guy's trippin' balls, and the piece

of metal flies into his eye?

You know that happened to me once?

(laughs)

It's like, yeah, it's based on you, dumb ass.

I'm making him sound like he's not smart.

He's actually brilliant, but he's just like,

such an Oklahoma dude.

Now, he's like a professor.

I don't think he wants his students to know

that that's based on him. (laughs)

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I auditioned for Tropic Thunder, and there's a,

an executive

who works at Paramount,

who I could do a good impression of.

And I did the reading a couple times,

and then I told Ben Stiller, I'm like,

You know I can do an impression of this guy.

And he said, Well, what's that?

And I was like, I just want you all to know

that we're having such a good time here.

And I remember he said, this executive's on set,

and he goes, Do you know why they

make the sandwiches so fresh?

And then he turned to the guy, who made the sandwich,

he goes, Why are these sandwiches so fresh?

And the guy, kind of awkwardly, was like,

I made them this morning.

He goes, Because he made them this morning.

And I did that in front of Ben,

and he laughed really hard.

And I went, oh cool, all right.

Well, and I didn't read the script,

I literally, what I just did, I did that.

And he knew the guy, and he started laughing.

And then, a couple days later, my agent called me,

and he was like, Yeah, you got the part.

And then, we had the table read for that.

And the table read for Tropic Thunder was insane.

It was like, that whole group,

and then, Tom Cruise walked in.

And Tom Cruise, because I had a lot of scenes with him,

he sat down next to me,

and

he was awesome.

You know what, when he had all the makeup on

and stuff, it was really easy to chat with him,

because you forgot it was Tom Cruise.

And he was just going so crazy and over the top in it

that it didn't feel like Tom Cruise,

but then we would sit in between

set-ups and I mean, he was so generous,

I mean, I was ask, I go, you know,

Risky Business is such a great movie, man.

And he goes, Oh, thank you, thank you.

Yeah man, when we did that, it was just,

you know, and he would really give you

really great stories that had great advice in them.

In the full Les Grossman thing, and I would just

be chatting with him, and it would be fine.

And then, it wasn't until the premiere

of the movie, that again, I saw him without

the makeup on, and he was like,

Hey, man!

And I was like, oh God, right, you're Tom Cruise.

And I was just, yeah, he's just,

you know, he's a giant movie star.

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That, that's right, yeah, I'm in the second

Star Trek movie, I'm a voice of a ship.

JJ called and said, Hey, man.

You wanna do a voice for a ship in the new Star Trek?

And I went, Sure.

And he goes, Can you do it like, today?

I go, Well, I'm in Las Vegas.

He's like, Let me get into this.

And then, I just got a call going,

A car's picking you up to take you to this little

recording studio in Vegas.

And I went in, and I did it like,

three times, and then left.

And then, a bunch of SNL people were watching

the movie, and they all went, Ah, there's Bill!

(laughs)

I wouldn't have noticed me, but they were like,

Ah, there's Bill!

That's the weird thing, you do these things,

and you do them, they're so fast,

I don't, I've watched things that I've done

voices in, and I fully forgot I was in it.

'Cause I have three small children,

and we'll watch movies, and then,

suddenly, my voice pops up in it.

Like, Ice Age Three or something, I'm a gazelle,

and it's like, Hey, and I'm like,

When the hell did I do this? (laughs)

They think it's embarrassing.

They think it's terrible.

They don't like it.

They're like, Ugh.

That's embarrassing.

But I mean, I would be embarrassed.

That's the thing I always say.

It's like if I was watching Star Wars,

and my dad showed up on the Millennium Falcon,

I'd be like, This blows.

Hey, everybody!

Hey guys, how's it going, hey, what's happening?

You guys wanna go, hey, Billy would love it

if you guys went to warp speed, or whatever you call it.

Like, aw Jesus.

Yeah, it's embarrassing.

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Yeah, the BB-8 voice is very,

that's like JJ Abrams being just a nice guy,

and being like, I'm gonna give you like,

a fanboy dream of having your credits in a Star Wars movie.

I just know, I recorded sounds, and it didn't really work.

Like, I was going like (nasal mumbles)

I was doing all these, and I would watch

the movie, so I got to watch the Star Wars movie

seven months before it came out,

in a little booth, watching it on a little monitor,

and I would just do ADR for any time BB-8 came up.

And I'd go, (nasal mumbles)

and I would just do these things,

and it didn't seem right.

And I was like, well maybe Gary Rydstrom was like,

well, maybe we can manipulate it, and do stuff with it.

It wasn't working.

So, ah well.

I got to see the movie early.

That's cool.

And then, in November, the movie came out in December,

in November, JJ called me and said,

We figured it out.

It's this talk box like the

Peter Frampton, the Peter Frampton like, wow-wow,

you know like, and then,

and he hooked it to this app on his iPad.

So, what BB-8 is is me in the first movie,

I don't know what they did in the other movies,

I didn't work on the other movies,

but it's just me with this,

this talk box, going (squeaks tones)

and I'm just doing that.

And JJ and the guys are manipulating it as I'm doing it.

And it took maybe an hour.

And I get asked about it, and now I sign

pictures of BB-8 everywhere.

And now, it's like this big thing,

and I did it in all of an hour.

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The Grey Gardens episode,

that was Seth Meyers's idea, and he said,

What if you guys did Gray Gardens,

and I remember, to be honest,

Fred and I were a bit, we didn't want to do it,

'cause it was us dressing in drag,

and we were like, You know, there's a lot

of funny women out there, and I just

dressing in drag feels kind of like,

another time, I just don't like it.

Like, I love Monty Python, I love Kids in the Hall,

but anytime they're dressed in drag,

it always feels like a little out of step.

It just doesn't hold up or something.

And so, we didn't want to do it.

And then the irony was, he just persisted,

and was like, You guys are the

only two people on the show.

Like, no one's gonna call you out on this.

Just go do it.

And so we did it, and no one gave a shit.

(laughs) It's the one that everyone knows.

So clearly, Seth was right.

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Barry's very different than anything I've ever done.

He's kind of a,

he's not necessarily a cipher, but he,

you know, he's kind of a new soul.

You know, he doesn't, he's kind of experiencing

L.A., and all these people

and he's trying to find a community,

and he's trying to get in touch with like,

what's wrong with him,

'cause he knows he's murdered all these people,

and he knows it's, that's wrong,

but he can't

you know, he can't figure it out,

and he can't really even like,

find a way to talk about it.

He can't even verbalize it.

You know, this idea that he works in the shadows,

and lives in the shadows,

but he wants to be in the spotlight,

there's a funny conflict there.

So, we decided to pitch it to HBO,

and again, we said we want to play it very straight.

We don't want it to be, it's not broad or anything.

And HBO, the people at HBO had seen me

in a movie called Skeleton Twins,

and they said, Oh, we really liked Skeleton Twins,

and we liked your acting in that, so yeah.

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I would just go do table reads for dramas,

because no one thought of me in that way,

and I wanted to do that kind of work,

and so I did a table read for this drama,

and the casting director, Avy Kaufman,

saw me and really liked me.

So, when she was casting Skeleton Twins,

you know, they were looking at more,

kind of, dramatic actors, and she said,

You know who's really good,

is, you know, who would be really good is,

you know, me, and so I had this meeting with him,

and he was like, Aren't you the guy who just does

you know, you do Stefon, you know, and all that.

And, No, I could

work with you on the character,

and the idea was that, him being gay isn't,

he's out and proud, it has nothing to do,

he's depressed, and I related to the idea

of like, no one's told you you're good at something.

You know?

You move out to L.A., you get away from your home town,

and there was a part of that Milo character,

that I could have been that, if just like,

one or two things went wrong, I would have been

right back home, and pissed off, and you know.

And I related to those feelings, and so,

I think we saw the character the same way,

which is like, you know, play him out,

and play, you know, he can be flamboyant,

and not, there always seemed to be a thing of like,

you know, Craig and I talked about like,

Don't, people don't want to play them too flamboyant,

especially straight actors, 'cause they don't

wanna seem like they're doing a caricature, or whatever.

And I get that.

But Craig and I were saying,

Yeah, we know plenty of gay friends who are out,

and very flamboyant, and like, just play it that way.

And the fact that he gave me so much,

he had so much confidence in me,

meant a lot.

And then, to get to work with Kristen in that way

was fantastic, 'cause it just was so,

we had eight years of

experience together, so there was no acting.

It was just, we were just reacting off each other

and it was,

it was a blast.

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Well, the one everyone loved was Stefon.

That was the one everyone talked

about the most, which was a blast.

That was always fun to do.

That was based on a barista in Chelsea,

who actually turned out to be friends

with Kate McKinnon after the fact, which is funny.

He didn't talk like that or really dress like that,

it was just this attitude he had

and then, John Mulaney had a character

that he would kind of do the voice of,

and we just kind of brought them together.

A lot of Stefon is John Mulaney.

He deserves a lot of credit for that character.

I mean, so much of the language

of that character is John Mulaney.

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If I have a favorite role, they're all so different.

I just like that everything's so different, I hope so.

You know, and just to continue doing that.

You know, there's like, little moments,

where you have like a benchmark, you know,

where you felt like, oh man, I was so loose

on Superbad, and that was a lot of fun,

or the chance to get to do something like Skeleton Twins,

which was so different, and then, Barry,

which is its own different thing.

And it's just wanting to be able to swerve like that.

That's my biggest hope.

Right, thanks for hearing me natter on about my career.

(laughs) Hope you enjoyed yourself.

Pleee!