Bill Hader Bows to John Cleese

For the first time since Eddie Murphy in 1983, a Saturday Night Live performer has been nominated at the Primetime Emmys in the category of Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. Before Bill Hader finds out if he’ll take home the prize, he chatted with Elvis Mitchell for today’s episode of TheTreatment on KCRW.

There’s lots of good stuff about the mysteries of why some SNL skits work and other celebrity hosts don’t, even when they’re killing it in studio. Hader also talks about his admiration for comedians who remained calm amidst the craziness, like Harvey Korman, Gene Wilder and SCTV’s Rick Moranis. In that same vein, he also isolated a formative childhood viewing experience:

“Watching Monty Python and the movie And Now For Something Completely Different in the sketch where John Cleese is the guy teaching people how to defend themselves if anyone attacks with fresh fruit. And the way he plays that is as a real insane person. He doesn’t play it funny, at all. There’s a moment where everyone is listing off – ‘You’ve already told us how to defend us against cherries…’ – but it’s so funny, there’s just a shot of him listening to them and he’s playing it as a psychopath. And that, at a young age, I realized, ‘Oh, that’s what makes it so much funnier.’”

Has Hader ever spoofed Modern Family? Sunday night’s Emmys might well play like an SNL skit, as he is up against all four(!) of that show’s adult male co-stars (along with New Girl’s Max Greenfield.)

[Photo: s_bukley/Shutterstock.com]

Previously on FishbowlLA:
The Ballad of Bill Hader’s Harshest Internet Critic