Love Lives - SNL, romantic comedies and the Pete Davidson effect - with Curtis Sittenfeld

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

Hot male celebrities don't date funny, brilliant women unless they look like models - or do they?We’re so excited to kick off our very first season of Love Lives with New York Times bestselling author Curtis Sittenfeld. The Rodham author joins us to discuss her latest novel, Romantic Comedy, which follows a witty but insecure sketch writer named Sally as she develops “a consuming, imbalance-inducing crush” on hot pop star, Noah.We discuss the phenomenon of “dating up”, the gruelling and intense process behind putting together an episode of Saturday Night Live, and of course, the three loves of Curtis’s life.Check out Love Lives on Independent TV and all major podcast platforms, and follow us on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Why are male celebrities not all clamoring to date female comedians? That's the real question. I agree. I think you're so right. Hello and welcome to Love Lives, a podcast from The Independent where I, Olivia Petter, will be speaking to different guests about the loves of their lives. Today I am so delighted to be joined by the brilliant New York Times bestselling author and writer Curtis Sittenfeld. She is the author of seven novels, including Pratt, American Wife and Rodham. And her latest novel, Romantic Comedy, was picked for Reese Witherspoon's Book Club. Welcome, Curtis. How are you? Good. Thank you for having me.

Thank you so much for coming. I just adored Romantic Comedy. I read it so quickly. It was a book that I think I really needed to read at this particular time in my life. And it's such a unique story. So can you start us off by talking about what it's about and how this plot kind of came to you and came together? So it's about a writer at a late night sketch comedy show called The Night Owls. And her name is Sally. She's in her late 30s. And she's professionally successful and has been at the show for almost 10 years. She was married and divorced in her early 20s. And she has sort of had, you know, situationships since then.

But she's not very ambitious romantically. And she writes a sketch making fun of how men from the show kind of date up and and you know these funny but maybe ordinary looking men date female celebrities who are guests on the show who are super beautiful super famous super successful household names but famous super successful household names but ordinary women writers from the show do not seem to date smoking hot male celebrities and so she writes a sketch making fun of this and then that week there's a smoking hot male celebrity guest host and she unexpectedly has chemistry with him and he is a pop singer named named, who's about her age. He's also in his late 30s. And I know you did a lot of research for this book in order to kind of

work out what it's like to work behind the scenes of a show like this. And specifically, I know SNL was obviously a huge inspiration for you. And you read loads of memoirs of previous writers and cast members on the show. What kind of things surprised you in the process of that research about what it is like to actually work on a show like that? Because even reading it, it sounds so much more intense than you can possibly imagine, just even the schedule. You know, one form of research was just like watching the show. And it was then that I did notice this real life pattern and thought someone should write a screenplay for a romantic comedy about this or with this premise. And then a few months passed. And I thought,

oh, the screenplay should be a novel and the person who writes it should be me. But I listened to, you know, there's tons of podcasts of comedians interviewing each other. There's Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out. Similarly, Mark Maron has the podcast WTF. He's obsessed with SNL. There's also Fly on the Wall that's hosted by two former SNL cast members, David Spade and Dana Carvey. And they interview other cast members, former hosts, et cetera. There's tons of memoirs.

I mean, probably the most famous is Tina Faye's Bossy Pants, but there's many others like Tracy Morgan's I Am the New Black. And there's Colin Jost's Husband of Scarlett Johansson. Colin Jost's A Very Punchable Face, which I loved. To create the show that is live on the air on Saturday night. That process starts only the previous Monday. But to kind of break it down really gave me a deeper respect for everyone involved in the show. And not just, I mean, the cast members are the people whose names we know. And there have been so many, you know, like Eddie Murphy, Kristen Wiig, Will Ferrell. But, you know, the people whose names we don't know, like the people who make the sets and the makeup artists and the costume designers, like those people are so talented.

The musicians and band, the special effects. And a lot of these people, you know, stick around for decades. They're like working in the middle of the night doing this very quick turnaround. And I do kind of think, I mean, I think people will say this about the show, that in some ways the time pressures, I think, make them really ambitious and really resourceful. And what they pull off is kind of magical. You wrote a piece recently for The Sunday Times about what you learned about the women of SNL. Because I think for a long time you know they were few and far between and I think Tina Fey was the first head writer there what kind of things did you discover about the way that it's changed to be a woman working at SNL and like over the years and how did that impact your approach to writing Sally and her position within the company?

I mean so there always were female writers from the beginning and there always were female cast members. I think from my perspective as a viewer, the sort of default sensibility of the show seems more female and more feminist in a way that I feel like I could never have dreamed of when I was watching when I was like 15 years old where it just it did feel like you know there might be men playing women and it did not feel like a celebration of womankind. Quinta Brunson was the host recently and there was she was there's a sketch this is just like in the last few weeks where she played like a lecherous old man and then a cast member named Sarah Sherman played another lecherous old man and they were being

very lecherous towards this pretty young cast member named Chloe Fineman and then the other people in the sketch were Bowen Yang and Molly Kearney. So and Bowen Yang is like openly gay and Molly Kearney, I believe, is non-binary. And so like there was something really awesome and again, subversive and feminist. And I loved it. And there are more sketches now that I just think I wouldn't, you know, 20 years ago, I wouldn't have known to like even wish for this because I don't think I would have. Like sometimes you almost, I mean, this seems like such a failure of imagination on my part, but you don't know what's missing until it's offered up to you. Now let's talk about the love story at the heart of the book. And can we talk about the

power dynamic between them as well? Because I think it's interesting that ostensibly, you know, he's the celebrity, he's the big name, he's the celebrity he's the big name he's the celebrity guest on the show but what's so interesting about TNO and and I guess and I guess SNL how it works is it's a very kind of democratizing experience for the celebrity because it's like suddenly they're having to put themselves in a whole new world they're having to enter into you know a very established room of established comedy writers who are at the top of their game and they're suddenly kind of at the bottom

of the food chain. And it's a really interesting reversal of power dynamics. Do you think that is something that kind of leads to creating this romantic connection between the two of them? And between the two of them, because then also you obviously have the pandemic, which is another great equalizer. Yeah. Yeah yeah i think that both those things are true i mean so they initially um noah has written a draft of a sketch and and he sort of in the middle of the night seeks out sally's help editing or revising and so there there's which i think

this could be just to many people, this could sound like nothing could be less romantic than sitting side by side in front of a computer, like being like, you don't need that sentence, just cut that. But she's the expert and he's kind of learning from her. And I think that, you know, she's professionally confident, she's romantically insecure,

but it's this moment where she's in her professional mode. So she's able to kind of help him and be generous. And how has the process of writing this book and researching SNL and the lives of the cast members affected your own view on fame? Because the book is full of so many interesting insights into that world and not just surrounding Noah but surrounding the SNL castmates who are you know in in and of themselves like stars um how has that affected your perception of it all um that's an interesting question I mean I think I would almost like to be like I'm not obsessed with fame and celebrity but obviously like I don't think I'm obsessed with it in a sense of hoping for it for myself. But I think I am kind of obsessed with it in our culture, because I certainly, you know,

keep writing about it. And I think some of what makes me like, you know, as you said, this is my seventh novel. I wrote a story collection. It's my eighth book. I've certainly been lucky as a writer in terms of like the attention that my own books have gotten and and I think I myself feel confusion about like how much public attention is desirable how much is healthy how much just kind of messes you up okay so my first book prep came out in 2005. And in the 18 years since then, the amount of time that a writer is expected to be on a screen has changed greatly. Like in 2005, you and I would not,

there would not have been cameras. I would not have been wearing the minimal amount of makeup that I'm even wearing. I know this is something Sally Rooney has spoken about a lot and she's kind of totally withdrawn from the public eye because it's it's it's just very it's very strange dynamic and it's not at all what we kind of go into it for but it's like the world we live in now with social media everyone is almost encouraged to want to be famous and if not famous have a degree of attention on them like I think if you look at studies on Gen Z the top desired job is to be a social media influencer you know yeah have those

eyes on you yeah and it's just so interesting that that is now something that people are kind of glamorizing and fetishizing when actually the reality of it seems quite unappealing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think, I mean, it seems like almost anyone who has gotten a true taste of fame has some degree of ambivalence about it. Or, you know, like, obviously it's very easy to find, you know, documentaries or stories about celebrities who really, you know, were very talented,

got recognition and struggled a lot. I really, really want to ask you about the Danny Horse rule, which, you know, you mentioned Colin Jost and Scarlett Johansson. That is the most obvious example that comes to my mind of it. But people often think the most obvious example are like Pete Davidson and filling the you know Ariana Grande where do you think that comes from because obviously there's kind of a conversation around men always punching above their weight and there was the even the Barbie trailer that came out recently the tagline was like she is everything he's just Ken and then that went viral because everyone was saying this is so true this is so true. This is so relatable.

Women are always so much better than the men that they date, which is obviously not true. But there is a degree in truth, I suppose, around that. Where does that come from? Why is this so relatable to so many people, do you think? So Sally thinks of it as the Danny Horst rule. She writes this sketch. And then, you know, the book is sort of about the fact that the the rule is not really a rule at all like it is a pattern um and and it's sort of like you know it when you see it like i think people recognize it it's a pattern on snl it's a pattern you know in hollywood like it's it's unusual for a super famous heterosexual male celebrity to be dating or married to someone who doesn't look like a

model. No matter what their profession is, they tend to look like a model. And whereas it's not unusual for a heterosexual female celebrity to be dating or married to a man who does not look like a model. One of the funniest examples to me that's kind of like maybe the exception that proves the rule is people really freak out about Keanu Reeves dates this woman named Alexandra Grant. And I think people feel like Keanu Reeves is a gem. He's a lovely person, which I mean, I don't know any more than anyone else. I've certainly heard that. And I think as far as I can tell, people think it's like heroic that he dates a woman who like doesn't dye her hair, doesn't seem to dye her hair, like has naturally grayish or white. Okay. So if I'm, I mean, based on what

the internet tells me, she like has a PhD. She's a very accomplished artist. She's very attractive. She's very stylish. And she's like nine years younger than he is. And this is supposed to be the example of like someone dating like a normie. So it's like, oh man, like, can we really not do any better than that example that proves nothing? Like, I think like, you know, he's lucky to be dating her. any better than that example that proves nothing. Like, I think like, you know, he's lucky to be dating her.

So I don't really know the answer. And one other thing I should say is that pondering this phenomenon actually, I think in some ways made me come to the opposite conclusion of what the book might seem like, where I think it would be delightful to date Pete Davidson. Like, if I were a gorgeous, very talented, you know, female celebrity, if I were a musician or an actress, like, why wouldn't I want to date someone charming and funny? And maybe actually the surprising part is that that doesn't seem to be true for male celebrities. Why are male celebrities not all clamoring to date female

comedians? That's the real question. I agree. I think you're so right. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. I'm Jessie Kirkshank, and on my podcast, Phone a Friend, I break down the biggest stories in pop culture. But when I have questions, I get to phone a friend. I phone my old friend, Dan Levy. You will not die hosting The Hills after show.

I get thirsty for the hot wiggle i didn't even know a thirsty man until there was all these headlines and i get schooled by a tween facebook is like a no that's what my grandma's on thank god phone a friend with jesse crookshank is not available on facebook it's out now wherever you get your podcasts podcasts. ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. ACAST.com. Right, let's move on to the loves of your life. So tell us about your first love, which is your group of writing friends. Yeah, well, actually, it's really funny because one of my writer friends is my friend named Erin, who chose all the clothing that I'm wearing right now, except for my underwear. She even, I was telling someone recently, she was even like, you need a new bra, Curtis.

So she's even responsible. So, but that's not real. I mean, I just think, I think that, so I'm very lucky. I live in Minneapolis where there are a lot of writers. And then even I have, you know, writer friendships from grad school from 20 years ago. But I think that being a writer does feel somewhat like different in your habits and different in your outlook than other jobs. Like I think it can be much more interior and much more isolated. And you sort of, especially if you're writing fiction, you care so much about people who don't exist.

And so I just feel like being able to talk to friends and kind of, you know, like, like the sort of practical parts of it and the more abstract parts of it of like, I'm trying to finish a draft of my novel. And you know, I'm trying to finish by Christmas. And even like saying that out loud to a friend, I think makes it more likely that it'll happen. Or being like, oh my god, like god like like I have a friend my my beloved friend Susanna where she will sometimes um text me like I wrote this many words today so she'll just send me a text and she'll be like it'll be like 1862 or like 450 and I'll send back like party hat emoji or whatever and just like kind of holding each other accountable and knowing

how strange it is and I do think writers are more neurotic than than the average person and I think you can be sort of worried like you can you can say I want to write this part but it's like kind of based on a family member and I just need to like think through how I should hand and like if I had if a friend said that to me I would say like I think just write it however you want to write it then like revise it and sort of smooth it out and then you kind of have like a fork in the road and you could either like ask the person how they feel or run stuff by them or you could just be like okay now I'm gonna pull this all out but replace it with something that will kind of achieve the same thing but everything else is in place so that'll be easier to do so it's just like

kind of yeah like you you just you have the same weird frames of reference when when you're both writers so tell me about your second love who is a specific writer that has inspired you you have the same weird frames of reference when you're both writers. So tell me about your second love, who is a specific writer that has inspired you? So my all-time favorite writer since I was a teenager has been Alice Munro, who is beloved to many, but has written, she writes sort of long, short stories. She really hasn't written novels. And most of them are set in rural Canada. Many of them are set like decades ago. And I just, I feel like she's very, she's very honest about human nature, including

sort of assuming that everybody has kind of mixed motives or selfishness or, you know, assuming that most of us are not like moral paragons. And then she also is so good at describing things like so precisely sort of emotional moments or like fleeting feelings that you might think there aren't words for but she shows you that they are um and and i think you know she she respects her characters and kind of takes them and their concerns seriously even though i don't think the outside world would always take them or they're you know like whether it's because they're from small towns or whether it's because like it's a woman in her 60s or whatever and just kind of knowing all of our lives matter to us. And I just feel like there's

so many ways that she's smart as a writer that I think I've tried to emulate. And when did you realize that you wanted to be a writer? Was it when you read her work or was it before that? I mean, I wrote stories pretty much from the time I learned to read and write, you know, when I was like seven or something like that. I don't think I, you know, knew that it would be my full-time job or even like my part-time job. So I think that I always probably felt like it was my, you know, my hobby and I would always do it. And I mean, there is something kind of strange when your hobby becomes your profession. You know, there are pros and cons. I would say, I think there are more pros. But I, you know, I think when I had my first novel, Prep, was published, it was essentially successful enough in the United States that it gave me this kind of foundation of I signed another contract and I didn't have to teach part time or write freelance articles or things that I had been doing to actually pay my rent. you know that's that's definitely like a huge privilege and it's not most most people who publish books are not full-time writers some are but so so I don't I think it was kind of like a

gradual realization that that it was something I could do full-time what is it like having it as your full-time job because I mean just I took like a month off my other work to kind of just focus on on writing a novel and just to focus purely on creative work it sent me a bit mad yeah because it it's such an indulgent thing to do that it feels like it feels really indulgent it like you said it's weird when your hobby becomes your profession like how do you rationalize that in your brain? And how do you maintain a modicum of sanity? Yeah. Again, a selfish question. No, those are excellent questions that I think at times I have asked myself.

And I mean, there have been times when I thought like, this is so self-indulgent. And what I mean, I feel really grateful that like, you know, the podcasts that I love exists, the books that I love exist, the television shows that I love exist. Like they bring me pleasure and comfort and entertainment and like they're thought provoking and they challenge me. And so I do think, okay, someone made those. I mean, it was someone's job to like make a TV show or to, you know, make a podcast or whatever. And so I'm glad that those exist. And maybe it's like I'm doing that for someone else and including like it could be somebody

who has a much more heroic job, like somebody who's a social worker or someone, you know, who's like a doctor or something who just needs to unwind and wants to read about a Saturday Night Live writer and a pop singer having a romance. And that's the way that they kind of like decompress. And your final love is an activity that I think is also really fundamental to a lot of writers' processes, definitely is to mine. Tell me about why you chose this. Which is walking, going for a walk. So I like, I go for tons of walks. I mean, partly like writing is very solitary and very sedentary. And I live in Minneapolis, which is very cold a lot of the year. And so it's like, I have all this gear where I bundle up and, you know, you could, you could like pass another human and like even if

you knew each other, you'd both be so bundled up, you'd be unrecognizable, literally. But I just, I think that it's kind of the way your brain maybe like relaxes a little bit. If you're kind of doing mindless errands, like maybe you're grocery shopping. I feel that way or washing your hair, whatever. I mean, I've literally had ideas for novels while washing my hair. But if you, it's like just kind of not trying to think of anything kind of maybe allows you to have more insights. I mean, I wouldn't really say I walk to have have insights I think I just walk to kind of feel like calm or to feel less neurotic yeah and just to get fresh air as well because if you're spending all day inside at your desk I find it so funny when you see these like sometimes I see these Instagram videos of like a day of writing and all I'm just writing at my desk and it's like

there's a candle there's some beautiful music there's like a pretty window or like you're going to this glamorous writing retreat. I'm like that's not what it's like. It's like I'm in pyjamas, I'm like crunched over my laptop, like freaking out and like I haven't showered yet, I haven't washed my face, I haven't seen anyone in three days. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This isn't it. Yeah, I think that might be, that sounds much more recognizable and accurate to me. That is it for today. Thank you so much for joining us. You can listen to Love Lives on all major podcast platforms, and you can also watch

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