Posted in: Movies, NBC, Sony, TV | Tagged: saturday night live, snl

Saturday Night: Taylor Gray on SNL Biopic, Playing Al Franken & More

Taylor Gray (Any Day Now) discussed Sony's SNL biopic Saturday Night, portraying Al Franken, voicing "Star Wars Rebels," and much more.

Taylor Gray has grown a lot as an actor in his nearly two decades on screen since his debut in the CBS series Numb3rs. He acclimated himself with a mix of guest starring and leading roles, including Nickelodeon's Bucket and Skinner's Epic Adventures, Disney animated series Star Wars: Rebels, Fox's 9-1-1, Lifetime's American Princess, Netflix's She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, and Sony's Saturday Night. While promoting his latest film, Any Day Now, Gray spoke to Bleeding Cool about the Jason Reitman-directed biopic on the premiere episode of NBC's Saturday Night Live playing writer and player Al Franken, if he read for any other part, prep work, voiceovers, and why he would consider doing a musical.

Saturday Night: Taylor Gray on How Jason Reitman Helped Prep Him for Al Franken, Star Wars and More

Bleeding Cool: You're in 'Saturday Night,' the 'SNL' biopic and playing long-time writer and performer, Al Franken. Was it something that you dove in right away? How would you describe your approach? Did you talk with him before playing the role?

We've only exchanged emails, but Jason Reitman had met with everyone who's still alive and had extensive interviews with them. He shared all that information with us, and then it's 'SNL.' There was so much information. The beautiful thing is it's all taped and recorded, so you can watch these performers do the job, do the thing that they love so much. I read the big tome, 'Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told by Its Stars, Writers, and Guests', which has their interviews that Al Franken speaks in. I also grew up on 'SNL' and loved it so much, but my generation was like Will Ferrell until now, and more recently. I went back and watched through the first season, which was fun to see these guys as young as they were sort of creating a new pillar of comedy and culture, whether they were aware. They were throwing spaghetti at the wall, and it was fun to shoot.

Did you read for any of the parts, or were you penciled in for Franken?

What's funny is, being an actor, I have so many buddies and friends, among guys and girls alike, that read for basically every role. I helped multiple friends tape for roles, and I had buddies be like, "Hey, you should read for that role." I remember emailing my manager a year before I had gotten the audition for it, "Hey, if there's anything in this movie, let me know." They were like, "You're going to fall between the cracks. I don't know if there's anyone that matches up too well because I knew the casting director at the time," and then this audition came along for Al Franken. It was the only character I ended up reading for, and what a blessing because it was such a fun project.

You've carved yourself such an impressive corner for yourself with voiceover with 'Star Wars: Rebels' and 'She-Ra: Princess of Power.' Did you ever think about expanding more on your voiceover opportunities, or are you more focused on doing live-action?

It is so fun. 'Star Wars' was my first [voiceover]; it was diving in, and it happened to be Star Wars, which was a little mind-blowing and a trial by fire because there are so many legendary actors and voice actors in that show. I would love to…all my training is on stage because that correlates to everything in it. It works for film, TV, commercials, and voiceover work, all the same. If the right project came along, I would love to. It helped me as an actor because it pushed me so much further in my vocal training since you don't have all the other faculties to rely on movement and facial expressions. You are relying on your voice to express so much emotion. I would love to jump back into that world, but speaking of Star Wars, we started a podcast recently with iHeart called 'Pod of Rebellion' that just came out, so if anyone enjoyed 'Rebels,' they can check out that podcast.

Is there a type of genre work or dream project you're hoping to do in the future?

I would love to explore some more stuff on stage. That's the most alive acting can be. At the same time, I've never done anything with that. I mean, 'Any Day Now' had a little bit of music, but maybe because of a previous interviewer, we were talking about musicals; a musical could be fun. It would scare me, and that means I would be interested in it, but something with a musical element might be a good time.

Any Day Now, which also stars Paul Guilfoyle, Alexandra Templer, Thomas Kee, and Armando Rivera, is available in select theaters. Saturday Night, which also stars Gabriel LaBelle, Rachel Sennott, Cory Michael Smith, Ella Hunt, Dylan O'Brien, Emily Fairn, Matt Wood, Lamorne Morris, Kim Matula, Finn Wolfhard, Nicholas Braun, Cooper Hoffman, Andrew Barth Feldman, Kaia Gerber, Tommy Dewey, Willem Defoe, Matthew Rhys, and J. K. Simmons is now available to stream on Netflix.

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