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Michaels told the group that he planned to ask the cast to stay behind after the Writers Meeting. "I want to go through their various complaints," he said. Two of his star cast members were in revolt, and he planned to tap his patriarchal side to smooth things over. ("I think all comedy shows—this sounds a bit pretentious, but I am a bit pretentious—are based on family," he's said.) Cecily Strong, a dark-haired comedian who regularly killed with her impression of Melania Trump, was in a sulk about being asked to make fun of the Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein in a sketch about the confirmation hearings for Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. (Strong's Feinstein had barked, "We're back from lunch. I had 'soup,'" in a doddering drawl.) Leslie Jones, at fifty-one the oldest performer on the show, was becoming increasingly vocal about her conviction that the writers didn't know how to write for her. (Jones had been made a cast member in 2014, when Michaels, responding to criticism about the show's record on diversity, auditioned twenty-five Black women in the middle of the season. Two seasons later, Jones was nominated for an Emmy.) One more distraction: Pete Davidson, at twenty-four the youngest cast member, was being battered on social media after the pop star Ariana Grande called off their highly publicized quickie engagement.

Talking about the cast, Michaels continued, "I want to try to make them understand the distinction between their own political feelings and the script." There had been a lot of last-minute tinkering lately, with cast members wanting to adjust their lines just before air. At SNL, the writer is paramount, and sometimes the cast resents this. He continued, "If they think that they shouldn't be making fun of this person or that person, we have a problem." Michaels has been broadcasting political satire on the show since the seventies, when Chevy Chase played Gerald Ford as a bumbling klutz and Dan Aykroyd impersonated Jimmy Carter talking a caller down from a bad acid trip. ("Were [the pills] barrel-shaped?" he asks. "Okay, right, you did some Orange Sunshine.") He's accustomed to dealing with the ardent political sensitivities of millennials. "Also," he added, "there's nobody we ever did on the show who wasn't thrilled about it," he said. "See Anthony Scaramucci. Or Dick Cheney."

Michael Che, a Black comic who is Jost's co-head writer and Update anchor, said, "Really? Cheney liked it?"

Michaels made a half grin. "Oddly enough, we're not as menacing as you would think," he said. He learned years ago that politicians like to appear on the show, in order to look smarter by satirizing themselves.

Jonah Hill would soon arrive on the seventeenth floor. Before he came in for a ceremonial powwow with Michaels, the inner circle had a little more business to go over. Lindsay Shookus, the talent coordinator, mentioned that this would be Hill's fifth time hosting. That meant they could do a sketch about him joining the Five Timers Club, a pretend wood-paneled sanctum where veteran hosts (Steve Martin, Justin Timberlake, Melissa McCarthy, among others), drink brown liquor and wear smoking jackets emblazoned with a Five Timers crest.

"Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah," Michaels said, the syllables tumbling out in a staccato rush. It's a verbal tic, along with "No-no-no-no, I know," which also indicates agreement. The longtime SNL writer Robert Smigel says that Michaels's "yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah" thing is the one bit of Jewishness still left in him.

"Do we have a jacket?" Michaels asked.

"We can have one made," Shookus said.

"So few things fit...," Michaels mused, referring to Hill's recent weight loss. Mentally scrolling through Hill's previous four appearances on the show, he mentioned a sketch that Hill had done about a six-year-old at Benihana. "So he's here to do comedy?"

Shookus nodded. "He's sick of talking about vulnerability." Hill was fresh from promoting his directorial debut, a brooding independent movie about a suicidal teenager and skateboard culture, called Mid90s.

"All right," Michaels said. "Bring him in." The room emptied, and Jonah Hill strode in and stuck out his hand. He had on jeans, a black shirt buttoned up to the neck, and a trim khaki-colored jacket.

 

"Congratulations on the movie," Michaels said, as Hill took a seat in a chair across the desk. "Was Scott Rudin involved in it?"

"He produced it!" Hill said brightly, not realizing that Michaels was making an extremely deadpan joke, the kind that comedy people refer to as "dog whistle." Rudin is known for being an energetic promoter of his own projects, and had likely pushed for Hill's booking on SNL.

"Reaaaally?" Michaels said in mock surprise, making his joke clear.

Hill broke into nervous laughter. "Ha ha ha! That was very good! Your delivery was so dry that I literally didn't pick up on it."

Then Michaels indulged in a little insider talk, designed to draw Hill in and make him feel like he had a seat at the grown-ups' table. A message was embedded in the talk, as it often is when Michaels unspools a tale of Old Hollywood and drops a lot of names.