It’s hard to believe Liz Patrick has only been the director of SNL since 2022. She’s been in the business a long time, directing Ellen’s daytime show before it went off of the air in 2018, but she only took over SNL after longtime director Don Roy King retired in 2021. This resume means she was not on the set when the quaintly named "overstimulation" that was the Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special aired back in 2015. But oh boy, she was around for SNL50.
It was hectic, to say the least. In fact, Patrick said as much in a recent interview, noting the events of the last 12 months at 30 Rock can’t begin to compare to the stress that piled on when SNL50 started being bandied about. I mean you had a very “dry”-mouthed Adam Sandler going viral for his singing bit. You had John Mulaney doing John Mulaney. You had longtime friends of the show like Paul Simon, Steve Martin and Paul McCartney. You had tons of former cast members and fresh names. And they all wanted to do something, anything.
