David Spade Says It ‘Floors Me’ Seeing the Current SNL Cast’s Relaxed Dynamic with Boss Lorne Michaels

The comedian was a cast member on the long-running sketch show from 1990 to 1996

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Published on January 7, 2025 02:32PM EST

Lorne Michaels has softened over the years. 

David Spade, 60, said on his Fly On the Wall podcast that he is shocked over how the current Saturday Night Live cast members interact with the show’s creator.

While speaking with his co-host Dana Carvey, 69, he recalled Sarah Sherman – who joined the show in 2021 – telling him that she once texted Michaels, 80, to ask why her sketch was cut. 

“I’m like, ‘You text Lorne?’ That floors me,” the SNL alum expressed. 

Carvey agreed, asking, “As a cast member? During the show?”

Spade continued to share a story involving Michaels and Sherman, 31, from when they were rehearsing a sketch for his December 2024 appearance. 

“Lorne was giving notes when I did Hunter Biden,” he said. “We’re all sitting there and Lorne’s got a microphone and he’s like, ‘Cold open.’ He starts reading and then he goes, ‘Sarah’ — because she was Matt Gaetz — ‘maybe you gotta face … you’re not in the light enough. Can you face more towards the middle?’ She goes, ‘I’ll try.'”

Spade paused dramatically before recalling his reaction: “I’m like, ‘How about yes, sir?’”

Carvey appeared in the same sketch and also received a note from the creator. 

“Is that the show where he said, ‘Dana, you look like you’re reading the cards,’ and I said, ‘I look like I’m reading the cards because I am reading the cards,'” he added.

Spade and Carvey both appeared on the show in the early nineties, with Spade being a cast member from 1990 to 1996 and Carvey from 1986 to 1993.

Michaels has always been involved when it comes to the talent on SNL. Sharon Stone, who hosted the show in 1992, told Spade and Carvey in March 2024 that the show creator saved her from angry protestors who were critical of her erotic thriller Basic Instinct.

“For most of the show, I was completely blacked out with terror,” Stone said before explaining that Michaels “personally saved my life.”

“A bunch of people started storming the stage, saying they were going to kill me during the opening monologue,” Stone recalled. “The police that are always in there during all of that, and the security that is always in there froze ’cause they’d never seen anything like that happen. They froze.”

She continued, “Lorne started screaming, ‘What are you guys doing, watching the f—ing show?’ And Lorne started, himself, beating up and pulling these people back from the stage.”

Saturday Night Live airs Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC.