60 Stars, 50 Seasons, 5 Panels

When the team behind New York’s annual “Reasons to Love” issue began reflecting on 2024, they quickly noticed how many New York institutions are celebrating their 50th anniversary this year: the Park Slope Food Coop, People magazine, the city’s first community garden, A Chorus Line, and the Hamptons Jitney, to name a few. Plans to cover Saturday Night Live’s 50th in early 2025 were already underway, but photo director Jody Quon saw the perfect connection between “Reasons to Love” and an enormous, multigenerational SNL cover: two longtime New York mainstays, each celebrating a milestone (this year marks the 20th edition of “Reasons to Love”) and known for being in constant conversation with New York, as well as the rest of the country, for decades.

After getting the green light from Lorne Michaels in early October, Jody asked for my help as “our SNL expert,” but she needed that help to arrive like the rest of the project: at lightning speed. 167 cast members have passed through the sketch-comedy show since its debut in 1975 (we made a SNL cover back then, too), and sifting through that list to land on a mix that represented SNL well was no easy task. Jody wanted to include people from eras old and new: superstars, underappreciated gems, and some recurring non-cast members who had a memorable impact. The photo team had to figure all of this out within weeks, not months. No big deal.

After pulling in my colleague and fellow SNL scholar Jesse David Fox for reinforcement, I sent Jody a list that slotted every cast member into categories that would be easier to digest for those without an unhealthy level of SNL knowledge, including “Hall of Famers,” “Famous People People Don’t Realize Were on SNL,” “Deep Cuts,” and “Dead People.” (If nothing else, that last one was a heads-up about who definitely wouldn’t respond to us.) What happened next included many rounds of deliberations and communication with reps from the show. Jody — alongside photo editors Isabela Quintero, Maura Friedman, and Emily Denniston — embarked on an epic phone-call and email hunt to land as many SNL alums as possible to participate in photo shoots by David LaChapelle. SNL’s PR chief Lauren Roseman and her team helped gather talent and navigate an incredibly complex puzzle of stars’ schedules and travel. The result of all this work features 60 past and present SNL cast members, five members of the show’s so-called Five-Timers’ Club, and a cover so stuffed with stars that we had to expand it into the first five-panel fold-out cover in the magazine’s history. “It’s one of the most ambitious covers we’ve ever done,” Jody says. “We’re straddling East Coast, West Coast, and five different sets. It’s basically five different covers.”

Because of the number of participants, LaChapelle’s shoots were broken up into five sessions: two at his studio in Los Angeles on November 6 and three at Pier 59 Studios in New York on November 11. The SNLers arrived; went through hair, makeup, and, for some, wardrobe; spent time with LaChapelle posing for individual shots; then waited around until it was time for their group portrait, often catching up or joking around with each other during downtime. LaChapelle and his team constructed the sets for each group shot, each one evoking the gritty, ragtag, backstage-inspired spirit of SNL and the classic promo photograph of the debut-season cast on the stairs. Part of LaChapelle’s approach was to constantly blast music, often on repeat; I’ve now heard enough of Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” to last a lifetime.

To describe the things I saw and learned as an SNL fan at these shoots would take up a whole essay, but I’ll run through some snapshots: Mike Myers kissed Joe Piscopo. OG cast member Garrett Morris, now 87, was seated alongside his nephew, who assisted him in getting around as they waited for the group portrait (which involved, at one point, Morris anchoring one of Amy Poehler’s high-heeled shoes with his hands). John Mulaney, Bill Hader, and Martin Short stood around, did bits, and made each other laugh. Dana Carvey arrived to the loud music of the studio and leaned toward me to sarcastically ask, “Excuse me, could you please get someone to turn the music up?” Later, Myers arrived and was bummed when he learned Carvey had been there earlier, and he asked if anyone could get him to come back. (No one could.) Tina Fey, wearing a Shiv Roy shirt, talked with Steve Martin about Short’s much-reported romance with Meryl Streep. Will Forte and Jimmy Fallon wandered around one of the sets. Terry Sweeney, the show’s first openly gay male cast member, showed me photos of the art exhibition he and his partner currently have on display in Queens. Ellen Cleghorne, who was quiet and reserved when she first arrived, loosened up as her individual portrait session with LaChapelle progressed. I watched her poses grow more open and powerful while Donna Summer’s “MacArthur Park” played and caught myself tearing up. I’d spent so much of my life as a fan and journalist on this show, and I’ve always had a soft spot for the alums who never got quite enough attention or coverage. To watch Cleghorne move, with all eyes on her, as Summer sang “There will be another song for me / And I will sing it / There will be another dream for me / Someone will bring it” was almost too on the nose.

Near the end of his group shot, Short, who I can confirm is the nicest celebrity on the planet, called out to the dozens of us standing behind the camera in a faux-condescending tone, “Has any of you decided which one of us is your favorite?!”