Talk about a team player.
Mike Diva, the film unit director for “Saturday Night Live,” has revealed the only request that Ariana Grande had for the show’s ultra-violent spoof of the Christmas movie “Home Alone” last month.
“Ariana was like, ‘I want as much blood as possible. I want to look like Carrie at the end of this thing,’” Diva, 38, said during a “Behind the Sketch” clip released on Thursday.
“She was really into being sprayed with blood,” Colin Jost, who famously co-hosts “Weekend Update” and also appeared in the surprising “Home Alone” sketch, added.
The skit in question aired during the Dec. 20 episode of “SNL.” Grande, 32, hosted the night’s show, and pop icon Cher was the musical guest.
While the “Wicked” star appeared in the sketch as Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin McCallister, “SNL” regulars Ashley Padilla played Catherine O’Hara’s Kate McAllister, Jost played Devin Ratray’s Buzz McAllister and Bowen Yang was Kieran Culkin’s Fuller McAllister.
But unlike the original 1990 Chris Columbus classic, this Kevin’s booby traps backfired spectacularly and ended up killing the McCallister clan one by one when they returned home to be with him for Christmas Day.
“We wanted to have a mix of the real booby traps from Home Alone, and then we were under the assumption that Kevin McAllister had set up other, perhaps even more violent traps that we never got to see,” Jost explained in the behind-the-scenes clip. “And now, we do.”
“This actually looks like me in eighth grade,” the comedian added regarding his Buzz McAllister look.
Diva went on to tease Jost about the wild getup, while Padilla praised O’Hara for her performance in the actual “Home Alone” movie more than 35 years ago.
“It’s wild to work with him or look at him when he’s dressed like that,” Diva said of Jost. “It makes work impossible. I’m about to be bullied by this dude!”
“I just love Catherine O’Hara so much,” Padilla added. “And she plays it so earnestly. This made me want to be in a Christmas movie. This is my audition.”
Elsewhere in the “Behind the Sketch” clip, the “SNL” director discussed Yang’s role in the “Home Alone” spoof and how it was one of the comedian’s last sketches before leaving the Lorne Michaels-created show after more than seven seasons.
“It takes a village to make Bowen’s arm fly off and spray blood everywhere,” Diva shared. “At this point, we know that this is Bowen’s last episode, and it is a beautiful thing that his last shot on a film unit is him getting his arm ripped off and spraying blood everywhere.”
“Brought a tear to my eye,” he joked.
Yang, who starred alongside Grande in both “Wicked” and “Wicked: For Good,” opened up about his decision to quit the NBC sketch comedy series during an episode of his “Las Culturistas” podcast earlier this week.
He explained that it was “time” for him to leave, and acknowledged that he “stayed on exactly as long as I wanted to.”
“I was maybe unsure about going back in the summer, and I’m so glad I did,” Yang, who joined “SNL” in 2019, explained. “[It was] one of the most meaningful experiences I will ever have.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
