There’s no behind-the-scenes drama behind Pete Davidson’s absence from Morgan Neville’s new documentary Lorne—just an overwhelming amount of material to fit into one film.
While speaking with People about the project, which explores the life and legacy of Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels, director Morgan Neville explained that Davidson simply got edged out by logistics and volume.
“I interviewed so many people for the film, and at a certain point, after I’d interviewed [John] Mulaney and he had said everything he had said, I just didn’t know where we were gonna put more voices,” he says. “It just felt like it was full, you know?”
Davidson, 32, who has long spoken about Michaels as a formative mentor and father figure, does not appear in the documentary. But he is far from the only notable name left on the cutting room floor.
The film still features an extensive lineup of major Saturday Night Live alumni, including Tina Fey, Andy Samberg, Conan O’Brien, Chris Rock, and more. John Mulaney, 43, also appears in the doc, sharing how Michaels supported him during his 2020 stint in rehab, including offering to “stay on the phone with him” for as long as he needed.
Neville notes that Davidson was also unavailable when production first began, but even if schedules had aligned, space was already tight.
“Going on to clarify that Davidson was busy when they first started filming the documentary, Neville remembers not knowing “where anything’s gonna fit” with so many SNL alums ready to share their stories.”
After all, the filmmaker had access to what he calls an overwhelming pool of talent and perspective.
“That was the hard part,” Neville continues. “It was like an embarrassment of riches, that you could interview a thousand people about Lorne Michaels. So many people have stories.”
But ultimately, Neville says the goal was never to create a sprawling oral history of SNL alumni—it was to keep the focus tightly on Michaels himself.
“I was just trying to distill his essence into a film,” he says. “A lot of those stories are not about Lorne, they’re about those people.”
“I just wanted to make sure I was staying on Lorne’s story and not other people’s stories,” he adds. “Because there are stories everywhere and it’s huge. There are thousand-page books about the show. So, it’s really just trying to get that essence of what makes him tick that I was just zeroed in on.”
Lorne is now playing in theaters. Ticket information is available on the Focus Features website.
