Jimmy Fallon 'threatened to take his own life' if he didn't land Saturday Night Live dream job
Jimmy Fallon once threatened to take his own life if he wasn't cast on 'Saturday Night Live' before he turned 25.
The comedian and late night host has admitted while he really did make the threat early in his career, he "didn't really mean it" because he was so certain he'd achieve his goals.
He told 'The Diary of a CEO' podcast: "Yeah, I did [make the threat].
"But, again, I knew that I was gonna be on 'Saturday Night Live', so I guess I didn't really mean it.
"Cause I was gonna be on 'Saturday Night Live' before I was 25. I just, I knew that I was going to be on it, so I knew I wasn't really a threat."
Jimmy, now 50, made his debut on the iconic sketch show in 1998, when he was 24 years old.
He recalled: "I became so obsessed in high school that I couldn't really hang out with anyone while I watched the show, because I didn't like it if anyone didn't like the show."
The 'Tonight Show' host was part of the cast from 1998 to 2004, and he admitted his only dream job was to be on 'SNL'.
He explained: "It had to be that, because that's what we would watch. They would tape it. You know, we were one of the first families to have a VCR.
"We would tape the show and then you could rewatch it. And I would rewatch it and study it, and watch the sketches over and over again, and watch the greats.
"Watch [John] Belushi and Dan Akroyd and Bill Murray and Steve Martin. People I wanted to be like."
Jimmy was reminded about his threat to "kill himself" if he didn't achieve his goal, which he first revealed in a 2011 interview with Rolling Stone magazine.
He told the outlet: "I remember saying to myself, 'If I don't make it on Saturday Night Live before I'm 25, I'm going to kill myself'.
'It's crazy. I had no other plan. I didn't have friends, I didn't have a girlfriend, I didn't have anything going on. I had my career, that was it.'
Now, 14 years later, Jimmy explained that he actually had it written in "some journal or something".
He added on the 'Diary of a CEO' podcast: "I was into computers, so I think I typed it.
"I think it's on some file somewhere. I think I said I will kill myself, but I definitely said 25 was my thing."
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Sydney Morning Herald
a day ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Haim are everywhere right now. Even they don't know how they've managed it
Suddenly, Haim are everywhere. Open your browser and you'll be hit by one of their meme-inspired singles covers, lo-fi recreations of famous celebrity breakup paparazzi pics. Scroll TikTok and you'll see them doing a viral dance for lead single Relationships or new track Take Me Back. Head to YouTube and you'll see their cinematic video clip, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and featuring internet boyfriend Logan Lerman, or viral clips of them playing live onstage while pop icon Addison Rae cavorts louchely in front of them. For a band that's been around forever (specifically, 12 years), whose last album, 2020's Women in Music Pt III, was their biggest yet, a Grammy-nominated album of the year featuring a cameo from Taylor Swift, to drum up such anticipation for their fourth album, the upcoming I Quit, is an impressive feat. Whatever viral marketing strategy they dreamed up in their record label's boardroom has clearly worked. 'There's no strategy, it's just us,' says youngest Haim sibling Alana, who you might've also seen strolling the red carpet at Cannes last month for the premiere of Kelly Reichardt's The Mastermind, in which she stars with another internet boyfriend, Josh O'Connor. 'We grew up watching SNL and had the amazing experience of watching Molly Shannon, Cheri Oteri, Ana Gasteyer and Maya Rudolph, all these women that were so unapologetically funny. All we ever wanted to do growing up is make people laugh, so that's how we take on all these things.' It's not quite the answer I was expecting. In fact, I had about 15 questions prepared around the realities of marketing in pop, about how artists don't talk about it much even though it's such a significant part of the job, especially in the streaming era where culture moves so fast and attention spans are frayed. I figured they'd learned something from Charli XCX's 'Brat Summer', about the power of a viral TikTok dance, of flooding web-space with crowd-pleasing shenanigans and canny collaborations. I'd set aside at least half of our 30-minute interview slot for an enlightening backroom discussion about the modern business of doing pop. But no, Haim – Este (39, bass and vocals) in brown, Alana (33, keys and vocals) in tan, Danielle (36, lead vocals and guitar) in black, huddled across my screen from a 'random room in a hotel in London' where they just played a show for BBC Radio One – are telling me this whole thing is just a lucky accident? 'Just doing our thang,' laughs Alana. 'I've been asking them to dance with me since they were born,' says Este. 'There are so many family videos of Este teaching us choreography and being like, 'No, your hands go here!' Honestly, we've been Este's lab rats for dance class since I was like two years old,' says Alana, and Este nods. 'No strategy,' Danielle repeats. 'But if anyone else has the answer for that, I'd watch that video as well.' Even so, the buzz for I Quit is real. Is it difficult for an established band, a dozen years into their career, to make people excited for album number four? Is there more effort involved in convincing people to listen? 'We're still in the pinch-me phase of the fact we get to tour the world together and put out albums,' says Alana. 'And especially for this album, we were all single making this album. We were going out, we were going to bars, we were dancing, we were getting drunk together again like we were 16 years old. All we were put on this earth to do is bring happiness and play music, and the fact we get to do that together is the greatest gift of all time. We're just riding the wave.' It helps when your fourth album is this good. I Quit is Haim at the peak of their creative powers. Coming out of Danielle's split from a decade-long relationship with Ariel Rechtshaid, the hit songwriter and producer who helmed the first three Haim albums, it feels like a seminal breakup album. If the band's Stonesy-rock DNA and California harmonies underpin each song, there are also intriguing experiments, no doubt prompted by the fact noted knob-twiddler Rostam Batmanglij (formerly of Vampire Weekend) has taken over lead producer duties. 'Watching Danielle and him producing was like watching a ballet,' says Alana. 'They speak the same language. And I've said it from the beginning, this is the closest we've ever gotten to sounding like how we've always wanted to sound. On Women in Music Part III, we kind of half-opened the door, and then with this album it's definitely the most Haim-sounding album we've ever made.' If you Ctrl-F'd my album notes, the word that comes up most is 'freedom'. In its free-for-all playfulness and Danielle's songs attacking all stages of post-breakup relief and grief, the album emits freedom sonically, thematically and, to start, even literally. On the raucous opener Gone, the band samples George Michael's Freedom! '90. You can picture Danielle with arms out, head to the sky, yelling 'freedom!' , as a gospel choir praises her overdue release from a bad relationship. It's a ridiculous way to open a breakup record: hilarious, over-the-top, celebratory and self-skewering all at once. 'That was the last song we wrote for the album,' says Danielle. 'We didn't mean for there to be a through-line or a story to the album, but as it was shaping up we were like, 'This is feeling like a really powerful story' and it felt like we needed an intro.' Inspired by Beyonce's Cowboy Carter, which she'd been listening to on repeat, Danielle realised Haim had never used a sample. 'So we were like, let's try it. We're such huge George Michael fans, we thought why don't we try to do this sample justice and try to invite the listener in on this little journey.' The process of securing a George Michael sample involves sending his estate a heartfelt email and then letting the lawyers do their job. 'Honestly, I was like, I don't wanna know, just tell me it's cleared,' laughs Alana. 'I think getting the approval of that estate was a really big deal for us, because we obviously are such big fans,' says Danielle. 'It's the first sample we've ever used, and it was very nice.' Weirdly enough, the song that launched Haim's I Quit era – lead single Relationships – was written on a plane from Melbourne to Sydney back in 2017, during the band's promo tour for their second album Something To Tell You, a remarkable result for such a short flight. 'It's amazing, but a little frustrating, that I get these weird waves of inspiration right as planes are taking off,' says Danielle. 'I just plucked out a few chords, and the chorus – 'I think I'm in love, but I can't stand f—ing relationships' – came down as something fully formed into my head, which, as songwriters, is really rare.' She showed it to her sisters as soon as they landed, who agreed there was something to it but suggested Danielle tuck it away till they got home as they were literally walking into album promo. When they got home they showed it to collaborator Tobias Jesso Jr, fixed some lyrics, and then held on to it for years. 'I think some people didn't get it at the time, but we always knew it was special,' says Danielle. 'It wasn't until, like, a year and a half ago that we finally cracked it open. The response to it has been amazing. We were all like, 'See, we knew it!'.' Holding on to a track for years isn't unknown to Haim: the same thing happened with their smash The Wire, which was written in 2008 but released in 2013. It does bring up an uncomfortable elephant in the room, though. Danielle was barely into her relationship with Rechtshaid in 2017. Was she already feeling misgivings that far back? The band fumble silently; I catch Danielle and Este stifle a smirk. 'It's weird, sometimes you're writing something and it doesn't really feel like it's pertaining to your life at the time and then some time will roll by and you'll be like, wait, I was really going through it then,' says Danielle. 'Or maybe I was forecasting something, I don't know. The songwriting gods are very mystical. But we love them, please don't ever leave us.' The pop canon is filled with beloved breakup albums: Joni's Blue, Alanis' Jagged Little Pill, Beyonce's Lemonade, Ariana's Thank U, Next. Do Haim think of I Quit as part of the same tradition? Danielle scrunches her lip. 'We think of it more as a 'being single' album,' she says. 'Because that's where we were, we were all single and exploring the feelings of being that.' To get back to the meme-making of it all, the idea to recreate famous celebrity breakup moments for their ongoing singles cover art – the image of Nicole Kidman, arms raised in ecstasy, leaving the courthouse after signing her divorce papers from Tom Cruise (debunked, but still); the image of Scarlett Johansson warmly embracing Jared Leto while he stares off bored into his phone – are these not thematic nods to the fallibility of high-profile relationships? Loading 'All that stuff just goes back to getting a computer,' says Alana. 'That's what we would do as siblings when we first got the internet, you would see all these photos for the first time and it just made us laugh. There's such a plethora of funny photos on the internet, and we just wanted to recreate them. It's fun.' I tell them I appreciated the obsessive level of detail on the Keira Knightley and Jamie Dornan picture for new single, Take Me Back. 'We just did that, like, three days ago when we were in Manchester,' Danielle laughs. Are there any more in the bag? 'Who knows, we have no idea. This is all very rough and tumble,' says Alana. 'Again: no strategy,' adds Este.
The Age
a day ago
- The Age
Haim are everywhere right now. Even they don't know how they've managed it
Suddenly, Haim are everywhere. Open your browser and you'll be hit by one of their meme-inspired singles covers, lo-fi recreations of famous celebrity breakup paparazzi pics. Scroll TikTok and you'll see them doing a viral dance for lead single Relationships or new track Take Me Back. Head to YouTube and you'll see their cinematic video clip, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and featuring internet boyfriend Logan Lerman, or viral clips of them playing live onstage while pop icon Addison Rae cavorts louchely in front of them. For a band that's been around forever (specifically, 12 years), whose last album, 2020's Women in Music Pt III, was their biggest yet, a Grammy-nominated album of the year featuring a cameo from Taylor Swift, to drum up such anticipation for their fourth album, the upcoming I Quit, is an impressive feat. Whatever viral marketing strategy they dreamed up in their record label's boardroom has clearly worked. 'There's no strategy, it's just us,' says youngest Haim sibling Alana, who you might've also seen strolling the red carpet at Cannes last month for the premiere of Kelly Reichardt's The Mastermind, in which she stars with another internet boyfriend, Josh O'Connor. 'We grew up watching SNL and had the amazing experience of watching Molly Shannon, Cheri Oteri, Ana Gasteyer and Maya Rudolph, all these women that were so unapologetically funny. All we ever wanted to do growing up is make people laugh, so that's how we take on all these things.' It's not quite the answer I was expecting. In fact, I had about 15 questions prepared around the realities of marketing in pop, about how artists don't talk about it much even though it's such a significant part of the job, especially in the streaming era where culture moves so fast and attention spans are frayed. I figured they'd learned something from Charli XCX's 'Brat Summer', about the power of a viral TikTok dance, of flooding web-space with crowd-pleasing shenanigans and canny collaborations. I'd set aside at least half of our 30-minute interview slot for an enlightening backroom discussion about the modern business of doing pop. But no, Haim – Este (39, bass and vocals) in brown, Alana (33, keys and vocals) in tan, Danielle (36, lead vocals and guitar) in black, huddled across my screen from a 'random room in a hotel in London' where they just played a show for BBC Radio One – are telling me this whole thing is just a lucky accident? 'Just doing our thang,' laughs Alana. 'I've been asking them to dance with me since they were born,' says Este. 'There are so many family videos of Este teaching us choreography and being like, 'No, your hands go here!' Honestly, we've been Este's lab rats for dance class since I was like two years old,' says Alana, and Este nods. 'No strategy,' Danielle repeats. 'But if anyone else has the answer for that, I'd watch that video as well.' Even so, the buzz for I Quit is real. Is it difficult for an established band, a dozen years into their career, to make people excited for album number four? Is there more effort involved in convincing people to listen? 'We're still in the pinch-me phase of the fact we get to tour the world together and put out albums,' says Alana. 'And especially for this album, we were all single making this album. We were going out, we were going to bars, we were dancing, we were getting drunk together again like we were 16 years old. All we were put on this earth to do is bring happiness and play music, and the fact we get to do that together is the greatest gift of all time. We're just riding the wave.' It helps when your fourth album is this good. I Quit is Haim at the peak of their creative powers. Coming out of Danielle's split from a decade-long relationship with Ariel Rechtshaid, the hit songwriter and producer who helmed the first three Haim albums, it feels like a seminal breakup album. If the band's Stonesy-rock DNA and California harmonies underpin each song, there are also intriguing experiments, no doubt prompted by the fact noted knob-twiddler Rostam Batmanglij (formerly of Vampire Weekend) has taken over lead producer duties. 'Watching Danielle and him producing was like watching a ballet,' says Alana. 'They speak the same language. And I've said it from the beginning, this is the closest we've ever gotten to sounding like how we've always wanted to sound. On Women in Music Part III, we kind of half-opened the door, and then with this album it's definitely the most Haim-sounding album we've ever made.' If you Ctrl-F'd my album notes, the word that comes up most is 'freedom'. In its free-for-all playfulness and Danielle's songs attacking all stages of post-breakup relief and grief, the album emits freedom sonically, thematically and, to start, even literally. On the raucous opener Gone, the band samples George Michael's Freedom! '90. You can picture Danielle with arms out, head to the sky, yelling 'freedom!' , as a gospel choir praises her overdue release from a bad relationship. It's a ridiculous way to open a breakup record: hilarious, over-the-top, celebratory and self-skewering all at once. 'That was the last song we wrote for the album,' says Danielle. 'We didn't mean for there to be a through-line or a story to the album, but as it was shaping up we were like, 'This is feeling like a really powerful story' and it felt like we needed an intro.' Inspired by Beyonce's Cowboy Carter, which she'd been listening to on repeat, Danielle realised Haim had never used a sample. 'So we were like, let's try it. We're such huge George Michael fans, we thought why don't we try to do this sample justice and try to invite the listener in on this little journey.' The process of securing a George Michael sample involves sending his estate a heartfelt email and then letting the lawyers do their job. 'Honestly, I was like, I don't wanna know, just tell me it's cleared,' laughs Alana. 'I think getting the approval of that estate was a really big deal for us, because we obviously are such big fans,' says Danielle. 'It's the first sample we've ever used, and it was very nice.' Weirdly enough, the song that launched Haim's I Quit era – lead single Relationships – was written on a plane from Melbourne to Sydney back in 2017, during the band's promo tour for their second album Something To Tell You, a remarkable result for such a short flight. 'It's amazing, but a little frustrating, that I get these weird waves of inspiration right as planes are taking off,' says Danielle. 'I just plucked out a few chords, and the chorus – 'I think I'm in love, but I can't stand f—ing relationships' – came down as something fully formed into my head, which, as songwriters, is really rare.' She showed it to her sisters as soon as they landed, who agreed there was something to it but suggested Danielle tuck it away till they got home as they were literally walking into album promo. When they got home they showed it to collaborator Tobias Jesso Jr, fixed some lyrics, and then held on to it for years. 'I think some people didn't get it at the time, but we always knew it was special,' says Danielle. 'It wasn't until, like, a year and a half ago that we finally cracked it open. The response to it has been amazing. We were all like, 'See, we knew it!'.' Holding on to a track for years isn't unknown to Haim: the same thing happened with their smash The Wire, which was written in 2008 but released in 2013. It does bring up an uncomfortable elephant in the room, though. Danielle was barely into her relationship with Rechtshaid in 2017. Was she already feeling misgivings that far back? The band fumble silently; I catch Danielle and Este stifle a smirk. 'It's weird, sometimes you're writing something and it doesn't really feel like it's pertaining to your life at the time and then some time will roll by and you'll be like, wait, I was really going through it then,' says Danielle. 'Or maybe I was forecasting something, I don't know. The songwriting gods are very mystical. But we love them, please don't ever leave us.' The pop canon is filled with beloved breakup albums: Joni's Blue, Alanis' Jagged Little Pill, Beyonce's Lemonade, Ariana's Thank U, Next. Do Haim think of I Quit as part of the same tradition? Danielle scrunches her lip. 'We think of it more as a 'being single' album,' she says. 'Because that's where we were, we were all single and exploring the feelings of being that.' To get back to the meme-making of it all, the idea to recreate famous celebrity breakup moments for their ongoing singles cover art – the image of Nicole Kidman, arms raised in ecstasy, leaving the courthouse after signing her divorce papers from Tom Cruise (debunked, but still); the image of Scarlett Johansson warmly embracing Jared Leto while he stares off bored into his phone – are these not thematic nods to the fallibility of high-profile relationships? Loading 'All that stuff just goes back to getting a computer,' says Alana. 'That's what we would do as siblings when we first got the internet, you would see all these photos for the first time and it just made us laugh. There's such a plethora of funny photos on the internet, and we just wanted to recreate them. It's fun.' I tell them I appreciated the obsessive level of detail on the Keira Knightley and Jamie Dornan picture for new single, Take Me Back. 'We just did that, like, three days ago when we were in Manchester,' Danielle laughs. Are there any more in the bag? 'Who knows, we have no idea. This is all very rough and tumble,' says Alana. 'Again: no strategy,' adds Este.
Perth Now
a day ago
- Perth Now
Noah Kahan's rise to success features in new documentary
Noah Kahan is to be the focus of a new documentary. The 28-year-old singer has seen a surge in popularity in the last few years thanks to his 2022 album 'Stick Season' and its title track, which was a huge hit around the world after going viral on TikTok, and his sudden rise to stardom has been captured in an as-yet unnamed film. According to Rolling Stone, director Nick Sweeney and four companies, Live Nation Productions, Federal Films, Polygram Entertainment, and RadicalMedia, have completed production on the documentary and are currently seeking a distributor to bring it to general release. The film follows Noah after a stint on tour, including a headline show at New York's Madison Square Garden and two at Fenway Park, Boston, with the latter having been livestreamed to support his mental health initiative The Busyhead Project. An announcement about the documentary stated: 'As his tour wraps up, he returns to Vermont to grapple with the pressures of his success, the challenge of following it up, and the personal struggles he's never shared before. 'In this intimate look, Kahan reconnects with the people and places that shaped him, while navigating through life's challenges and changing relationships.' Noah previously explained he wrote 'Stick Season' because he felt behind on TikTok and wanted something he could share on the platform. He told Rolling Stone magazine: 'We all do this — let's not pretend we don't do it. 'Looking to see if people comment on it, if people are watching it, just refreshing it like an absolute maniac. And no one was, and I was like, 'Dude, I suck. … It stinks, I suck, I'm the worst!' I was feeding into the worst thoughts of myself. "And then I woke up the next morning, and it had done really well, and I was like, 'I'm the best, yeah!' " And the singer found it "gratifying" to see how the track was embraced. He added: 'To see it succeed on TikTok and have what seems to be this universal relatability in terms of people making their own lyrics and creating their own storylines was incredible. "And it was really gratifying to see that I could make something that was specific to my life that could relate to a lot of different people's lives.'
