'SNL 1975' Gets Its Janis Ian In Muna's Naomi McPherson
The musician, whose indie pop group performed on Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour, is making her acting debut
Jason Reitman’s film about the chaotic October 11, 1975 premiere night of NBC’s long-running sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live now has both of its musical acts shored up. Having already cast Jon Batiste as Billy Preston, the film working under the title SNL 1975, the film has cast Naomi McPherson as Janis Ian to complete that casting section.
McPherson is a member of the band Muna and in addition to playing, handles production duties for most of the group’s music. This will be her first acting role. The band has been touring the past two years promoting their self-titled 2022 album that includes “Silk Chiffon” featuring Phoebe Bridgers. Composed of McPherson, Katie Gavin and Josette Maskin, Muna served as one of the opening acts on Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour and previously opened for Harry Styles, Kacey Musgraves, and coincidentally enough, The 1975. Ian is a two-time Grammy winner whose 1975 album Between the Lines reached #1 on the Billboard 200 chart. Her best known songs are "Society's Child”, previously known as “Baby I've Been Thinking", and “At Seventeen”, which has, among other achievements in popularity, been featured on The Simpsons on four separate occasions. She performed the latter and “In the Winter” on that premiere episode, which not only had her two songs, but Preston’s two as well and three monologues from the inaugural host George Carlin, whose portrayer for this film has not been reported yet.
McPherson joins a cast led by Gabriel LaBelle as creator Lorne Michaels, and for the Not Ready for Prime Time Players, there’s Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris, Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd, Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, Matt Wood as John Belushi, Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner, Emily Fairn as Laraine Newman, and Kim Matula as Jane Curtin. Nicholas Braun is either Jim Henson (as reported) or Andy Kaufman (as spotted), with Taylor Gray and Mcabe Gregg as Al Franken and Tom Davis as far as onscreen non-cast talent for those early years. Nicholas Podany is almost-onscreen but still-future cast member Billy Crystal. It also managed to grab Stranger Things father and son Joe Chrest and Finn Wolfhard, who have also worked with Reitman and his co-writer Gil Kenan on their recent Ghostbusters films. They’re playing Herb Sargent and a network page respectively. Bottoms’s Kaia Gerber and Rachel Sennott each have roles, playing Chase’s then-girlfriend and Michaels's then-wife, Rosie Shuster, one of the show's writers, respectively, while Willem Dafoe is playing NBC executive David Tebet.
The film’s script is based on an extensive series of interviews they conducted with all surviving cast, writers, and crew. It is also part of Reitman and Kenan’s overall production deal with Sony Pictures. They produce with Jason Blumenfeld and Peter Rice, while Erica Mills and Joann Perritano are executive producers.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter