SNL’s Emmy-Winning Director on Staging Taylor Swift’s 10-Minute “All Too Well” & More
Liz Patrick has helmed memorable musical moments during her time on the live comedy show.
Saturday Night Live director Liz Patrick has won two Emmy Awards for her work on the show, nabbing Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series for both Billie Eilish and Steve Martin & Martin Short's episodes (plus a third nom for Ryan Gosling's incredible Season 49 turn). And in a new behind-the-scenes video from SNL, Patrick walked through a fascinating creative challenge: Staging the Musical Guests' performances.
Joining the show in Season 47, Patrick's taken part in some major SNL musical moments over the years, and sometimes that means she gets exclusive access to the biggest releases. Taylor Swift re-recorded the album Red and released it just a day before she performed as Musical Guest on SNL on November 13, 2021. That re-recording featured the previously unreleased 10-minute version of "All Too Well," which Swift performed in full on the SNL stage.
By the time Swift's performance aired, the whole world had gotten to experience the song. But when the pop icon started planning the performance, very few people had heard it, including Patrick. In the video, Patrick shares standout memories of working with Musical Guests over the years, including that "All Too Well" debut.
"I might have been one of the only people who could hear it when we rehearsed it," she says of the Season 47 performance. "So it was a fun challenge."
Watch Taylor Swift's "All Too Well" SNL performance
Swift put in a playful performance for “All Too Well (10-Minute Version),” animatedly performing the love-gone-wrong song on a floor covered with autumn leaves. Her video starring Sadie Sink and Dylan O'Brien played in the background.
Lady Gaga's "Killah" presented a new challenge for director Liz Patrick
The world hasn't yet had as much time to process Lady Gaga's Season 50 performances, but Patrick says she and Gaga super fan Bowen Yang share a "likeness" for the Season 50, Episode 15 Host and Musical Guest. Patrick got to direct Gaga's first TV performance ever at the New Now Next Awards in 2007, so it was a reunion of sorts when they got on Zoom the week before Gaga's episode.
For her performance of "Killah," Gaga asked to start the song offstage, which was a new challenge for Patrick.
"We've done some musical monologues where we'd walk through the hallways, but I hadn't done a music performance that didn't take place on the stage," she said. "It was fun to do it in a different way."
Patrick says one of her "favorite things to do" is to collaborate with artists and choreographers, so she spent a lot of time with Gaga's choreographer Parris Goebel on what angles would be best for the moves in the tight hallways of Studio 8H.
Not all Saturday Night Live performances are meticulously planned
Sometimes, there are artists like The Foo Fighters, who most recently performed in Season 49, Episode 3, who keep Patrick on her toes and in the moment during their live performances, which is also completely different from directing comedy sketches.
"Especially here, it's two different brain modes," she says. "You are married to the written word during a comedy sketch, so the timing is all about how the cast or the actors are feeling it, and then also how the audience is reacting. Music, there's a beat and hopefully you are cutting on that beat, and you're feeling it."
"Let's say you have an artist like the Foo Fighters," she continues. "They're going to perform that song differently every single time, and I'm going to follow the ball the best I can and hopefully capture the energy that they're giving."
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