“Saturday Night” star Cory Michael Smith reveals why he didn’t meet the real Chevy Chase before playing him.

“I wanted to talk to him,” Smith said of Chase. But director Jason Reitman asked, “What do you want to get out of this?”

Chevy Chase was the breakout star Saturday night livethe first season in 1975, so it’s only fitting that the actor who plays him, Cory Michael Smith, gives one of the most memorable performances of Saturday Night.

Smith, perhaps best known for his turn as the Riddler on Fox’s Gotham and from his frequent collaborations with Todd Haynes, he eerily echoes Chase’s voice, gestures and physicality in Jason Reitman’s new film, which dramatizes the frantic 90 minutes leading up to SNLThe first broadcast 49 years ago. Entertainment Weekly spoke with Smith about how he became a convert Saturday NightChevy Chase, and what he hopes to tell her real Chevy Chase one day.

Related: Saturday Night the team unzips that flashing Milton Berle scene

Entertainment Weekly: What was your initial relationship with Chevy and their work before starting this process?

Chevy was one of the few comic actors I loved as a kid, along with, of course, Bill Murray and Jim Carrey and Eddie Murphy, these leading comic actors who were all goofs but were still leading men. I remember when I was young I imitated them all in different roles, and there was a real joy and freedom in their work. So it’s great to have the responsibility and the privilege of playing Chevy at a really crucial time in his life where sometimes I get to be a little goofy and goofy, but I also try to hold on to the real pathos of this guy in this moment and what it meant to have that confidence and ego in that changing moment and have it crushed by a true television champion of the art form.

Which Chevy Chase projects helped you in your preparation?

The National Lampoon stuff was really my introduction to him and where I saw him the most. But because of that, I watched the first season of SNL quite a bit and it was really fun to see the change in him from start to finish. You really see a definite change in who she is, her confidence and her identity. But his early films were the ones I really leaned into the most: the first, Dirty Gamebecause he’s wonderful in it, but after looking at his other work you can tell he’s a first-time actor. There’s just a freshness to this film that feels different from other things.

There’s also an interview I saw where he said Fletch was the character he felt closest to who he is in real life, so I latched on to Fletch and I looked at it a lot. I felt something had happened when he did Fletch where he really gained a kind of confidence and a real skill in all these little physical bits and tics that are so smooth and smart and funny, and he really wanted to bring that to the paper here and there. So I watched this movie a lot.

Related: Meet the SNL cast of the biopic: See Saturday Night stars alongside the real Lorne Michaels, Chevy Chase, George Carlin, more

Were there any elements of his acting style that you found particularly difficult to reproduce?

What was really important to me was to make sure his jokes were dry. It is dry and indifferent. I wanted to make sure I got that, because personally I can be a little more forceful than he is. So I was really trying to capture a certain Chevy cadence and sarcasm, without being too loose, because it’s lovely. So I was navigating that line of being sarcastic and dry without being too dark. I think a lot of what can be read as confidence or cocky comes in the way he delivers the lines, so it was kind of finding the right tone.

What did Jason Reitman tell you about the real Chevy to shape your performance?

Jason talked to Chevy and Chevy’s daughters, so there was communication from the beginning. The big question Jason asked me early on was, “How much insecurity are we going to see with Chevy?” I wanted him to watch the way he walked, and I also wanted to focus on, “How good of a liar is he?”

For him, it was always about calibrating the degree of confidence versus insecurity because the Chevy we know is very confident, but that’s before it had the approval of a mass audience. To my surprise, this doesn’t necessarily happen anymore… SNL was released on October 11, 1975. In December, she was on the cover of New York Magazine.

Related: Saturday Night fact check: The real stories behind the wildest movie stories SNL premiere

This is crazy. I mean, some people rise to fame, sure, I guess we’re seeing that happen with Chappell Roan right now, and that’s fascinating to watch, but it doesn’t usually happen that fast, and it happened to him . So very quickly, this person was validated by the general public, but the movie takes place before that. He’s someone who considers himself funny and he had a writing job with the Smothers Brothers, so he’s had some validation and some wins, but he’s in his mid-thirties and still trying to catch a real break.

So how much confidence can you have in yourself and believe in yourself before you get proper validation from a large audience falling in love with you? That’s where Jason really wanted him to be aware of how much of that trust is earned and how fragile it is so that when we see him with Milton Berle, we can test: how easily that is broken and how hard it is for him while he’s experiencing humiliation?

Did you talk to Chevy or anyone other than Jason who had interacted with him?

Jason was my main person. Jason has known Chevy for a long time and I trusted Jason’s guidance here a lot. But for me, it was recognizing that there is so much Chevy Chase material. My task is to imagine what he was like that night or before he became a star, but also to make this person recognized by the people who know him. So it was a lot of trying to capture the essence of what was so great about this person, and then rewind a little bit. But I really trusted that what I was going to present to Jason, that he would help me shape and adjust and navigate. And I think we did well together.

I said to Jason, “I’d like to talk to Chevy.” I wanted to talk to him. And Jason told me what he told everyone: he was generally discouraging people from talking to their real people. He said, “What do you want to get out of this?”

And I really thought about it. What was most important to me, which I really wanted to tell him, was that it was an honor to portray him at this really crucial time in his life. He was great and very special to me, and I think it would be great if one day I could tell him that in person because he is very special to me. But in hindsight, I think I made the right decision.

Related: Saturday Night the filmmakers reveal how Billy Crystal provided the most essential piece SNL history

What was the most fun or rewarding sequence you remember shooting?

My favorite day of shooting, because the project is such an ensemble piece, was the day we shot the screen tests that are used at the top of the film. Everyone entered with their material. Jason said, “You have two takes. Between takes, stay in character. Everyone else in character can ask whatever question they want, and you have to answer in character.” And that’s when everyone gasped and screamed “What?!”

No one was ready for that moment and suddenly we were in it. I remember Lamorne Morris was first, I was second and then everyone else followed. I was really excited about it because I had spent so much time desperately trying to capture who Chevy would be – what his voice sounded like, the speed and everything. I was like, “Oh, that’s really fun.” And at this point I had started improvising as Chevy and it felt great.

But it was so special because my cast was amazing. You saw all the work everyone had put into their characters, and even though they were initially freaked out about having to stay in character and improv based on random questions we all asked each other, everyone gave an amazing performance. And it was that day that I felt so excited and confident about what we were doing, because we weren’t all working together every day. So we didn’t see everyone’s best performances or their main scenes. We saw each other a lot, but we didn’t like each other this. And it was so impressive, and I was so proud to be a part of that group. I think it’s proven that everyone’s work in the film is strong. I’ve never been part of a stronger ensemble, collectively.

Related: Saturday NightLamorne Morris explains Garrett Morris’ climactic (and improvised!) song ‘Kill All the Whities’

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Want more movie news? Sign up Entertainment Weekly’s free newsletter to receive the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, movie reviews and more.

Saturday Night now playing in theaters.

Read the original article at Entertainment Weekly.