As a production assistant, Hader had a variety of tasks from ordering food for the crew to fetching items back and forth during production. "While working on the documentary, I got to see a lot of the behind the scenes footage from the films, actual dailies from Return of the Jedi, and it was really cool," Hader remembers. "Mostly I was running around gathering film assets. For example, I would have to drive to Gary Kurtz's sister's house and pick up photographs. And then take those photos to a motion control studio and I would sit and read a magazine while they would do motion control photography. Then I would take the photos back to Kurtz's sister's house."
"The best was when I got to transcribe tapes for the show's writers of interviews with George Lucas from 1980 on the set of The Empire Strikes Back and I'd have to watch the whole thing and type what he said," Hader remembers. "It was cool because it was something I was really interested in. I learned a lot about the films when I was working on Empire of Dreams such as the behind the scenes work of Return of the Jedi director Richard Marquand, as well as how hard a time Lucas had making A New Hope with all the pressures he was under. And the history of Industrial Light & Magic really fascinated me."
While working a production assistant paid the bills, Hader's true destiny as a comedic actor was calling in the form of the famed Second City, in Los Angeles. He honed his improv skills with the comedy troupe Animals from the Future, as well as a regular member on the hit MTV celeb reality show "Punk'd." Eventually he captured the attention of "Saturday Night Live" producer Lorne Michaels and joined the cast in 2005. As a featured player on the show, Hader has kept audiences entertained with his numerous impressions of everyone from Vincent Price to Peter O'Toole. In fact, one of his favorite impressions -- of "Colombo" star Peter Falk as an acting coach -- that he used regularly in stand-up routines, had a Star Wars slant of its own, although never aired on "SNL."
"When I used to do stand up in Los Angeles, I would do this sketch of actor Peter Falk conducting a Star Wars acting class," Hader says. "Much later when Natalie Portman came to host a show at 'Saturday Night Live,' I did the same scene as Peter Falk teaching her the Star Wars universe. It was fun to watch Natalie do the different characters. I would show her how to act like a tauntaun and then she would do the tauntaun impression. I did a Tusken Raider, and then she did an impression of a Tusken Raider. But the sketch was changed so I wasn't being Peter Falk after all and then it got cut from the lineup entirely, so we didn't get to do it on the show. Apparently though, you can see that cut sketch on the SNL Cingular Network...if you can find it."
"I also used to do this thing in my standup act where I do an impression of Casey Casum as Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back," Hader continues. "I'd have an audience member read Carrie Fisher's line 'I love you' and I'd go 'I KNOW!' yelling exactly like Casey. And slowly I'd move down onto the floor like I'm sinking into the carbonite, but yet I'd still be grinning like Casey Casum. It was really bizarre."
