Paul Walter Hauser wants Sam Rockwell to play Lorne Michaels in his Chris Farley biopic

Paul Walter Hauser has made a public plea to Sam Rockwell to play Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels in his upcoming Chris Farley movie.

The Naked Gun actor is gearing up to play the late SNL comedian in Josh Gad’s directorial debut, which has the blessing of the Farley family.

While Hauser and Gad intend to cast newcomers as Farley’s SNL castmates, Hauser hopes to score a big name to play Michaels.

“I have some ideas for who to cast for Lorne,” he told Variety. “I really want Sam Rockwell to play Lorne Michaels, which I don’t think I’ve told anyone yet.”

He then looked directly at the camera and made his plea to Rockwell, saying, “Sam Rockwell, please play Lorne Michaels in my Chris Farley movie. You love being around me when I do my Farley impression anyway, so I’ll do (Farley’s fictional character) Matt Foley all day for you and make you laugh. It’ll be fun. Give us two weeks of your time.”

Hauser and Rockwell previously worked together on Clint Eastwood’s 2019 drama Richard Jewell.

Elsewhere in the interview, the Black Bird actor shared that screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber had turned in their “best draft” yet, and they hoped to shoot the film as soon as “early to middle of next year”, although they are still waiting on the “elusive green light” from the studio.

Farley, who was a cast member on SNL between 1990 and 1995, died of a drug overdose in 1997 at the age of 33.

Michaels, who will be producing the film, was recently played on-screen by Gabriel LaBelle in 2024’s Saturday Night, which dramatised the behind-the-scenes events leading up to the first episode of Saturday Night Live in 1975.