Mark Ronson constructed up probably the most spectacular music careers over the previous 20 years, from producing Amy Winehouse’s Again to Black and releasing one of many best-selling songs of all time with “Uptown Funk” to soundtracking one of many largest cultural moments of the last decade with Barbie. This yr the celebrity producer notched one more feather in his cap as an government producer of SNL 50: The Homecoming Live performance alongside Lorne Michaels, curating a once-in-a-lifetime star-studded live performance during which main artists lined landmark performances on the present. Ronson secured his first-ever primetime Emmy nomination within the course of.
Michaels supplied Ronson the gig in October 2023, giving them slightly below a yr and a half to corral their dream lineup, which would come with artists from Miley Cyrus to Woman Gaga, Cher to Put up Malone, the surviving members of Nirvana, and SNL legends like Will Ferrell and Andy Samberg.
“I had that split-second flash that was like, ‘That is going to be probably the most great factor of all time and a loopy quantity of labor,’ ” Ronson says. “And naturally I’m going to do it as a result of it’s Lorne and it’s Saturday Evening Stay.”
Ronson, who calls his personal SNL efficiency in 2014 “absolutely the spotlight” of his profession, says he watched each musical act the present has ever hosted to arrange, a time-consuming activity. He narrowed it right down to roughly 120 songs, writing concepts on sticky notes and posting them up, just like SNL‘s bulletin board the place the present pronounces its weekly lineup.
“I’d be in a lodge someplace DJing for an F1 occasion or one thing, and all the lodge room could be simply suffering from yellow Put up-its that’d say ‘Karma Chameleon’ or ’50 Methods to Depart Your Lover’ or ‘Dangerous Man,’ ” Ronson says with a chuckle.
From left: Dangerous Bunny, Chris Parnell, Woman Gaga, Andy Samberg and Jorma Taccone had been among the many stars who lit up SNL 50: The Homecoming Live performance
Ralph Bavaro/Peacock through Getty Photos
Ronson huddled often with Michaels and producer Erin David as a form of “mind belief” they usually’d go over concepts for the lineup. Ronson would ship 5 – 6 songs to the artists to contemplate masking, a few of whom “utterly ignored my selections or had been utterly offended by them,” he jokes, including that artists introduced their very own nice concepts as properly. Marcus Mumford of Mumford & Sons, for instance, got here up with taking part in Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Boxer,” a very noteworthy tune in SNL‘s historical past as Paul Simon performed it on the present simply after Sept. 11, 2001.
Ronson says producing the live performance particular was intense even by his personal requirements, recalling “waking up in the midst of the night time in chilly sweats” as he juggled the present, engaged on his memoir (slated for publication later this yr), and managing time together with his household as his spouse was pregnant with their second little one.
“I keep in mind being on these convention calls like, ‘I do know you guys are used to this, however I’m shedding my thoughts right here,’ ” Ronson jokes. ” ‘Does this place include a prescription of Xanax?’ ”
This story appeared within the Aug. 6 problem of The Hollywood Reporter journal. Click on right here to subscribe.
