The famed Saturday Night Live (NBC) “Five-Timers Club” recognizes hosts who have headlined the show at least five times. The tongue-in-cheek honor originated in a 1990 episode with a joke delivered by host Tom Hanks in his opening monologue. The exclusive club has gone on to inspire memorable sketches, showcasing the elite group of hosts as they revel in the trappings brought about by their accomplishment, including a smoking jacket, a membership card, and access to a lap-of-luxury backstage lounge.
However, missing out on those perks–and certainly not celebrated on air–is another recent five-timer whom we acknowledge in this installment of SHOOT’s The Road To Emmy Series: Liz Patrick.
For the fifth time in her five seasons on Saturday Night Live, director Patrick is a Primetime Emmy nominee. She is now going for her fourth Emmy win over that span, this time on the strength of directing the “Olivia Rodrigo” episode. Last year Patrick won the Emmy for Outstanding Direction for a Variety Special for the landmark SNL50: The Anniversary Special. She earlier won for her variety series direction in 2023 for the SNL episode hosted by Steve Martin and Martin Short, and in 2024 for the Ryan Gosling-hosted SNL episode.
This track record of awards show achievement extends beyond the Emmys as Patrick’s work on SNL has also garnered her four DGA Awards, capped by a win earlier this year for SNL50.
While on the surface it’s tempting to conclude that Patrick hit the ground running at SNL, becoming an Emmy- and DGA-recognized director right out of the gate, the reality is that this success was fostered over time, dating back initially to when she got her start at MTV as a production assistant, working her way up to serving as a director there for some 10 years. It was at MTV that she got an education in live television along with a taste of comedy, pivotal preparation for her next long-term gig, some 13 years on the daytime talk show Ellen, working with Ellen DeGeneres whom Patrick describes as “a comic genius.” Patrick learned DeGeneres’ brand of comedy, her comedic voice and tone. Doing a daily talk show with a standout comedian–which in the case of Ellen was a daytime talk show much more like late-night television–gave Patrick an invaluable experience and education which in turn garnered her 16 Daytime Emmy Award nominations, including 10 for directing (the other six being for Outstanding Talk Show/Entertainment in her role as a producer on the show). She won three Daytime Emmys for her directing and four for best entertainment talk show.
Patrick said that the Ellen experience helped open the door for her at SNL, affording the director a measure of preparation for “a giant beast of a show” which she equated to “a fast-moving train.” Instrumental in her hopping aboard that train in relatively smooth fashion was a gradual transition given to her by the director she was set to succeed: Don Roy King whose SNL work over the years had earned eight DGA Awards and 11 primetime Emmys. Patrick started at SNL by shadowing King for two episodes, gaining a sense of how the show was run. After two weeks of observing King, Patrick took on three or four sketches during the third week. In subsequent weeks, the sketch load increased and she added Weekend Update and the music performances, all the while being able to tap into King as a resource. In fact, her first primetime Emmy nomination for SNL came in 2022, shared with King on an episode hosted by Billie Eilish.
Patrick recalled getting to see King direct two full episodes when she broke into SNL, seeing how he tackled situations, how he was able “to make something happen, facilitate it and nurture it. It was cool to see him do that.” Patrick said that this helped make the learning curve less steep, reminding her in a sense of when she started out at MTV, being able to watch so many different directors come through and try different things. Observing King provided a great foundation for her to take on SNL from the director’s chair. Since then she’s fine-tuned her approach, built relationships with the writers and cast members, forming a trust conducive to positive collaboration.
She acknowledged that going into this current Emmy-eligible season was a bit less daunting than SNL’s 50th. “Walking into season 51, everyone was able to exhale,” related Patrick, noting that expectations and the resulting pressure were high for the 50th anniversary–both for the season itself and the SNL50 special programming. For example, the SNL50 special for which she won an Emmy had about twice the number of live sketches as the 40th Anniversary show.
But even without the pressure of living up to a 50th anniversary, SNL continues to have to meet or exceed a high creative bar. Reflecting this was the difficult choice of figuring out what episodic work to put up for Emmy consideration in the directing category this season with such strong contenders as the shows hosted by Jack Black, Connor Storie, Melissa McCarthy, Amy Pohler and Will Ferrell. Ultimately the episode–in which Rodrigo took on the dual role of host and musical guest–was submitted in the directorial category, in part due to the memorable “Edge of Destiny” soap-opera parody sketch starring Rodrigo as a campy villain who instigates a succession of characters–including Chloe Fineman and Kenan Thompson–tumbling down a grand staircase.
Patrick deployed an old-school, angled set design–along with a balustrade (an architectural railing system) on wheels, and a mattress-cushioned floor–so that cast members could safely throw themselves into their work, appearing as if they were falling down a steep staircase, aided by a 45-degree shift in camera angle to realize the illusion. This physical, in-camera approach better showcased and accentuated the live comedy. Though she’s not comparing the sketch to the epic motion picture The Odyssey, Patrick noted that Matt Damon (who hosted a Patrick-directed SNL episode this season) was interviewed in a recent Poehler podcast and he talked about director Christopher Nolan’s desire to go with in-camera techniques for The Odyssey rather than AI or using digital means. Patrick is proud of the teamwork and problem solving that went into in-camera solutions for the staircase sketch.
Patrick described her ongoing tenure at SNL as a heartfelt wish come true. Patrick remembered back in college writing a paper in which she expressed a deep desire to someday work on SNL in some capacity. To have that become a reality–getting the opportunity to team with stellar talent behind and in front of the camera–has been beyond her wildest dreams.
SNL scored 11 Emmy nominations this year. In addition to Patrick’s nod, SNL is up for Outstanding Variety Series as well as its production design, lighting design/lighting direction, make-up, hairstyling, technical direction & camerawork, guest actor in a comedy series (Storrie), and two noms for segment picture editing.
This is the 14th installment of SHOOT’s weekly 15-part The Road To Emmy Series of feature stories, connecting with directors, producers, cinematographers, editors, production designers, VFX talent and assorted other artisans to gain insights into their work and their collaborators. Coverage of the Creative Arts Emmy winners will appear on September 5 and 6, and we will report on winners at the primetime Emmy Awards ceremony on September 14.
