Irish Eye on Hollywood:
SNL Gets its Own Biopic

By Tom Deignan, Contributor
February / March 2017

The Irish American tradition of TV comedy – in front of and behind the camera – will be on full display later this year in another much anticipated new Netflix film entitled A Futile and Stupid Gesture.

The movie will take a close, no-holds-barred look at the roots of Saturday Night Live as well as the famous magazine National Lampoon. At the center of the story are a pair of Irish Americans – Florida native Doug Kenney (played by Will Forte) as well as legendary writer Michael O’Donoghue. O’Donoghue (to be played by Irish American actor Thomas Lennon) was from upstate New York and was one of the founders of National Lampoon magazine as well as one of the first head writers at SNL. Domhnall Gleeson also stars in the film as influential writer Henry Beard. All in all, A Futile and Stupid Gesture – based on Josh Karp’s book of the same name – will feature the formative years of some of America’s top comic minds from Chevy Chase and Bill Murray to Ivan Reitman and Lorne Michaels. ♦

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