Lorne Michaels: Will Ferrell is among SNL's "top two or three" performers ever

The Hollywood Reporter

“I never rank, but Will’s definitely in the top two or three that have ever done the show,” Michaels says in a Hollywood Reporter profile of Ferrell. “There’s no question.” Michaels recalls one key moment working with Ferrell while preparing for SNL's first show after the 9/11 attacks. “I’d made it clear that I was going to show up but that the cast should only do so if it wanted to — because I didn’t know what the risks were, and everybody, the whole city, was frightened,” says Michaels. “And so, it must’ve been 10 or 11 on that Friday night, and we were blocking some sketch, and I just made eye contact with Will. Neither of us knew how it was all going to turn out, but I remember the moment because, for both of us, there was just a level of, ‘This is what we do.’” Asked to recall his favorite SNL moment, Ferrell points to Molly Shannon's first time doing Mary Katherine Gallagher. "That was the first time I heard the audience really shriek, and I still get goosebumps thinking about it,” says Ferrell. “I just remember it being, like, ’Oh, wow, I think we might be OK here.'”