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The first episode of Saturday Night Live aired in October 1975. Its host was George Carlin, and its musical guests were Billy Preson and Janis Ian, the singer-songwriter who had a hit at the time with “At Seventeen.” (Lizzy Caplan’s character in Mean Girls is named after her.) That first SNL season has been heavily mythologized over the years, and it’s the subject of Jason Reitman’s forthcoming film SNL 1975. In the movie, Jon Batiste, who’s also doing the score, will play Billy Preston, while MUNA multi-instrumentalist Naomi McPherson will make their acting debut as Janis Ian.
The Hollywood Reporter broke the news of Naomi McPherson’s casting today. MUNA have been playing bigger and bigger stages over the past few years, but this still seems like a big step up for McPherson, who does kind of look like Janis Ian. The movie will cover the behind-the-scenes moments of that first episode, and its cast has a bunch of young actors as all the original SNL cast members, as well as Nicholas Braun as Jim Henson, Kaia Gerber as Jacqueline Carlin, JK Simmons as Milton Berle, and Finn Wolfhard as an NBC page.