Post-Succession, Nicholas Braun is Moving on with 'Saturday Night' (2024)

There's already a lot of pressure playing one character based on a real person, but two? And in the same movie? That's exactly what Nicholas Braun does in Saturday Night (October 11), playing both Jim Henson and Andy Kaufman as they, and the rest of the cast, prepare for the first live taping of Saturday Night Live. But Braun wasn't really intimidated. "I felt really privileged to get to be both of those guys," and just wanted to "not be a caricature." Just like the original SNL, Saturday Night's "cast was just stacked." And even though Braun had never worked with any of them before, he quickly "learned how perfect they were for the part, how much research every single person did. They know how important this movie is and getting this right. Just a really impressive group of actors." If he had to choose his favorite era of SNL, "it would be the Will Ferrell era. Tim Meadows, Cheri Oteri, Chris Kattan." Seeking new roles and fresh off his run as Greg on Succession, portraying Henson and Kaufman couldn't be more different from anything he's ever done.

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Editor's Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for publication.

What was your reaction to how people responded to the cast reveal?

The cast was just stacked. I hadn't worked with anybody before, but, but then a handful of people I never heard of but saw, and I was like, "Well, that seems like a dead ringer for that part," just on looks alone. But I really wanted to work with Cory Michael Smith, Willem Dafoe, J.K. Simmons—who at the premiere in Toronto, I had to stop and be like, "Oz was incredible, and you were horrific, you were just extremely scary." Somehow he's escaped that character. But it's just an incredible group. And then the people that I didn't know on set, I just learned why they were cast, how perfect they were for the part, how much research every single person did, which is just nice when you get to set and you're like, "Man, everybody is playing their part." They know how important this movie is and getting this right. Just a really impressive group of actors.

How did you even approach how you were going to do any of this?

So I was cast by Jason [Reitman] and Gil Kenan, who's his co-writer, a while ago, like years ago. Gil told me they were writing this movie, it was like 2020, so it was sort of down the road and then the movie started becoming very real. And it was maybe three weeks before we started filming, and Jason came to L.A. and he was like, "Want to get together and talk about the movie?" I'd started doing some research about Jim [Henson] and wanted to talk about it. And he was like, "So Benny Safdie was going to play Andy Kaufman. How would you feel about playing Andy Kaufman?" And I was like, "Yeah, I can switch parts." I don't know if I said that, but in my mind, I'm like, "Yeah, I'll switch to Andy Kaufman. I don't know that much about him, but that'll be a cool challenge. I know he's a legendary comedian." And he was like, "No, I want you to play both." It was just such a cool invitation to do that. We were thinking, "Do we tell people?" And eventually we just announced that I was playing Jim, so nobody knew until the trailers came out. But I felt really privileged to get to be both of those guys and do a ton of research and then very quickly try to figure out who Andy was. I feel really lucky to get that.

How do you even approach portraying someone like Andy Kaufman?

I just wanted to get into his head first. I haven't played a lot of real life people, but at least with these two guys, I just wanted to get into where it all started. Jim was obsessed with TV from the early days. And Andy was obsessed with performing. He performed in front of his baby sister, he was doing it by himself in the mirror in his bedroom. And eventually they were like, you need to do this in front of people if you want to take this seriously. And he just did it for his baby sister, who couldn't even understand his bits. But I think for me, a part of it is the voice, because Jim's is so specific, and Andy's is so specific. And it's getting the posture right. It's getting the clothes right. With Jim, the hair [and] makeup was going to be extensive, like getting that beard and wig right, and, the aging of his skin. Jim was 39 and Andy was 24 or 25, I think. There were some nice things to differentiate the two. I thought, "Okay with Andy, I'm going to do Andy's normal voice." I sent [Jason Reitman] a clip of Andy's audition for SNL—he wasn't a cast member, he would pop up every few episodes— and I sent him a video, and he was like, "Actually, no, I want you to do the foreign man voice." I was like, "Well, did he do that, like, off camera?" And he was like, "I heard that sometimes he would just stay in character...for the sake of the movie, I think we can believe that Andy came into this night and was not known and he might have been in his foreign man persona," which was not yet foreign man. He was still developing it. The costume, the whole vibe, not that he speaks, because he's lip-syncing the Mighty Mouse song, so I was like, "Okay, let me get to work on that. Let me nail that," because that's obviously a very well-known voice that he was doing for over a decade. So anyway, I didn't feel too intimidated. There's super fans of both of these guys. There's so much respect and there's lore around them, and Andy, especially having died so young. So I knew there's a chance I'm gonna disappoint some super fan somewhere, but I'm gonna bring my version and try and get into their head and try and be respectful and also not be a caricature of them.

Do you think about the comparisons people will inevitably make? Particularly with Andy, especially considering Jim Carrey's performance of him in Man on the Moon?

I guess people are gonna criticize or compare me to Jim Carrey's version. I don't have Andy's same physical body. I'm not going to be a carbon copy of Andy. But I had a blast playing him. I hope it feels that way.

And also, there's something to the spirit of Andy Kaufmann that gives itself to a comedic interpretation. I mean, when did we ever really see the real Andy Kaufmann? And if that's true, then how can one ever do an accurate portrayal?

Definitely. There's pretty limited amount of footage of both of these guys to be able to study. But Jason's world that he created for this is not totally grounded. It's in some surreal, hyper-paced up sort of chaos, but it is heightened. And so it felt like everybody could do some things that were a little bit bigger. We could try some things. Jason wanted it usually bigger. There's so much happening in the movie, so it's sort of like, "Okay, we're with Andy, let's really be with Andy." And if you're with Jim, let's fully get that Jim energy and see what he's going through and stuff. So in a way, it was kind of freeing that we can raise the stakes really high in these little bits and that was so you could have that permission.

It must be exciting to be in your post-Succession moment and doing things that are so vastly different from Succession.

Oh, definitely, definitely. People know me really well from Succession and playing Greg, and this is such a different type of movie, and these guys are so different from Greg. I got to do these voices. Jim's got his own very quirky, very unique voice, which is like Kermit, but 50 percent less Kermit. It was just such a great challenge, a little bit of a reset for me to do these guys. And when I was working with the costume designer and hair/makeup department, trying to figure out the look and all this stuff. I haven't designed a new character in such a long time. Just that bottom-up thing that didn't happen with Greg since 2016. So it was great, we get to try all these things. And I get to see what works. I got to try some things that day with Jason and with both these guys. It was really refreshing to get to do that process from the beginning.

If you had to pick your SNL era, what would it be?

It would be the Will Ferrell era. Tim Meadows, Cheri Oteri, Chris Kattan, Adam Sandler was in there, Molly Shannon was in there. David Spade was in there. Probably the end of Chris Farley's era. I'm not sure where Chris and Will overlapped, but it's like somewhere in that zone.

How do you move on from something like Succession without that character pigeonholing you?

It's not a straightforward path. Things are going to come up that feel like different energies, different people. I actively am looking for things that feel different and a new challenge for me. It's like, I was introduced to a lot of people through Greg. I've been acting since I was 11, and had a sort of Disney era when I was a teenager and into my early 20s. So I've been acting for a while, but Greg was a big, a huge life- and career-changing thing. But I also just feel it'll be good to just force myself into different directions. So trying to find projects that are different, but really fun things that I would want to see, things that people want to see.

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