Martin Short on Winning Awards, Sticking to Comedy, and His “Empowering” ‘Only Murders’ Romance With Meryl Streep

Martin Short couldn’t attend this year’s SAG Awards due to a bout with COVID. But even if he’d been in the audience, taking the stage would’ve likely been the last thing on his mind. His hit Hulu comedy, Only Murders in the Building, has been a perpetual bridesmaid at one of Hollywood’s biggest awards shows, always nominated across the board but never able to get over the finish line. Until the actors guild changed that in February.

“We never win! This is so weird,” Selena Gomez said while accepting the SAG trophy for best ensemble in a comedy series. And this was after Short himself was named best actor.

“You can’t get a greater honor than being acknowledged by your peers, the people that actually do what you do,” Short says on this week’s Little Gold Men (read or listen below). “So that’s the best award, I think.”

The reality of this honor is even more significant. The SAG prize marks Short’s first-ever competitive win for his TV acting. The Canadian native won Emmys for writing the lauded sketch series SCTV and producing a Mel Brooks AFI tribute special, to say nothing of his nominations for performing in everything from the 1998 miniseries Merlin to the FX drama Damages to his own comedy special, Primetime Glick, which showcased arguably his greatest creation—the unyieldingly abrasive, donut-stuffing celebrity interviewer Jiminy Glick. But now, at last, Short is in the winners circle, with a pretty good shot at taking home his first acting Emmy this fall too.

What better time, then, for a career-spanning conversation with Short, at once a comedy legend and an industry journeyman? We begin with the SAG Award, which Short nabbed first—that is, before his Only Murders costar, longtime friend, and frequent category mate Steve Martin.

Vanity Fair: How do you feel about you and Steve always competing in the same category together?

Martin Short: Well, it’s a little weird. We kind of do divide [the vote], I think, often—that’s the history. Someone approached me at the very beginning about, “Would I consider being [submitted as] a supporting actor? Would I go into that category?” And I said, “That’s completely dishonest, so no.” It was just a pondering question. I think it was from the Emmys. They were acknowledging that we would always split the vote.

You’ve said before you never really thought you would win for this show. But you may have to prepare for the Emmys now.

That’s not the worst scenario to happen. You kind of have to write down something. We have more executive producers on our show than Elon Musk has children—that’s a lot of executive producers. So you don’t want to leave the stage saying, “Oh, I forgot to thank Selena.” That would be bad.

Are you currently shooting season five? Are you the big man on set now?

Yes, we’re in the middle of it. Right now I’m in LA during a hiatus, but yeah—I throw a little weight. But I’m still on a 23-hour door-to-door, so there’s not that much.

What can you share about this coming season? Have you seen Renée Zellweger yet?

Nothing—I can share nothing. But yes, I’ve worked with Renée Zellweger. She’s phenomenal, as you would imagine. It’s very interesting: At one point I looked over and there was Renée talking to Steve, talking to Christoph Waltz, and I realized I was looking at seven Oscars. And Meryl [Streep] hadn’t even shown up…. I think if those astounding names found the show a little boring, they wouldn’t be on the show.

Last season, Zach Galifianakis played a version of himself who was preparing to play a version of your character in a film. He’s spoken about how you tried to make him break on the set. Is that true?

First of all, I don’t know if I tried to break him, but certainly, he breaks up. He loves to laugh.

He’s breakable?

He’s breakable! Sometimes there was one phrase I couldn’t get, and I kept stumbling over it, and he would start laughing in advance of me having to say this section of the speech. And I finally turned to him and said, “Would you help me?” He said, “I can’t.” He’s just a hilarious, joyful man. I didn’t know him. I’d met him briefly once before we started this, and I just adored him.

You’ve also had this beautiful romantic arc with Meryl Streep, which culminated in a wedding this past season. What’s it like to fall for Meryl Streep onscreen?

Well, she’s the greatest actress maybe ever. I remember the first day we were shooting season three. I’ve been doing this for a while, and this is our third season. I was going to work, and I thought, “Gee, I’m a little bit nervous today. I haven’t felt that for a while.” Because I was working with Meryl Streep. Selena was so excited to meet her, and I said, “Why are you nervous to work with Meryl? She’s only been nominated 19 times for an Oscar.” And Selena said, “Uh-uh, 21 times.” And then I thought, Who’s made 21 movies?

It’s also so nice to see a later-in-life romance depicted on TV. Can you speak to that?

It’s empowering to people who are in their 70s, to not let an age number say, “Oh, then therefore it can’t be a romance, because they’re not 25.”

Is there any emotion in shooting a wedding sequence like that?

I remember that we were shooting at The Belnord, and people were leaning out the window taking photos. I thought, There goes the surprise, because it was in the last episode. And you know what it is? It’s like they always say about doing love scenes: It’s so technical. You’ve got lines to remember. You’re trying to hit your mark. You’re trying to play the right attitude. You’re trying to make everyone believe that you’re actually in the moment. So you are focused on that. You’re not sitting back and saying, I’m getting married. It’s not really that.

I’m working with such brilliant people that it is the old adage—if you’re playing tennis with a great tennis player, you hopefully rise to the occasion. If you’re doing a scene with Meryl or Steve or Selena or any of the endless people we’ve had through—Amy Ryan and Nathan Lane, and the list goes on you—you’re certainly going to make sure you know your lines. You’re not going to wing it.

Are the Meryl nerves gone now?

Yeah, they’re gone.

You’ve talked about how rare it is to be on a true big hit like Only Murders has become. What does that feel like?

I don’t really know how to answer that, because to be quite honest, right from the beginning of SCTV on, I never assumed anything was going to be a commercial hit. My job was to make the memory of that experience as much fun as you could. So therefore, the process was great. Some actors turn the set into World War III—out of the ashes comes their character. Well, that’s insane to me, because then if the film bombs, you went through World War III and the film bombed. You don’t know what’s going to be a success or not. It’s just the experience.

Famously.

Yeah. And I thought, Well, I’ve had dinner with you, and that wasn’t great. Comedy is the most subjective thing in the world, much more than drama. Some people love The Three Stooges; some people can’t stand The Three Stooges. No one’s really wrong. Roger Ebert wasn’t wrong. He just didn’t get it.

Did you read reviews back then?

No. I remember before I started Three Amigos, having a meeting with John Landis, the director. In those days, that was ’85, you would be handed a packet of reviews—like 300 reviews.

Sounds terrifying.

Yeah, and I remember sitting in his office and he’d go, “Oh, yeah, pretty good. Okay, yeah, not bad. Okay. Oh, listen to this.” And that’s the one he starts reading. I thought, this can’t be healthy. So what I then did with Three Amigos on, when I got that packet, I just went to the garbage and threw it away. The only thing I found is that you kind of had to read the review of the city you’re in, because then people are going to go up and say, “Are you okay?” Then you’re thinking, Oh, how bad could it have been? It’s always going to be not as bad as they implied.

One project where you did get pretty amazing notices at the time was Damages, the FX drama series, for which you got an Emmy nomination. I saw a completely new side of you in that performance, and you were working with Lily Tomlin, who was also doing drama. Did you want to do more serious work like that, or do you still?

The first scene we shot, it was Glenn Close, and Lily was basically playing Mrs. Madoff. I was her lawyer; Glenn’s the [opposing] lawyer. Glenn’s just looking at the two of us and said to the director, “Okay, this isn’t fair. I can’t get through it.” I remember that day. It was the first day, and one of the executive producers after a couple of takes came up and said, “Marty, can you not smile?” I said, “Why is that?” “When you smile, you become Martin Short.” And I said, “Well, I’m kind of stuck, because I am Martin Short.” He later apologized and said, “That was a stupid note.”

I think that Lorne Michaels said this to me—I always attribute it to him—that when you go to the zoo, you go to the monkey cage, and the monkeys have a right to be reflective or sleeping or not swinging by their tails. But when they don’t, you wander away, and you come back when you hear them swinging by the tails. Lorne said something to the effect of, “Let’s face it, Marty: You’re a monkey.” I’ve always respected my relationship to the audience in comedy. I can sing. I did 50 shows on Letterman where I did a big number every time, but I never did it like, “I’m going to be sincere this time.” No: It was always comedy, because that’s the deal the audience makes with you. If you’re asked to be something more sincere, whether it’s Damages or The Morning Show or anything like that, you grab it because they’re great scripts and great people. But I personally find it a little easier to do those roles than comedy.

Really?

You have to be real and sincere in comedy, but somehow make the character odd enough that you also are laughing at him. But even going back to Father of the Bride, I remember thinking, If I try to be funny as Franck, it won’t be funny. I have to be this odd character that exists in life.

I happen to be one of probably thousands of people who think Jiminy Glick is one of the funniest characters ever created. But with a guy like that, you’ve been playing him for a very long time. How do you keep it fresh for yourself?

It’s mostly improvised. When I was doing Primetime Glick, we’d edit, we’d shoot for eight minutes, and then we’d take a break and talk to the person. I remember Alec Baldwin said, “Ask me about women.” So then I started asking about women. And every woman I brought up, he had had an affair with…. But then we would edit them down to six minutes. I’d see myself saying, “I take great umbrage”—and I’d think, I’ve never said that expression in my life, but Jiminy now just said it.

When I did this last set last spring, I did Bill Maher on a Friday, and I thought, “Gee, I’ve never done Jiminy live.” I was also thinking, “Gee, what if I say something that—” because I always push the envelope with Jiminy anyway, but we live in such a rarefied world of concern. But you know what, it was fine.

Do you think about that sensitivity more with Jiminy now, generally?

No. When I did Bill Hader and Sean Hayes, we did it in the afternoon, and you would have time to say, “No, take that out, I shouldn’t have said that. That’s too far. That could be misinterpreted.” But with Bill, I actually thought we could edit a little bit, but I was wrong. In that case, I just insulted Bill a lot.

I believe the last time you played Ed Grimley on SNL was in the episode that Donald Trump hosted.

That is very true.

How do you feel about that?

Oh, I’ve never been prouder. But no, I was not there when he was there. Jay Pharoah was playing Drake, and we were all doing the Drake dance. I was doing Fallon, and Lorne came down and said, “The writers would love you to do this. They really dance in the middle of this piece.” And if Lorne says “We’d love you to,” you’re honored. So you do it.

But do you still think about bringing other characters back, like Ed or Jackie Rogers Jr.?

You certainly don’t want to ever compete with yourself from 20 years ago. But if someone had a great story for Jackie today and what he’d be doing and blah, blah, blah, then you’d kind of go, “Oh, okay.” One of our writers, Dick Blasucci, had this idea for a new Jackie piece. He had to phone me and said, “Lord of the Ring of Ding-Dings.” I said, “Okay, I’ll go with that.”

I’m just glad those ideas are still being bandied about.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s only with the SCTV writers.

I wanted to talk a little bit about Steve Martin. He had his documentary come out last year, and when he was doing press for it, one thing he’d said was that he’s actually fun to be around now, versus his earlier days. What do you make of that?

Oh, Steve loves to be self-deprecating. But he actually, I think, loves himself, as he should. Steve is this weird, bizarre genius. Steve could teach modern art at UCLA. Paul Shaffer has witnessed for 32 years all of these different people coming on the air, saying, “I’m an actor, but I’m also a guitarist,” or “I’m a this or I’m that,” and Paul said, Steve is the only one who’s really equally a musician and a legendary actor and comedian. He’s also a brilliant writer. He’s a playwright. Steve is a renaissance man. It’s been said a million times of him, but that’s what he is. And he is focused. He’s also light and funny and sweet.

But have you observed a change in him over the years?

Not really. We always had laughs. We always had fun. When you make a movie, you can be in Yugoslavia for—is there still a Yugoslavia? You can be somewhere in some remote world for three months with people, and you know everything about them, you know who’s having an affair, and then they wrap the movie and you never see that person again. Sometimes you make a conscientious effort to say, “No, I’m going to keep up with that person.” I did that with Lawrence Kasdan, the director, and Steve, and a few people—Diane Keaton. You say, “No, I don’t want to lose those people. I want to keep seeing those people.” Steve and I did that after Three Amigos and continued on. We made five movies together and TV shows. We do concerts, vacations.

Did you gain any insights about him, even knowing him as long as you have, from the documentary?

He’s very reflective, very honest with himself. There was a moment in ’82 or something, where he’s standing to go into a theater or some line, and he’s in a tux. One of these guys comes up and says, “Hey, Steve, how does it feel not to be funny anymore?” And you see him kind of go and walk in. I said, “Why did you have [director] Morgan Neville leave that in?” And Steve said, “Because around that time, I wasn’t sure if I was feeling that funny. I think documentaries must be very honest, even objectively, and so I respected that that was in there.” I would’ve said, “Take that out in one second.”

I think most people would, right?

I think so. Absolutely.

And are you currently participating in a documentary about yourself?

Lawrence Kasdan is doing it for Imagine, yeah. I haven’t seen it.

Does any introspection come with doing that? Steve talked a lot about having to open his archives and stuff like that.

That was easy for me. I was someone who always had a camcorder and always was filming stuff, and has kept everything. I just turned it over to them. They’re the ones that have to wade through it. I’ve done a few interviews for it, but objectively, I don’t know what I’ll think. Ask me when I see it. I think [you feel] a little nervous the first time you see it. But Larry’s a very good friend of mine. I’m not afraid of something being in there that I wouldn’t want in there. But you kind of go, Gee, I hope it’s interesting. I hope it’s good. I hope it’s worth it.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.