Jon Batiste has become one of the most well-known musicians of his generation and has a host of Grammy Awards to show for it – and now he’s jumping back into the acting world. Batiste has been cast in Sony Pictures‘ upcoming film SNL 1975, about the creation of NBC‘s iconic sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Batiste will portray Billy Preston, the show’s first-ever musical guest, and will also compose the score for the Jason Reitman-directed film.
Bastiste will have a massive ensemble cast surrounding him when he picks up his keyboard, as SNL 1975 will star a whose-who of iconic SNL players. This includes Gabrielle LaBelle as SNL creator Lorne Michaels, Cooper Hoffman as NBC executive Dick Ebersol, and Rachel Sennott as SNL writer Rosie Shuster. In addition, Ella Hunt will play Gilda Radner, Kim Matula will play Jane Curtin, Dylan O’Brien will play Dan Aykroyd, Cory Michael Smith will play Chevy Chase, Matt Wood will play John Belushi, Emily Fairne will play Laraine Newman, Nicholas Podany will play Billy Crystal, Nicholas Braun will play Jim Henson, J.K. Simmons will play Milton Berle, Taylor Gray will play Al Franken, Finn Wolfhard will play an NBC page, and more.
Reitman will direct SNL 1975 from a script he wrote with Gil Kenan. The pair will also produce the film for Reitman‘s production banner Right of Way Films alongside Jason Blumenfeld and Peter Rice. Erica Mills and JoAnn Perritano will executive produce.
Batiste is a Natural Choice for the Role
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Batiste will be double-dipping on both the musical and front-facing sides of SNL 1975. Since forming his band, Stay Human, in 2005, Batiste has rocketed to superstardom in the music world, winning every major award for his work. At just 37-years-old, Batiste has already released seven studio albums. His sixth album, We Are, garnered nine Grammy nominations and won five, including the prestigious Album of the Year.
Beyond this, Bastiste and Stay Human were best known as the in-house band for CBS‘ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert from 2015 to 2022, giving him and the band a nightly national audience. SNL 1975 will not be Batiste’s first experience with film, as he has previously been cast in other works such as The Color Purple in 2023. His most notable film-related work, though, came in 2020, when he co-composed the score for the Pixar animated film Soul.
Batiste‘s work on Soul garnered critical acclaim and won Best Original Score at the 2021 Academy Awards, as well as a BAFTA for Best Original Music and a Golden Globe for Best Original Score. Batiste himself also released a documentary film, American Symphony, about his life and his wife’s battle with leukemia.
A release window has not been announced for SNL 1975, but the project is filming now.
via Collider