In your role as the presenter here, do you feel you’re channelling a bit of your old SNL newsman persona – striking a strait-laced tone that’s simultaneously tongue-in-cheek?
Oh yes, for sure. The use of the voice and the authoritativeness . . . but also in this show, I connect in that way that you say, taking the air out of the tires. I’m delivering it straight and stentorian, but [as if] I couldn’t believe some of them myself. “I’m telling you folks it’s true, but I defy your imaginations here!” I’m also channelling a bit of Robert Stack on Unsolved Mysteries. Stacy Keach on American Greed. Shatner, I’m channelling him [from Rescue 911]. Some of these great, great narrators that I so admire. A little bit of Cronkite in there. I’m having a ball with it . . . It’s acting, and it’s just about all the acting I wanna do right now.
You’ve also always had some connection to the otherworldly . . .
No doubt. I was raised as a spiritualist and raised to believe that not only does the spirit survive after we drop our body’s shell, but that consciousness lives on and can be reached with a good trance channel medium; you can get through to people who’ve gone before. When I was a kid, I was inspired by the work of my great-grandfather [Dr. Samuel Augustus Aykroyd]. Around the house were his writings in all these publications that dealt with this material. Growing up to write Ghostbusters was inspired by my great-grandfather’s work.
So, I’ve always been open to it, but I’ve always wanted to make sure that the hoaxes are sorted out from the real thing. I think it’s important to be a skeptic in all this.
On that note, do you think it’s crucial for an artist to see the world from a slightly off-kilter POV?
Well, for sure, an oblique angle has really helped people like Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner and Billy Murray . . . and directors like Stanley Kubrick. Open-mindedness is essential to the creative process. If you don’t have open-mindedness, you’re closing yourself off to so many possibilities. Your characterization of it as coming from an angle that’s not straight-on applies to so many of the great artists that we see, whether in visual arts or film or television or music.
What sorts of “unbelievable” events have you witnessed in your own life?
I have had a couple of vivid sightings of what they call UAPs — unexplained aerial phenomena. And both of them were close-up . . . I survived a 50-foot fall from a warehouse roof to the floor when I was an actor in Toronto; I opened up my faith a little further to the divine in that intervention.
As one of the show’s original cast members and writers, can you reflect on the Saturday Night Live experience?
I do know how hard they work, that’s for sure. I can speak with authority on exactly what it takes to come in Monday, pitch, go away, do a little writing, come back Tuesday, stay all night. I had bunk beds in Rockefeller Center, and a shower, put in for me. Then Wednesday, you get there at four o’clock and you gotta figure out how to put it on its feet. Thursday, Friday blocking. And you do three shows on Saturday: a rough dress, a full dress and then you do the show. These people work very hard. The results look smooth, but I know what goes on behind the scenes, so I admire it and I like to see it done. And I’m really happy to watch this new cast evolve.
The Unbelievable With Dan Aykroyd airs Friday, November 21, on History
MEMORABLE ROLES:
After cutting his sketch-comedy teeth with Second City, in 1975 Dan Aykroyd became one of the founding “Not Ready for Prime Time Players” at Saturday Night Live. After four seasons, he moved on to launch a film career that included such indelible hits as The Blues Brothers, Trading Places, Ghostbusters and even an Oscar-nominated turn in Driving Miss Daisy.
CURRENT GIG:
Semi-retired from acting, the Ottawa native now produces and hosts a docuseries profiling bizarre-but-true occurrences throughout the ages. Just underway on season three, The UnBelievable unpacks such tales as a skydiver saved from a failed chute by landing on a mound of fire ants and the medieval pope who declared holy war on cats.