'Saturday Night Live' costume designer Tom Broecker wants every host to feel at home

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'Saturday Night Live' costume designer Tom Broecker wants every host to feel at home

2025-02-14 03:38 Last Updated At：03:51

NEW YORK (AP) — Costume designer Tom Broecker has been working at “Saturday Night Live” for more than 30 years so, like the show, he’s become an institution. He’s won one Costume Designers Guild Awards and six Emmy awards for his work on the legendary sketch show, which is celebrating its 50th year this week.

Calling the cast and crew at NBC's famous Studio 8H “a family,” Broecker says he thrives on the “exhilarating” pace necessary to create dozens of costumes each week, in often less than three days and with constant last-minute changes.

The designer and producer spoke to The Associated Press recently about the “backstage magic” of speed-dressing hosts between sketches and the importance of making them feel welcome. Answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.

BROECKER: The easiest, best way to kind of describe what it is working here is that it’s a family. And it’s a unique place where there are people here who are 88, 89, 92, and then there are people who are in college. And so you have that age range of people next to each other and each sort of group sort of intermingling and learning from the other and talking about the old days or the new days or whatever. There’s a cross-pollination between ages and experience and that is super interesting and really valuable, I think.

BROECKER: Usually you notice the costume before the person opens their mouth and you already were starting to laugh before they even said anything. There are times when you do have to do that, when you need the comedy — you open the door and you register “Comedy!” And there are other times when you open the door and you’re like, “OK, my words are going to say the comedy and the visual has to reflect the words.” On “SNL,” we sort of play both sometimes.

BROECKER: I love everyone. Dave Chappelle said to me once, “You’re going to get really sick of me.” And I said, “I only have to love you for a week and then I have someone else to love the following week.” With cast members, it’s different, clearly. In terms of hosts, part of my job is to make the hosts feel at ease and to welcome them here. They are guests in our house.

BROECKER: It’s exhilarating and terrifying and amazing. You have to have the ability to be flexible and to change and pivot and zig when they’re asking you to zig. And then five minutes later, you’re zagging! Then you’re on the Ferris wheel and then you’re off the Ferris wheel and then you’re in the Tunnel of Love and it truly is a video game ride that we are on every week. We don’t really get scripts until late Wednesday night and we talk with the actors and the writers and everyone Wednesday night. And so we’re really starting Thursday morning at 9 a.m., full throttle doing it.

BROECKER: I warn them and say, OK, so someone at the end of the sketch is going to come, they’re going to grab your hand, pull your shoulder socket out of your arm and they’re going to take you to a dark space. Someone’s going to be stripping your bottom and someone’s going to be stripping your top while someone’s putting on a wig, while someone’s grabbing you from behind. Someone’s telling you to lift your leg. It’s hilarious. After the first time, people are always like, “Yeah, you warned me but I never really imagined what that sort of violation was going to actually be.” It’s pretty intense!

BROECKER: We have a giant warehouse space here in the building that is sort of general: suits, shirts. Then we have a sort of mixed bag of period clothes and ’80s and ’90s uniforms, biblical, and crazy things like that. It’s a combination each week of pulling in from there. If it’s a period show, maybe going to the couple period places, and then ordering from a whole series of shops like Bloomingdale’s, Saks and Bergdorf’s.

BROECKER: Sports people are always the most relaxed, the most interesting hosts because they’re used to playing in arenas of 100,000 people with sound and music and weather. And also, no one’s really expecting them to actually be good on “SNL”! So they come with this relaxed swagger that it’s great to be around, because they’re like, “This isn’t what I do, so I’m here to have a good time.”

For more coverage of the 50th anniversary of “Saturday Night Live,” visit https://apnews.com/hub/saturday-night-live.

Two late goals as Barcelona rallies to beat Atletico Madrid 4-2

2025-03-17 07:29 Last Updated At：07:30

MADRID (AP) — Atletico Madrid relinquished a two-goal lead in its 4-2 loss to Barcelona in the Spanish league on Sunday in another setback for the club after it was eliminated by Real Madrid in the Champions League.

Playing at the Metropolitano stadium four days after it lost to Madrid in a penalty shootout, Atletico led Barcelona 2-0 at halftime but conceded a pair of stoppage-time goals to waste a chance to overtake the Catalan club for second place and move within a point of league leader Madrid.

“It was a weird game, we did well in the first half and had the game under control after scoring twice,” Atletico player Marcos Llorente said. “I do think that the 120 minutes that we had to play in the Champions League made a difference, there was a letdown in the end.”

The defeat left Atletico four points behind its two rivals in the league, with Barcelona having a game in hand. Madrid won 2-1 at Villarreal on Saturday.

Lamine Yamal scored two minutes into stoppage time and Ferran Torres six minutes later to give Barcelona the gritty come-from-behind victory.

“It’s a statement win for us, allowing us to regain the lead with a game in hand,” Yamal said.

Julián Álvarez had put Atletico ahead after a breakaway just before halftime. It had been an unusual double touch by Álvarez in the penalty shootout against Madrid that led to Atletico's elimination from the Champions League on Wednesday.

Atletico added to the lead with a goal by substitute Alexander Sorloth from inside the area in the 70th. Robert Lewandowski, the league's leading scorer, gave Barcelona hope by finding the net in the 72nd, and Torres equalized with a header after a cross by Raphinha in the 78th.

“We have to congratulate them,” Atletico coach Diego Simeone said. “There was a bit of luck, which you must have sometimes. We had a few chances in counterattacks but didn’t take advantage of them. Barcelona is a great team."

Atletico beat Barcelona 2-1 when the teams met in Barcelona in their first Spanish league match of the season in December. They drew 4-4 in a first-leg match in the semifinals of the Copa del Rey last month. The second leg is in April.

Athletic Bilbao solidified its fourth place with a 1-0 win at Sevilla.

Yeray Álvarez scored with a header in the 84th to give Athletic the away victory and an eight-point gap to fifth-placed Villarreal, which has a game in hand.

It was Athletic's second win in a row after three straight matches without a victory across all tournaments. It came off a 3-1 win over Roma to reach the quarterfinals of the Europa League.

Sixth-placed Real Betis rallied from two goals down at halftime to win 3-2 at relegation-threatened Leganes, with Cucho Hernández scoring the winner in the 82nd.

The hosts had taken the lead with Dani Raba scoring in the 29th and 44th before Betis equalized through Isco in the 64th and Cédric Bakambu in the 78th.

It was the third straight victory for Betis in all competitions, and the second loss in a row for 18th-placed Leganes.

Also Sunday, ninth-placed Rayo Vallecano drew 2-2 at home with 12th-placed Real Sociedad, which is winless in six consecutive games in all competitions. Rayo is winless in five straight league matches.

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer