When director Craig Johnson set out to make a movie about a set of twins on the brink of suicide, the guy who played Stefon on “Saturday Night Live” wasn’t exactly at the top of his wish list.
But Bill Hader — looking to break free of his funnyman stereotype following his eighth and final season with “SNL” — was recommended by a casting agent who’d seen his drama chops at a table read alongside Kate Winslet and Bradley Cooper. “Everyone in general typecasts people,” Hader tells The Post. “I do the same thing. So I had to take it upon myself to go through the steps of showing that I could do more.”
Hader, 36, showed enough to nab a lead in “The Skeleton Twins,” which opens Friday. He stars as Milo, a directionless gay man who botches a suicide attempt and subsequently reunites with his also-troubled estranged twin sister (Kristen Wiig).
Hader, who lives in LA with his wife and two kids, was drawn to the part by its treatment of the gay character.
“What I liked about the script so much [was that] him being gay wasn’t his problem. It wasn’t the thing he was grappling with,” says Hader. “There’s never a moment in the movie where Milo goes, ‘I was the only gay kid in Nyack and people made fun of me!’ He had crazier, harsher problems that he had to deal with in his life, and he just happened to be gay.”
Reuniting with his “SNL” bestie Wiig was a bonus. “We were very respectful of each other in the more dramatic scenes, but for the most part, it was like backstage ‘SNL,’” says Hader.
Johnson often had to shut them up — like the time they filmed a car scene and Hader and Wiig performed the voices of passersby.
“One was like a woman pushing a baby stroller, and Kristen was doing the voice of the mother and I was doing the voice of the baby. It was just me and Kristen making noises and pointing at things and laughing.”
After leaving “SNL,” Hader intended to start watching the show as a fan.
“My wife and I had popcorn and drinks and everything ready to sit and watch. And the opening montage started and I wasn’t in it, and I got really sad,” he says. “It was like watching my own funeral.”
Not that he’s too keen on seeing himself on screen anyways.
Before watching “The Skeleton Twins” to film the DVD commentary, Hader was all laughs and smiles. But the tide soon turned. “The minute the movie started I just got real quiet, like, ‘Uggggh,’” he says.
“It’s basically torture … Just looking at my stupid face.”
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