Before taking the stage at the guild’s annual awards dinner in Los Angeles, Alda was introduced by Tom Hanks, who worked with Alda on the 2015 film Bridge of Spies. Hanks saluted him “not just for his decades of work and praiseworthy credits but for how he has shown us all who we are and what we all can be.”

He said the choices Alda has made throughout his six-decade career—as an actor, writer, director, activist, and philanthropist—have reflected “the time and the tenor of our troubled world and of our human natures.”

As part of his introduction, Hanks presented a three-minute highlight reel of the actor’s work through the years. The clips, drawn from some of Alda’s most memorable film and TV appearances, showcased his everyman appeal, his wise and wisecracking wit, and his gifts for both comedy and drama.

“You know, it’s really hard to describe to you what it feels like to look out and see my fellow actors—my colleagues, my heroes—welcome me up here like this. It’s an extraordinary feeling,” Alda said upon receiving the SAG Life Achievement Award.

‘See the World Through Another Person’s Eyes’

He said the honor comes at a time when he’s been reflecting on what it means to be a member of “our brotherhood and sisterhood of actors.”

“When we get a chance to act,” he said, “it’s our job, at least in part, to get inside a character’s head and to search for a way to see life from that person’s point of view—another person’s vision of the world—and then to let an audience experience that.

“It may never have been more urgent to see the world through another person’s eyes than when a culture is divided so sharply,” he added. “Actors can help, at least a little, just by doing what we do.”

For Alda, who turned 83 on Jan. 28, that means continuing to act, both on TV (most recently in Ray Donovan) and in films.

It also means passing along the lessons he’s learned about the art and science of good communication. That’s the subject of his most recent book, If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? and of Clear + Vivid, a podcast he launched last summer to share “conversations with some of the most interesting people I know about how we communicate and relate to the most important people in our lives.”

Last summer, Alda revealed in an interview on CBS that several years ago he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative disorder. But the diagnosis hasn’t slowed him down, he said. Since then, “I’ve acted, I’ve given talks … I started this new podcast. … It hasn’t stopped my life at all. I’ve had a richer life than I’ve had up until now.”

Six Decades of Distinctions

After graduating from Fordham with a degree in English in 1956, Alda joined an improvisational theater company and later worked on Broadway and in Hollywood before landing the role for which he is perhaps best known.

In 1972, he was cast as Captain Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce, the cocky and insubordinate but brilliant and beloved Army doctor in the TV show M*A*S*H—the long-running anti-war comedy series set during the Korean War. For his work on the show, Alda earned five Emmy Awards in 11 years, three for acting and one each for writing and directing. He is the only performer to earn Emmys in each of those three categories for work on the same series.

More recently, Alda earned another remarkable distinction: In a single year, 2005, he was nominated for three major awards—an Oscar (for his role as a corrupt U.S. senator in The Aviator), an Emmy (for his turn as a presidential candidate on The West Wing), and a Tony (for his work in the Broadway revival of Glengarry Glen Ross). That’s something only five other performers have done. But Alda one-upped them—in 2005, he also published the first of his three bestselling books, a memoir titled Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, and Other Things I’ve Learned.

For years, Alda has helped broaden the public’s understanding of science—as host of the long-running PBS series Scientific American Frontiers and through the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University, which he established in 2009 to help scientists and health professionals “communicate complex topics in clear, vivid, and engaging ways.”

He has received numerous awards for his work in communicating science, including the National Academy of Sciences Public Welfare Medal.

Fordham has honored Alda on several occasions, inducting him into its Hall of Honor in 2012 and presenting him with an honorary degree in 1978, when he delivered the commencement address.

Reflecting on his undergraduate days at Fordham, he once expressed gratitude for his professors, “some very generous people … who invited me to step up and shake hands with my own brain.”

“Since then,” he said, “I’ve often thought that if people can think clearly and use their language well, then their education has been a lucky gift and they will probably find themselves useful to the world, and the world to them.”

Watch Alan Alda’s acceptance speech at the 25th Annual SAG Awards

“It was terrifying,” Seidell says. “Not because of anything Lorne did, but just because he’s Lorne Michaels.”

That summer, Seidell had been going to a lot of Mets games, and though he says Michaels asked a couple of comedy questions, they also talked a lot about baseball.

“He talked about how the Mets weren’t great, because there was no expectation of excellence on the Mets, whereas on the Yankees there is,” Seidell says. “I think he was probably using this to talk about SNL, because I remember him saying, ‘If you’re not excellent on the Yankees, then you’re not a Yankee for very long.’”

Looking back, Seidell realizes that meeting with Michaels is the last step of a thorough hiring process—a step that exists so Michaels can be sure “that you can conduct yourself around people with some level of chill.” But at the time, he says, “I left there being like, ‘I don’t know. We just talked about baseball. I think I blew it.’”

It turns out he didn’t blow it. He got the job, and like a ballplayer who’s proven his worth, he’s stuck around: In May, he finished his fourth season as a writer for the show.

‘The Last Place on TV You Can Bomb’

Seidell began performing stand-up in Manhattan during his sophomore year at Fordham. He started writing for the website College Humor in 2004, and eventually worked his way up to become the site’s editor in chief. That job became a springboard to other opportunities, including working on shows for MTV and writing on a sitcom in Los Angeles.

But his dream job was always to write for SNL. He grew up watching the likes of Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon, and Cheri Oteri on the show—part of a childhood comedy diet that also included Adam Sandler records and John Candy movies. Some of the first laughs he got as a kid were the result of simply repeating lines from his favorite SNL sketches. (“I live in a VAN, down by the RIVER.”) And so after Sarah Schneider, a friend from College Humor, was hired to write at SNL in 2011, Seidell began applying as well, sending in packets of sample sketches whenever the show put out a call for submissions. He applied four times before finally getting the job.

And though Schneider had given Seidell a heads-up about what he was in for once his first season began, he says nothing can truly prepare you for it. “It’s like someone telling you what skydiving is like,” he says.

Indeed, he quickly learned how grueling the schedule would be: pitches on Monday, a marathon writing session on Tuesday into Wednesday, a table read of potential sketches later that day, rewrites on Thursday, and rehearsals on Friday. All of that builds to a long day on Saturday—an occasion Seidell marks each week by forgoing his usual casual wear in favor of a suit and tie.

Seidell is the first to admit that writing a great sketch that kills on air is hard. Some sketches he works on in a given week won’t even make it to dress rehearsal, and sometimes a sketch just doesn’t work even if it does make it to the live broadcast. But that’s part of the job’s appeal. “This is the last place on TV you can bomb, which adds to the pressure, which I find motivating,” Seidell says from the office he shares with writing partner Mikey Day on the 17th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, nine floors above the fabled studio 8H. Tacked to a bulletin board above his desk are cue cards from sketches Seidell co-wrote that most definitely did not bomb, including “FBI Simulator,” which features Larry David as a lifelike weirdo target-practice dummy in an FBI training exercise.

Satire vs. Silliness for Silliness’ Sake

The entire office is decorated with props and mementos from memorable sketches Seidell co-wrote. A cue card from “Close Encounter,” in which Kate McKinnon explains that she was not “dealing with the top brass” during her abduction by aliens, hangs in a frame in the office’s corner. There’s a pizza-guitar prop from a sketch featuring Aziz Ansari in a Chuck E. Cheese’s-like restaurant, an illustration of Chance the Rapper from a sketch in which he plays an out-of-his-element hockey announcer, and, near the door, a fan-made poster depicting perhaps Seidell’s most famous sketch: “Haunted Elevator,” written with Day and Bobby Moynihan and starring Tom Hanks as David S. Pumpkins, a confusing character who repeatedly appears in a Tower of Terror-type ride wearing a jack-o’-lantern-print suit. The 2016 sketch blew up after the show aired. Not only did it lead to some media appearances by Seidell, it served as the inspiration for a kids’ Halloween special that aired last fall.

Seidell suggests the timing of the episode helped it go viral. “My personal theory is that it was right before the election, and the rhetoric was really harsh on both sides. I think it was the last safe thing to talk about with your friends and family who disagree with you politically.” (It also didn’t hurt that Hanks, in Seidell’s words, “just went for it,” fully committing to the goofy character.)

It’s fitting that “Haunted Elevator” became Seidell’s most buzzed-about sketch, as it’s representative of the type of sketch he most prefers to write. It’s impossible for an SNL writer in 2018 to ignore politics, as the current administration has provided fodder for many sketches over the past two years. Seidell, for instance, pitches in by co-writing appearances by cast members portraying President Trump’s sons Donald Jr. and Eric. But he is most interested in writing sketches that aren’t tied to the news cycle at all, particularly when they’re a little on the weirder side.

“There are a lot of [comedy shows] that just sort of say something everyone agrees with, and they’re aiming for applause and not laughs,” Seidell says. “But as a writer, I just find that boring. This show’s always been a balance of political stuff versus just baldly funny stuff. I’ve just always favored silliness. I’ve always just gone for a laugh over some stinging political critique.”

That’s not to say that topical sketches can’t be silly—or that they can’t appeal across the political spectrum. With Day, for instance, he co-wrote a commercial parody for “Levi’s Wokes,” comically ugly, ill-fitting jeans described as “size-less, style-neutral, gender nonconforming denim for a generation that defies labels.”

“I feel like I found a creative soulmate in Streeter, so I’m very lucky that he got put in my office that first season,” says Day, who joined the show a year before Seidell. “We share an odd sense of humor, and there’s few people there who are as crazy as I am to start writing something new at like 4 or 5 a.m. out of nowhere.”

A Seat at the SNL Kids’ Table

SNL‘s schedule of intense show weeks combined with downtime in the summer has allowed Seidell to work on other projects, including the David S. Pumpkins special last year. And he says he’d be interested in working on a bigger project like a film at some point, in addition to continuing with some stand-up dates, though his time away from the show also lets him spend more time with his wife and 2-year-old son.

In the meantime, he’s laser-focused on SNL. Since being hired, he’s added the title of writing supervisor, which means he not only writes sketches but also helps decide which ones make the show. “You have a seat, maybe not at the big-boy table, but at the kids’ table,” he jokes. It also means more opportunities to learn from Lorne Michaels. “It’s like if you were a baseball player and you get to talk with Babe Ruth,” Seidell says. “He’s maybe the most important person in American comedy, maybe ever.” Seidell pauses, then laughs. “And he wasn’t even born in America.”

Michaels, after all, has been producing groundbreaking sketch comedy for generations. “My parents told me growing up, ‘This is the funniest show,’” says Seidell, who made it his professional goal to be a writer there, preferring it over other beloved programs like The Late Show. “If you want to write comedy, this is the place to be.”

—Joe DeLessio, FCLC ’06, a social media editor at New York magazine, is a frequent contributor to this magazine.

Related Story: Streeter Seidell’s Top 5 SNL Sketches

1. Close Encounter (2015)

“This one was the first one where it really just destroyed in the room. I feel like Lorne [Michaels] started to know my name after that one. It truly changed my trajectory here. It was the first one I had that really just crushed. And Kate [McKinnon] was so funny. Everything about that one just worked.”

2. Haunted Elevator (2016)

“This did great in the studio, but it didn’t start out that way. It didn’t really work until the final one on air. So it was just getting better each time [during the week], but going into the show, we were like, ‘I don’t know if people are going to like it.’ And then to have it hit as hard as it did was rewarding. Tom Hanks is just a hero of mine and Mikey’s, and just having him go all in on such a stupid thing, just trusting these two idiots—and Bobby [Moynihan], excuse me, these three idiots, to bring him through that thing … It’s just nice knowing Tom Hanks is as friendly and cool as you want him to be.”

3. Civil War Soldiers (2017)

“I did this one with Jimmy Fallon when he hosted where they’re singing this old Civil War song, and he keeps jumping in with what he calls his ‘fat catchy hook’ that just sounds like a modern song called ‘Party at My Parents’ House.’ I just loved it. It did pretty well on the show. Jimmy was so funny, and just got the concept right away. I love history stuff. Whenever I can get a history thing on, I get excited about it.”

4. New Mercedes (2016)

“We did this commercial with Julia Louis Dreyfus for a Mercedes car that ran on like 5,000 AA batteries. I love the joke, and the way it was shot was just gorgeous. But I think I love it more for the fact that they really bought like 20,000 AA batteries, and there was a guy on set whose job was just shoveling batteries. He had, like, a snow shovel. It would be, ‘Action,’ then 10,000 batteries fall out of a hole in this car. Then ‘OK, cut,’ and this dude had to come in and shovel batteries all day. It was just making me laugh.”

5. Rap Song (2017)

“Season 42 was just such a momentous season for the show, and this was from the last episode. I got to do a thing with the full cast, and I knew that Bobby [Moynihan] was leaving, and Vanessa [Bayer] was leaving, and Bobby in particular was one of my buddies, and so it was cool to just have everybody there. It was really fun on a personal level of like, ‘Oh wow, we got to do this really big, deeply stupid song thing at the end of the season.’”

—Joe DeLessio, FCLC ’06, a social media editor at New York magazine, is a frequent contributor to this magazine.

Related Story: The Comedic Stylings of Saturday Night Live‘s Streeter Seidell