“Then I ask you if you like ‘Casablanca,’ and you respond by saying, ‘Lots of people like “Casablanca,”’” Schumer continued. “You tell me it’s widely settled that ‘Casablanca’ is one of the great movies.”

But Roberts responded to Schumer in kind, getting his own share of laughs when he began his answer, “First, ‘Dr. Zhivago’ and ‘North by Northwest.’”

The nominee then delivered a serious answer to Schumer’s charges: “I think I have been more forthcoming than any of the other nominees,” said Roberts, who reviewed testimony from the confirmation hearings for the current justices in preparation for his own hearing. “I have taken what I think is a more pragmatic approach and said, ‘If I don’t think that’s likely to come before the court, I will comment on it.’”

Schumer and Roberts, both graduates of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, also shared a brief exchange that harkened back to their days in Cambridge. The senator referenced Franklin L. Ford, a former dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences who taught history at Harvard while both men were there.

“I think a modest approach requires beginning with the body of precedent,” Schumer said. “That’s what judges do. And that’s a recognition, just as Professor Ford said, that...we’re not smarter than our fathers who laid down this precedent.”

After a brief pause, Schumer repeated, “Professor Ford,” to which Roberts echoed, “Professor Ford.”

If confirmed as the seventeenth chief justice, Roberts will be the first graduate of Harvard College or Harvard Law School to hold that position, as well as the youngest chief justice in more than two centuries.

—Staff writer Daniel J. T. Schuker can be reached at dschuker@fas.harvard.edu.