Bowen Yang, Sarah Sherman, Kenan Thompson On ‘SNL’ Legacy, Longevity

Bowen Yang is getting a bit nostalgic about his time on “Saturday Night Live.” Yang, who first joined the show as a writer in 2018 (joining the cast the following year), left in December — and he says it took him a beat to realize just what he had. But when he recently shot this year’s “Las Culturistas Culture Awards” with podcast partner Matt Rogers, it all came flooding back.

“When we did the culture awards, it reminded me very much of the dream factory that was ‘SNL,’ just on a much smaller scale,” he says. “Of course, it really broke open all these thoughts that I’ve had about ‘SNL.’ I kind of spun out and started to think about how comedy overall is just like in this interesting spot where I feel like it might be a little undervalued. Because I feel people have a psychological need to have it to cope with the reality of things. Which I think ‘SNL’ still does. I watch it as a comfort now, and it’s really surreal watching it from the other side, but it’s amazing. It’s how I grew to love it.”

Yang, Kenan Thompson and Sarah Sherman stuck around backstage after the recent “Saturday Night Live” Emmy FYC event at the Television Academy to chat with Variety about the show, longevity and their legacies with the “SNL.” While doing so, Variety even got Thompson to admit that he might be willing to stay with the shows forever.

For starters, as Yang began talking about what it’s been like to leave “SNL” and once again watch as a fan, Thompson had an urgent question: “I’m always asking folks, like, what’s it like outside the walls?”

Here’s a transcript of that conversation:

Bowen, do you ever think maybe you would come back?

Yang: I don’t have anything lined up to do that. I think you need a project!

Thompson: Bowen, you’re hosting next year, for sure. Absolutely. You’re technically allowed, like you have to. That’s a no-brainer, I would say

Yang: It would be pure fan service if Lorne were to let Kenan host and, like, pull an Eddie Murphy, and have him host while he was on the cast.

Which “SNL” hasn’t done since?

Thompson: That wasn’t a Lorne call because Lorne wasn’t there, and I don’t think Lorne would love that kind of thing. I think the audience loved it, but I heard it was tumultuous amongst the cast.

Yang: That would not be the case now!

Sherman: I’ll call him. I’ll text him.

Well, I’m always curious for you, Kenan, having been through this, where you see people arrive, you mentor them, and then they eventually go off and do their thing. What is that like for you? In some ways, you’re always being left behind at the high school.

Thompson: It’s sad. There’s a sadness to it, because it’s like, you start to become like somewhat of an empty nester in that specific person’s lane. Now my child has gone off to college, kind of thing. They come back around, but it’s just a different dynamic, and it’s always emotional, especially with the ones that work the hardest. And the ones that are the best of people, it seems are always the ones that catch you off guard. For some reason I just assume everybody’s just gonna stay forever, because I’ve been allowed to do so. So I’m thinking like that’s the new page, we all just stay multiple digit years. No one ever really has to leave, or why would you ever leave?

Bowen, why would you ever leave?

Yang: Well, for me it’s a skill transfer. I would not have been able to do the Culture Awards without the skills I learned at “SNL.” Now, the skills don’t have to transfer, if this is what you are the best at doing, better than anybody else in the literal world — which is just a fact that Kenan Thompson is one of the best sketch performers ever. He’s where he belongs, he’s thriving in that belonging. And then for Sarah, it’s like those skills transfer on to her putting on this indelible, singular kind of stand-up special.

Sherman: That’s why I pay him to hang out with me.

Well, Sarah, what are your thoughts on that? How long do you want to be on “SNL”? Are you pre-sad thinking about, “what’s my life going to be like when I do leave?”

Sherman: Well, Kenan and Bowen both did the unthinkable, which is, they were able to work on big other projects outside the show, while simultaneously being on the show. [To Thompson:] You were doing your show at the same time, and [To Yang”] you were flying back and forth for “Wicked.” [Thompson’s NBC sitcom “Kenan”] was during my first season, and then two seasons ago, [Yang] was flying back and forth to London for “Wicked.” I’ve been on the show five years, and all I’ve managed to squeeze out is a stand-up special — and that’s on my off time. It’s hard. I don’t know how you guys did it. I think about Aidy [Bryant] all the time, how she did all of “Shrill” while she was at SNL. There’s so many people who were able to.

Thompson: Fred [Armisen] did a whole other sketch show [“Portlandia”] while doing this sketch show, which is the craziest version of that. We are all like, how the fuck do you take an idea and decide where it goes?

Sherman: Were there rejected sketches from “SNL” that ended up on “Portlandia”?

Thompson: I’ve never seen a thing that I’ve heard before on “Portlandia.”

I’m assuming “Portlandia” was different enough of a show from “SNL” that he was able to balance it.

Sherman: It’s like, is the “SNL” audience gonna get this character that has gages in their nose?

Thompson: There wasn’t anything close to, like, “The Californians” or anything. It was its own thing, which is crazy. Like, Fred was the first person that helped me actually catch on to the fact that, all of our bits are sketch-worthy — if you can find a way to expand it. Because a lot of times we were just doing bits in the hallway, passing the time, doing silly stuff to keep the stress away, or keep nerves away. But Fred would actually document these things that were making us laugh, and then he’d break it down, turn it into an idea. We were laughing about how California people give directions, and that became a whole thing.

Sherman: Bowen was making fun of the way people talk to each other sometimes at work, like when you’re stressed out, it gets kind of passive aggressive. They’ll pitch someone a sketch, like, “maybe we should both play donuts in a cop’s butt,” or whatever. And then someone will be afraid of saying no and doing a hard rejection, so they go, “uhhh… yeah!”

Yang [sarcastically]: And it turned into a wildly successful sketch.

Sherman: But you always know what’s funny enough to be a sketch.

Yang: I had varying success with that. But there are people like Fred who take an observation, and package it and transmute it, and can see the utility of something and tailor it to the show.

What’s it like once you’re no longer the newbie, but you’ve become a tenured “SNL” player, and then you become sort of an elder statesman? Is there a moment where you feel like that switch has happened? When did that happen for all of you? And Sarah, are you now feeling that now, since you’ve been there five years?

Sherman: Well, that’s my problem. “Oh, you’re a vet, you’ve been there for five years.” But new people come in, and I’m like, “Do you guys like think I’m cool?”

Yang: I can clock that moment for Sarah. And it’s not about utility again, but it’s the fact that she’s reliably someone that the show can put into, let’s say, a Weekend Update slot, and be like, “You’re playing another animal of note in the news,” and she’s the go-to.

Sherman [to Yang]: You are the reason that people put me in “straight man” characters now. I came in and I look crazy and I act crazy, so people were like, “Oh, she’ll do whatever, her own thing.” But Bowen and Sudi [Green] and Celeste [Yim[ were writing me always as the straight girl in the sketch, going, “You’re acting crazy.” No one was doing that. In my first two seasons, I was in, like, one sketch a show,. But because of you guys, you would put me in sketches going, “Hey, now that’s pretty bizarre behavior!”

Yang: And how can we deny that?

Bowen, do you remember your transformation, the moment where you went from newbie to vet?

Yang: I think there’s a thing that happens when you’ve got to hold the center in a cold open. Where you go, “OK, I really got to ratchet this up, so that the ball is high up in the air for the rest of the show.”

Sherman: The one where you were on the piano as George Santos, that was crazy. That was a full Broadway number that was getting literally edited to the second he went on stage, changing full song lyrics, and then having to do a whole new song five seconds before air. You won’t be seeing me doing that.

Thompson: The cold open is definitely the mature territory of the show. That’s where it feels like the adults are, “what do you got this week to start us off?” kind of thing, because it’s usually so political and so heady a lot of the time, but only in undertone, and then everything else is the silly version of what we all do, like the impressions. So yeah, anytime you have some sketch catered around you that’s in the cold open, that’s a mature experience there. You feel like, “oh, I know how to do this kind of thing,” once it goes well.

Bowen, going back to what you were saying about comedy, and how tough it is to even find joy in comedy right now. How tough is it right now, being on this show, and everyone’s thinking about the dark stuff going on in the world. But maybe you just want to do a fun, ridiculous sketch. Is it tougher? Are you feeling more distracted?

Thompson: For me? No, I tend to stay in the playful. So, yes, I’m aware, and I read a lot. But I also know that this is an escape for a lot of people. There are plenty of shows that are going to break down what’s happening in the world. By the time it gets to Saturday, it feels like we’ve had enough of that, and we would like another version of escapism. I like to service that, that’s where it’s fun for me. When it’s so serious, and it gets heady, that’s when it gets hard, it becomes a job for real. So I pity the writers more, because I feel like even if they don’t write political humor, they’re very aware of the circumstance of every single joke idea, and how it may land. I’m more trying to just put a ball cap on and do, like, a silly security guard, that kind of stuff.

Yang: I feel like that is like the essence of it, right?

Thompson: “Silly, silly.”

Yang: “Silly, silly,” which is, between the three of us, our favorite thing. But I just mean, in terms of the current TV landscape, it’s like, comedy is expected to be served with some rounded-out gravitas.

Has to make you cry.

Yang: I love these shows just as much as anyone else, but there’s something about the job of “SNL” that I undervalued in myself. Where I was like, we gotta just have the silly and relief with the obviously dark stuff that we can’t necessarily face head on. Unless it’s in the cold open, or that Colin [Jost] and [Michael] Che kind of have more of a direct line to.

Sherman: Lorne calls it “hard comedy.” You have to have a joke-per-minute pace. There has to be a bunch of jokes. There’s not that many things on TV that are hard comedy. But there just because we have to generate so much new stuff every week, it’s kind of hard not to wade a little bit into the darkness. You have to come up three sketches a week, and it’s like, the only thing I’m thinking about is ICE. And then I write a crazy Weekend Update where I’m an ICE guy, shooting up steroids and being like, “I’m a fucking Nazi!” And then I do it at table, and everyone’s like, “Whoa!” And then it bombs and you’re like, “riiight.” It’s impossible to avoid becaus it’s all around you, it’s all you think about, and you’re just writing what’s happening. But I trust that everybody’s instincts around me are pretty right. So if everybody’s like, “that character you’re doing is scary and not funny, no one wants to see that right now,” I’m like “OK, I won’t be doing that, thank you!”

Yang: But then Sarah can do a looksmaxxing piece that’s dark, but is ultimately so funny. And just to contain that in three minutes or less in an Weekend Update piece, it’s like, “oh well, that’s virtuosic.”

Kenan, are there any characters or bits or sketches from your early days that you would love to revisit one day?

Thompson: It’s so funny, Brian Tucker pulled a sketch out from 12 or 13 years ago that got cut at dress rehearsal and got cut again.

Yang: No! Which one?

Thompson: It’s called “The Devin Avery Show,” and the bit is he’s a talk show host that just goes along with the guests. He’s always pingponging, getting mad, but then they say something that’s valid, he immediately agrees with them. It’s a lot of fun to read, and we’re getting close to it, but it fell short again.

Sherman: But it’s that rare sketch that gets funnier as it goes.

Thompson: It was crazy that he just pulled something up from so long ago that I was like, “oh yeah, I remember this was like a fun game.” We do a lot of fun game sketches, where the game of the sketch is a lot of fun. But making it an actual sketch that works is really hard. It’s a hard bullseye to hit.

Another thing that you changed, Kenan, is you no longer kick off SNL broadcasts with the crowd warm-up before the show starts. You’d been doing that for so many years, because I was going to SNL tapings 20 years ago, and you were doing it then, entertaining the crowd with a song and dance before the show. Even three years ago you were still doing it. I was impressed with your commitment.

Thompson: It was a long walk down that road, and speaking of being on the other side of things, that’s my closest version of experiencing something that’s a new dynamic in my life. Because I’m not stressed about the show at all anymore. I used to stress about the warm-up only. It’s an old showbizzy kind of thing to warm up the audience, but it’s also a legendary comedy show, and then here you are doing karaoke.

You had to have high energy at the start of the show, every week.

Thompson: When the song doesn’t work, the song really doesn’t work1

Yang: Or if you had your sketch cut at dress and you got to go back up there.

Thompson: All of that. Pushing emotion to the side and just focusing on the micro job at hand. It was the only thing that would have me pacing around. And then once I did it, I would be like, “thank God, now we can do the show,” which is crazy.

Sherman: Was all the anxiety for the show like a defense mechanism, packaged up?

Thompson: No, it was just because no one came to see [the warm-up]. They came to see sketches. They were fine with the band just playing jazz for 40 minutes.

Yang: But they were seeing Kenan Thompson singing live, that’s pretty cool.

Thompson: It’s like, “by the way, we want to sing you this song real quick, and hope you like it!”

And it was never televised, so people never actually got to see your warm-up, even though you put so much effort into it.

Thompson: It was a in-the-room surprise gift or not gift, kind of thing, depending on how you take it. But it always felt somewhat forced, and that would make me nervous. Now, to not have that anymore, I’m like, man, if I’m not in the cold open or the first sketch or the monologue, I’ve got like 25 minutes still into the show to just relax! Craziness.

So this means you have another good like 10, 15, 20 years on the show now, right?

Thompson: I could do it for forever, if that’s the case. You know what I mean, because, I’m completely fearless when it comes to doing shows. Writing stresses me out. Like, Tuesday night is a stressful night, or Wednesday is a stressful time. But Saturday is cake now. It’s amazing.

Yang: I love that.

I asked Bowen what he misses most about the show. So, what do you guys miss about not having Bowen around?

Sherman: Literally, one of the writers said to me, “When Bowen’s gone, no one is gonna laugh at anything you do at table.” To this person’s credit, I would come out in a scene and be like, ‘Your waters,” and he would be like, “girrrrrl!” Dying. Anything I said!

Thompson: You guys had a supportive dynamic friendship, yes. It’s just a supportive, lovely energy and it never felt disingenuous.

Yang: I think she’s the funniest woman.

Sherman: He kills me. He has a Bowen way!

Thompson: It’s nice to see that. It’s also nice to see everyone’s nuanced sense of humor, because we’ll all laugh really hard at individual things, random ass things, and that’s always really fun. To be like, “oh, look, that one really got Bowen,” or, “that one really got Tommy.”

Sherman: There’s always one line in a Bowen sketch where it’s a new kind of catchphrase when he says something.

OK, let’s embarrass Kenan now. I mean, when you came to the show and there’s the legend Kenan Thompson, what was that like getting to know him? And how he was just this reassuring presence from the start?

Sherman: He’s never sweating, even though you were just saying you sweat that open, I had no idea. He’s never sweating. So it’s like, you’ll be all twisted up and rocking back and forth, so mad about something, or anxious about something, and he’s so zen that it gives you perspective. And then, one day we were walking down the hallway in my second year, I’ll never forget this. And I was like, “it’s cold in here.” Literally, 15 minutes later, I have a space heater in my room with a note from Kenan. He doesn’t have to be nice to anyone! He doesn’t have to talk to anyone, he doesn’t have to listen. He’s still putting in effort to be nice to everyone and making everyone feel comfortable and welcome.

Yang: There’s every kind of behavior modeling going on with Kenan. It’s like, “oh, this is how I should arrive on time. I should deliver a note this way. I should give feedback in this way, I should advocate for myself.” It is always the most natural. It’s never didactic, it’s never him pulling you aside and being, “this is how you should do the job.” It is by example, always.

Sherman: I will watch Kenan in rehearsal, and even though our job sometimes is, all we’re there to do is say a line, he’s so good at the job that he’ll be paying attention to the camera shots. He’s like, “it should be on that camera,” and it’s like, “right! We should be producing and directing.” He’s really good at the job. I’m like, oh yeah, I should be paying attention to that kind of stuff!

Yang: It’s literally community building.

“What Would Kenan Do?”

Sherman: What Would Kenan Do! “Regard the cards!” And all the producers, when you first get there, they’re like, “watch the way Kenan moves, and just learn from him.” And you’re like, OK. The way he looks at cards, the way he does it all.

Thompson: I love you both. I can’t handle that!

Sherman: That’s why he’s got his sunglasses on.

Yang: He’s sobbing underneath.

Thompson: Full tears.