19 Times Celebrities Spoke About Their "SNL" Auditions
19 Times Celebrities Spoke About Their "SNL" AuditionsSkip To Content
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19 Times Celebrities Opened Up About Their "SNL" Audition Experience
Live from New York, it's Saturday Night Live audition stories!
by Devin Herenda ContributorLink
For most comedians, becoming a Saturday Night Live cast member is a dream job.
NBC/GIPHY And the way people have described it, that usually makes auditioning for the show just a little bit stressful. This makes sense, since it has been named the longest-running sketch comedy show ever, has earned more Emmys than any other television series in history, and was once the home of comedy legends like Martin Short, Tina Fey, Chris Rock, and more.
The WB/GIPHY Numerous celebs have opened up in the past about what it was like for them to audition for the iconic comedy show. Here are some interesting stories that have been shared about SNL audition experiences.
1. Eddie Murphy did a Jimmy Carter impression.
George Pimentel / WireImage / Getty Images In a Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon interview, Murphy described his audition, which consisted of three separate performances for SNL crew members."I was doing stand-up, so I was able to do impressions," Murphy said. "This is how long ago it was: I did a Jimmy Carter impression...Muhammad Ali, and Howard Cosell... I did my little stuff, and they just looked at me. And then I got the show after that." 2. Kristen Wiig was sure she didn't get the job.
Rodin Eckenroth / FilmMagic / Getty Images Wiig explained to Howard Stern that, after auditioning for SNL, she assumed she didn't get the gig until she received an unexpected call mid-season of the show."I went home and, like, didn’t hear anything...then the season premiere started, and I was like, well I don’t think I got it because I’m not there," Wiig said. "After the third show, and it was a Wednesday,...they’re like, you are hired, can you be here, like, tomorrow and watch the show from the wings on Saturday and then you start next week? And I was like, sure." 3. Kenan Thompson felt at ease auditioning in SNL's studio 8H.
Amy Sussman / Getty Images After the end of his Nickelodeon series Kenan & Kel, Thompson was working odd jobs in Los Angeles while doing sporadic acting gigs when he got the chance to audition for SNL. Stand-up was required for the first audition, which he did, although he wasn't experienced in this form of comedy. He then made it to a second audition round at SNL's filming location, studio 8H, which secured him being offered the job."I was really good with [the second audition] because that was the cameras, the studio was just me," Thompson told the New Yorker. "I just did my thing...I guess they saw, you know, an inkling of something that they could work with, and I got the job. And it changed my life." 4. Fred Armisen led with gratitude.
Jc Olivera / WireImage / Getty Images When Armisen heard that he had an audition for the show, he was very thankful for the experience, he told Sam Jones."This was already an elevation of my whole life," Armisen said. "[I thought], if this is all that ever happens to me...I am good. This is amazing."Armisen did three impressions and three characters for SNL staff members in a five-minute audition. After this took place, he grabbed dinner with the other comedians who had likewise auditioned. SNL producer Marci Klein called him during the meal and let him know he had earned a spot in the cast, which he had to keep a secret for the rest of the dinner."I saved the number, and I saved it as 'best call ever,'" Armisen said of Klein's call. "[It was] the best call I ever got. Just that NBC number. I just remember that I couldn’t say anything at dinner." 5. Bowen Yang had a fun time auditioning.
Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images "I never thought it would happen, so I just had fun with it," Yang said of his audition on Late Night With Seth Meyers. "I would do...silly people. I did my soul cycle instructor, I did the choking poster guy, and then they would ask you to do impressions every time. I had to go back in a few times, and at a certain point I just ran out of Asian public figures...I did [New York Times literary critic] Michiko Kakutani." 6. Leslie Jones made everyone move seats.
Todd Williamson / NBCUniversal / NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images Former SNL cast member Chris Rock recommended Jones to the show's creator and producer, Lorne Michaels, and she scored an audition to be on the series. Jones explained in a Howard Stern Show interview that she was initially hesitant to audition, as she wasn't used to sketch comedy. Once Jones was onstage, she took charge of the audition and was offered a place in the cast."I got onstage and there was empty chairs in the front, and I was like, 'Uh uh, that’s not how it work, let’s go, everybody move to the front,'" Jones recalled. "They did what they had to do, and I started my act." 7. Dana Carvey went from performing at a pizza parlor to being on SNL within 45 days.
Steve Granitz / WireImage / Getty Images Carvey's SNL audition changed his life, as it resulted in him quickly moving up the ladder in the world of entertainment.“That summer I played a pizza parlor in Martinez, California. [I] played to four people. Half of the audience hated me," Carvey told the Hollywood Reporter. "Forty-five days later from the pizza parlor, I was in the cold opening of Saturday Night Live, and I’d never done sketch comedy in my life." 8. Andy Samberg threw up and made Tina Fey laugh.
Ian West - Pa Images / PA Images via Getty Images The process of auditioning was so stressful for Samberg that he vomited before going onstage. He did, however, feel better once he heard Tina Fey laughing at an impression of his."When you watch [the show] for that long…to be in the room is very surreal," Samberg told Howard Stern. "When I was in there, I did hear a little bit of laughter, which was great. I heard Tina Fey distinctively laugh, and that helped. I did an impression of Jimmy Fallon, and she laughed at that." 9. Mindy Kaling auditioned while writing and acting in The Office.
Rich Polk / NBCUniversal / NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images Kaling told the A.V. Club about auditioning for SNL while she was a writer and series regular on The Office. Executive producer Greg Daniels told Kaling he'd let her out of her contract for The Office if she got cast on SNL. Although she did well, the audition didn't lead to a spot as a cast member, but rather an offer to write for the show. She instead continued with The Office and later did a guest spot writing for SNL. "They didn't offer me a part, but the audition went pretty well, and that night, they were like, 'Do you want to come write for the show?'" Kaling said. "At that time, I missed New York so badly. I hated L.A. for a long time, and I wanted to leave it. I had these fantasies of going to SNL and falling in love with some writer on SNL, of getting married and living in New York. That was really heartbreaking to have to turn down, but then I got to guest-write in the spring [of that year]."10. Sam Richardson didn't know how Lorne Michaels felt after his audition.
Emma Mcintyre / Getty Images Lorne Michaels saw Richardson perform at The Second City comedy club, which resulted in him getting the call for an SNL audition. He felt good about the impressions he did onstage, but was left confused by an encounter with Michaels afterward."I did Barack Obama...I did Dr. MLK, D.D.S., who was just Martin Luther King if he was a dentist.... I just barreled through and afterwards I was like, 'Oh, fine, cool, I did it,'" Richardson said to Sam Jones. "I remember afterwards Lorne Michaels came up to me and he was like, 'Oh, Sam, that was really funny; how do you feel?' I was like, 'I feel great, how do you feel?' And then he just looked at me and then walked off... I was like, I think I failed the crazy test."11. Rachel Dratch gave Seth Meyers a helpful tip for the audition.
Samuel Corum / AFP via Getty Images Before he auditioned, SNL cast member Rachel Dratch gave Meyers some advice on what kind of reception to expect from crew members watching his performance."Rachel Dratch, who I did not know, but a friend of mine knew her, gave me the best piece of...not quite advice, but a tip, which was, when you audition, no one will laugh," Meyers said in a Today interview. "And that's a really good thing that then I told everybody who ever auditioned because people do laugh a little bit...[but] if you hear no one 's gonna laugh, if you hear even a little bit of a laugh you think, oh, I'm crushing it." 12. Jimmy Fallon made Lorne Michaels laugh.
Taylor Hill / WireImage / Getty Images Fallon did impressions in a celebrity walk-a-thon sketch for his audition, and was satisfied with the experience of making Lorne Michaels laugh as he imitated Adam Sandler."I ended up doing Adam Sandler in the audition, and I remember [Lorne Michaels was] laughing… I was like, 'How cool is this story? Even if I don’t get this, I can tell my friends I made Lorne Michaels laugh,'" Fallon said to Howard Stern in 2002. 13. Kevin Hart did an impression that no one understood.
Roy Rochlin / Getty Images for Netflix While he was a guest on Conan, Hart described how he did an Avery Johnson impression for his SNL audition. He didn't get the job, which he later realized may have been due to the fact that no one evaluating him was aware of who the basketball analyst and former San Antonio Spurs point guard was."I did an impression of a person that nobody knew," Hart said. "I said, 'OK, I'm going to do an impression of Avery Johnson.' And I remember Lore Michaels looking at me and he was like, 'Mhmm. OK.' He didn't say he didn't know who that was, but I could tell he definitely didn't know." 14. Will Ferrell acted like a cat after Lorne Michaels advised him to switch up his material.
Michael Loccisano / Getty Images When Ferrell got a callback for a second audition, he met with Lorne Michaels to discuss what material he'd be using in the second round. Michaels suggested that Ferrell change his approach, which forced him to get innovative with his comedy content. "In hindsight what [Michaels] was doing was actually really smart. He was forcing me to just come up with new stuff, new shades, new moves so to speak," Ferrell said in an Off Camera interview. "So there I was that next day just by the seat of my pants doing three or four different things that I hadn't planned on doing... That was the biggest sinking moment because here I am lying around with cat toys on the stage where the host for Saturday Night Live delivers the monologue every week. I was like, 'Oh, this is the end.'" 15. Jim Carrey witnessed a scary scene when he arrived for his audition.
Vera Anderson / WireImage / Getty Images Jim Carrey talked about witnessing someone being in the middle of a suicide attempt as he arrived for his SNL audition in a Lights Out With David Spade interview.“I was like, gosh, I hope this is a lucky day for me," Carrey recalled. "I walked out of my car, closed the door, and I heard, ‘Don’t do it! Don’t jump!’ ...and I looked up at the top of [the] NBC building, and there was a page in a blue coat...standing on the NBC logo, trying to get his nerve up to jump off. And I went, not a good sign." 16. Cecily Strong played a girl whose boyfriend wouldn't stop tickling her for her audition.
Cbs Photo Archive / CBS via Getty Images "It was a long process of...never letting myself think I was gonna get [the job] because it's impossible to get," Strong told Andy Cohen of auditioning for SNL. When asked what characters she portrayed to win a position on the show, Strong said, "I did a girl whose boyfriend tickled her in public a lot." 17. Bill Hader was worried that he should've brought props when he saw Andy Samberg for the first time.
Jon Kopaloff / Getty Images “I remember being in the elevator...I was next to this guy and he had tons of props," Hader said to the Hollywood Reporter about arriving at his audition. "He looked like he’d run away from home, you know, just a backpack filled with props and stuff. And that was Andy Samberg. That’s how I met Andy. That was the first time I saw Andy. And he [later] said he was looking at me like, oh, that dude doesn’t need props?! ... I was like, oh, I should have brought props!" 18. John Mulaney was quickly hired as a writer after a successful audition.
Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images for SiriusXM Mulaney was asked to audition after SNL staff members saw him perform stand-up on Conan. He he had no expectations that he'd be chosen to be a cast member, however, so instead just decided to be as funny as possible."I auditioned 100% knowing there's no way I'll get cast. I was like, I just want to be very funny for them because this will be a cool story that I got to audition for Lorne Michaels," Mulaney said in an episode of Off Camera. "I did great... In the moment I was like, this is going well, this is weird."While he was eating dinner in Chicago with his mother two nights later, Mulaney received a phone call from Seth Meyers with an offer to become a writer for the show. "I go inside and I told my mom I just got hired as a writer at SNL, and the waitress was standing right there and she went, 'That's how Conan started!'" Mulaney said. 19. Chris Redd gained a spot on the SNL roster by talking about crackheads.
Bryan Bedder / Getty Images for iHeartRadio In an episode of Conan, Redd said he had been working as a traveling stand-up comedian before getting his SNL audition. He decided to use some of his comedy bits about experiences with drug addicts for this trial performance."What I'd been doing on the road was a bunch of crackhead material," Redd said. "I talked about crackheads. See, my uncle was a crackhead. We didn't even know at first. We just thought he was a fun dude." Share This Article
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