6 Celebrities You Totally Forgot Were in the ‘Saturday Night Live’ Cast — From Robert Downey Jr. to Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Saturday Night Live is a true comedy institution (thanks to its creator Lorne Michaels), and over the decades it's been a launchpad for countless stars, from Eddie Murphy to Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi to Bill Murray, Will Ferrell to Tina Fey, Colin Jost, Billy Crystal, Chevy Chase, Michael Che, Jason Sudeikis, and Bowen Yang (to name just a few). Over the course of its impressive nearly 50-year tenure, all kinds of comedians have passed through its doors — some of whom are admittedly better-remembered than others.
A surprising number of celebrities have also been part of the SNL cast — albeit not for very long. In the '80s, the show had some highly publicized growing pains, with personnel changes both in front of and behind the scenes, and during this time some unexpected players joined the cast.
Here’s a look at six stars you probably forgot were once Saturday Night Live cast members.
1. Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Robin Platzer/Time & Life Pictures/Getty
Before she was Elaine in Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus was in the Saturday Night Live cast from 1982 to 1985. SNL proved pivotal in her career, as it was there that she met Seinfeld creator Larry David, who had his own short-lived stint on the show.
Louis-Dreyfus had just dropped out of college when she joined SNL, and looking back decades later at her time in the cast, she said it “was a pretty brutal time but a very informative time . . . I was unbelievably naive and I didn’t really understand how the dynamics of the place worked.”
She’s come a long way since then, and with her roles in Seinfeld, The New Adventures of Old Christine and Veep, she’s widely considered one of the funniest women of all time.
2. Anthony Michael Hall
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty
Anthony Michael Hall embodied the quintessential '80s nerd in the John Hughes classics Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Weird Science. The actor is less known for his short stint on SNL from 1985 to 1986.
Hall was just 17 when he joined the cast, making him the youngest cast member in SNL history. While he was already a star thanks to his teen movie roles, being on the sketch comedy show wasn’t quite as positive an experience for him.
In an interview, Hall recalled, “To be very honest and candid with you, it was not great — it was a shaky-legs season. I'm grateful for the experience, but I didn't have a breakout season. I didn't even have any breakout characters or anything like that."
3. Joan Cusack
Paul Natkin/Wire Image/Getty
Joan Cusack has brought her delightfully quirky sensibility to supporting roles in movies like Broadcast News, Working Girl, Addams Family Values and School of Rock, and like Anthony Michael Hall, she was an SNL cast member during the ill-fated 1985-1986 season.
Reflecting on her season on the show, Cusack said, “It wasn't working . . . I was miserable. I felt so badly about it that I didn't make it on that show, and it wasn't right for me.” Luckily, her career took a turn for the better once she got axed, and today she has almost 100 credits to her name.
4. Robert Downey Jr.
Bonnie Schiffman/Getty
Of all the celebrities that have been part of the SNL cast, Robert Downey Jr. just might be the most surprising. The Iron Man star and Oppenheimer Oscar winner was a cast member in — you guessed it — the cursed 1985-1986 season.
Downey Jr. called the season “arguably the worst season in its history,” but his trajectory after being fired has to be one of the best, as he had a triumphant success story of overcoming addiction and becoming one of Hollywood’s highest-grossing actors.
5. Randy Quaid
Ralph Dominguez/MediaPunch via Getty
Randy Quaid, the star of films like The Last Detail, Kingpin and Independence Day, started acting back in the early '70s, and had an established career by the time he joined the 1985-1986 SNL cast, but that didn’t stop him from being unceremoniously fired at the end of the season.
Quaid’s forgotten SNL stint just shows that even if you’re an Oscar nominee, as he was for The Last Detail in 1973, you’re not guaranteed to do well on the sketch comedy show.
6. Ben Stiller
Aaron Rapoport/Corbis via Getty
Ben Stiller has made us laugh out loud in so many movies — including Zoolander, Meet the Parents and Tropic Thunder — that it's easy to forget he was briefly an SNL cast member in the show’s 1989 season.
Unlike most of the other stars on this list, Stiller left SNL by choice. After just four episodes of the show, he realized he was more interested in making short films than performing sketch comedy, and said, “I knew that I wasn’t good live.”
Not long after leaving SNL, Stiller launched his own sketch comedy show, The Ben Stiller Show, which ran from 1992 to 1995, and became known as a multitalented leading man and director.
Read on for more about Saturday Night Live!
