Kenan Thompson Reveals Why He Nearly Quit ‘Saturday Night Live’
Kenan Thompson has been a staple of Saturday Night Live since 2003. The 45-year-old comedian recently revealed that there was a time he nearly quit the show due to limited air time.
The Kenan & Kel actor released his new memoir When I Was Your Age: Life Lessons, Funny Stories & Questionable Parenting Advice from a Professional Clown on Tuesday (Dec. 5) and discusses his first few years on the SNL cast. Thompson wrote that his confidence “sunk to an all-time low” when he messed up a sketch written by T. Sean Shannon called “Randy The Bellhop.”
“I was excited for the first opportunity to showcase my chops on the big stage,” he said. “Thing was, I couldn’t make it through dress rehearsal. I stuttered over this one line and couldn’t ad-lib my way out of it.” This mistake caused him to experience a “full-on panic,” especially when someone on the set said “Oh no!”
“If a slip up like that happened at Nickelodeon or in the movies I’d done, we could just do another take,” Thompson wrote. “At SNL there was a lot riding on the live performance, obviously, and to no one’s surprise, the sketch didn’t make it to air.” While the writers seemed to empathize, having dealt with failed sketches before, the actor felt like he was being avoided and may not get another chance.
“I was like, ‘What the hell am I doing here?'” he wrote. “I was famous enough that people were trying to follow me off the subway, but I couldn’t get on the show.” The Good Burger actor said this experience led to many depressive feelings, but that all changed after a conversation with Maya Rudolph, who told him it was a “no-brainer” when the opportunity arose for him to join the cast.
“I fully freaked out hearing that. I literally had a seat next to one of the most talented performers I had ever seen. Her pedigree was legendary,” he said. “To be complimented by someone you admire was humbling and enlightening. I wasn’t just a kid laughing at his own jokes in front of the mirror. I’d been validated. To hear that the things I was doing resonated with people was heavy, man. That had a huge impact on me and was a turning point.”
Kenan Thompson stuck with Saturday Night Live and now lays claim to the title of most-tenured cast member. He has earned five Emmy nominations throughout his time on the show and took home hardware in 2018 for co-writing the sketch “Come Back, Barack.”
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