NEED TO KNOW
Bowen Yang is looking back at his decision to depart Saturday Night Live.
During the Wednesday, Jan. 7 episode of Las Culturistas alongside co-host Matt Rogers, Yang compared his send -ff on the series after his seven-season tenure as a cast member to “landing the Mars rover on a square foot of terrain.”
Yang, 35, announced his departure from the show last month and marked his final episode on Dec. 20. One of his final sketches, featuring Ariana Grande and Cher, saw the comedian and Wicked actor play a Delta One Lounge employee working his last shift — a direct nod to his own departure.
“I was sobbing at the read-through,” Yang told Rogers. “In the sketch, I say, ‘I’ve loved everyone here, I’ve loved every single person who works here.’ I immediately broke down… because I was telling the truth.”
He later added, “There were no other occasions for someone to say that at that place. Because we have to be funny and ironic and there’s a refraction of what’s being said and how it should be received. I will absolutely cop to the fact that the Delta One sketch was completely self-indulgent. Because like, what am I gonna do, give a straight joke back?”
During the podcast, Yang also said that he was “maybe unsure about going back in the summer” on the SNL stage but was “so glad” he did.
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Elsewhere, Yang explained that he “learned how to work under what seems like an immense amount of pressure” during his tenure, and that working at SNL allows one to make “peace with the fact that things are completely out of your control.”
“Down to the audience response to a joke. Having that and going into it til’ like 12:55 a.m., not being sure if that sketch was gonna go to air, there’s a million reasons it could get cut, nothing is guaranteed,” Yang said. “That is sort of, in a nutshell, perfectly illustrative of what that job is. And it was resonant all the way through to the end. And I feel really — this word is meaningless, I think, maybe now — so grateful.”
Yang also explained that “everybody has a different length of their tenure, completely different struggles.” When Rogers explained that his co-host now has the “freedom now to put energy into whatever it is that you want,” Yang joked, “it’s harder to get out of an unwanted plan” post-SNL, given the additional free time.
Still, he called his time on the show “one of the most meaningful experiences I ever had.” Later, he got emotional over the “outpouring” of support for him during his final stint. “I thought, I’m so lucky that I ever got to work here. And I’m so lucky that I get to make this little statement that’s like barely veiled where I’m like, ‘I love you all.’ I’m so lucky,” he said.
As for the advice he got along the way, Yang explained that Amy Poehler gave him some important feedback while at an afterparty earlier in the season.
“[She put] a hand on my shoulder, looks into my eyes and goes, ‘We’re all waiting for you on the other side.’ And I was like, ‘F—.’ I was like, ‘This is crazy.’ And that was a reminder of like, ‘Oh my God, I work here and there’s another side and it does feel like I died,’ ” Yang joked. “One of my heroes is looking down at me and telling me… And even Aidy [Bryant] is like, ‘There’s a really nice life waiting for you after this. You’ll miss it every day.’ ”
Now a five-time Emmy nominee, Yang joined SNL in 2019 as its first Chinese American cast member and one of SNL’s first openly gay stars.
Ahead of his final appearance, he wrote in an Instagram caption that he was “grateful for every minute of my time there.”
