Bowen Yang on Disastrous First ‘SNL’ Screen Test After Lorne Michaels Rally
Bowen Yang’s first screen test for “Saturday Night Live” did not go well, according to the comedian, after an interaction with creator Lorne Michaels.
During a recent interview on “Hot people,” Yang recalled his 2017 screen test for the late-night sketch comedy series.
“The final step in that process is that you have a one-on-one meeting with Lorne. It was him and another producer, Erik Kenward,” he said. “The first thing out of my mouth was, ‘I’m Canadian too. I grew up in Montreal. I grew up in Quebec’ – and it was instantaneous, it was a mood killer. I didn’t get the job because I gave in to his Canadianness, and that was a disaster.”
Yang was eventually hired as a staff writer for “SNL” in 2018 and was promoted to an on-air player a year later. In 2021, he made history as the first “SNL” player to receive an Emmy nomination in an acting category.
When Yang joined the show, former SNL cast member Aidy Bryant shared some advice with him on how to deal with Michaels.
“Aidy Bryant was the one who told me, ‘You can be friends with him now,’” Yang recalled. “That gave me the encouragement I needed to go to him and say, ‘Oh, we can relate on a human-to-human level,’ which I never thought would happen with him .”
Yang appeared on “Hot Ones” to promote Universal’s “Wicked,” starring Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo and Jeff Goldblum. In the musical film directed by Jon M. Chu, Yang plays Pfannee, a loyal confidante of Glinda (Grande). The film is the first of two big-screen adaptations of the Broadway musical.
‘Wicked’ is in theaters now.
