Kenan Thompson shares the hardest part of working on “SNL” for so long

Kenan Thompson shares the hardest part of working on "SNL" for so long

Saturday Night Live star Kenan Thompson — the cast member who has been on the show the longest by far — says there are downsides to staying on for so many years.

“Being there so long, you watch people come and go,” Thompson, who has been on the sketch show since 2003, said on a recent episode of Thanks Dad With Ego Nwodim hosted by his SNL costar. “So you have to, like, deal with the breakup of friendships, and that kind of thing. Mourning the loss of certain people’s presence and all that. So there’s a lot of bittersweetness to it.”

Kenan Thompson joined Saturday Night Live in 2003.

Rosalind O’Connor/NBC via Getty

Thompson pointed to the recent departures before the current 50th season of cast members Banky Johnson, who departed in August after four seasons, and Molly Kearney, who announced in the same month that they would not be returning after two seasons.

He explained that it wasn’t just showing the exits that made it difficult to say goodbye. “The crew died. All kinds of s—,” Thompson said. “So, it’s something heavier than just s— and it’s beautiful for me because I’ve been there so long.”

While the Good Burger team didn’t specify which deaths it meant, the show’s longtime host Don Pardo died during Thompson’s tenure, in August 2014. Pardo, who had been with the show since its inception in 1975, with the exception of Season 7, was 96 years old. .

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Aidy Bryant, Kate McKinnon, Cecily Strong and Kenan Thompson on SNL in 2021. NBC

Thompson spent 21 seasons on SNL. To put that in perspective, he joined the cast two years before Andy Samberg, who returned as a guest star this season after leaving the show 12 years ago.

“The wildest thing about Keenan is that he was there before I got there, and obviously he still is, and he still gets me,” Samberg said on an episode of Kevin Hart’s Hart to Hart podcast earlier this summer. “I still watch the show, and I’ve seen his moves, and it’s like I know what he’s going to do, but he’s still killing me. And he’s going to do some new moves—. I’m like, ‘How is this idiot still killing it so hard?’

Thompson has received multiple Emmy Award nominations for his work on SNL, and scored a win in 2018 for co-writing the comedy theme song “Come Back, Barak.”

Listen to Thompson’s full episode of Thanks Dad With Ego Nwodim below.

Saturday Night Live airs Saturdays at 11:30 PM ET/8:30 PM PT on NBC and Peacock.

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