Bowen Yang sums up the reality of working at ‘SNL’ in 9 words
If you ask Bowen Yang what working on “Saturday Night Live” is like, he’ll tell you that everyone stays on their toes.
On Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist, Yang succinctly summed up the reality of working at the fabled sketch comedy show, which celebrated its 50th anniversary on the air earlier this year.
“You’re an established star of SNL, which is nice,” Willie told Yang during their interview.
“Established, that’s such a wild word because I feel like no one — the whole story of that place is that no one except for one person feels comfortable there,” Yang responded.
“And that one person is Kenan Thompson. No, it’s Lorne Michaels and Kenan — two people,” he added with a laugh, referring to the show’s longest-running cast member and its creator.
When asked if he ever feels pressure getting his pitches on the show, Yang replied, “Yes. That never goes away. I’m giving you such an inconsistent story here. Either I’m so comfortable or I’m panicked.”
In 2018, Yang joined “SNL” as a writer before being promoted to cast member in 2019. Yang, now in his sixth season on the show, has since gone on to appear in “Wicked,” playing Glinda’s friend Pfannee, and in “The Wedding Banquet,” a 2025 reimagining of the 1993 romantic comedy.
Looking back on his time on “SNL” so far, Yang credits one sketch with changing everything: the iceberg.
In the “Weekend Update” segment, Yang played the iceberg that sank the Titanic and elicited many laughs from the audience as he shared his side of the story. The video has been viewed more than 5 million times on the official “SNL” YouTube page.
“Did you feel that impact after that sketch? Like, oh, something has changed here?” Willie asked Yang about his career.
“Yes. I knew something was different about that sketch because while the show was still on air, while I was getting out of the makeup, I check my phone. And Will Ferrell, he knows me. And he goes, ‘That was amazing. You need to do that every week,'” Yang recalled.
“And I was like, ‘Will Ferrell, you know how this show works. That’s not possible. That’s not something they do here,'” he said with a laugh. “But that felt like just the signal that this was very, very, very cherished for me.”
Yang agreed that the iceberg sketch marked an “inflection” for his career.
“It was like all of a sudden these doors were opening,” he said. ” And Anna Drezen who wrote it with me, I’m very grateful for. Kate Rusek who designed the head piece and the costume. That is also my favorite example of just the convocation of different talents that come together when making a moment like that. It takes a village.”
