He would text me every Sunday after a show, just as a reminder to say, “You’re great and you’re appreciated if you ever feel underappreciated.” And I like taking that on. I’m, like, remembering text messages.ĬS: I feel like Kenan was very much in that role for me for a long time. Like, “Oh, you should actually rest, and you should go somewhere.”ĮN: That was sound advice. I mean, you even giving me lines in sketches during my first season and having my back in that way … I clocked that and am always really appreciative of it.ĬS: I think “Go on vacation” is probably what I gave as advice for, like, seven years.ĮN: You were like, “Take a vacation as much as you can.” And I, as a workaholic-which isn’t a thing that I say with any sense of pride it’s quite sick -but to hear something like that was. But just to get to see you outside of the SNL space and to have you feel so welcoming in that way, I think, was really special and invigorating. We had, like, minimal conversations about work on that trip. Now it’s your time to give me advice.”ĮN: I went to Cabo with you my first season. And then to watch you was like, “Okay, never mind. I was like, “I hope you know that.” Because it’s a hard place. Ego, I think I just wanted you to know how amazing you were all the time. Cecily, do you remember the advice you gave us when we joined the cast?ĬS: It wasn’t quite advice as much as just a deep heart-to-heart. Like in three minutes, something could take you back to neutral or unhappy. I think that happens all the time with the show.ĮN: I feel that happiness is a fleeting thing. Joy is something you experience at the same time with other people. And sometimes the cake is shit pie.ĮN: When you eat it with friends, it’s chocolate.īY: I’m going to be really earnest and say that I feel like the difference between joy and happiness is that joy is shared. I’ve had genuine connections with the two of you. Because especially with a cast this size too, I feel like it would be so easy not to. It feels nice to have actual personal relationships with people in the cast. It’s like, “Oh, this is going to be good.” No matter what. Our table reads can be kind of tough, and it’s exciting if I see your names on something. Another extension of bringing joy to difficult places. But then I think what’s more important is just that I have these friends that I wouldn’t have otherwise.Ĭecily Strong: And the best kind of friends.
And that translates very well into what ends up being on the show. But the best part of that job is forming these connections. (See Yang as the defensive iceberg who sunk the Titanic Nwodim as the star of the music video “Loco,” which articulated how we were all feeling: “My brain done broke-o” and Strong as Goober the Clown, who had an abortion and does “fun clown stuff” to make abortion “more palatable” in the wake of the Texas abortion ban.) Here, they speak about bringing joy to an audience that never needed it more and how they find joy for themselves.Įgo Nwodim: Let’s talk about how we bring each other joy.īowen Yang: SNL is a comedy show, and yet everyone is sort of on their own journey at that place. When we decided on joy as the theme for this issue, we immediately thought of Nwodim, Bowen Yang, and Cecily Strong, three of SNL’s cast members, who in the past year have been responsible for some of the show’s most memorably laugh-out-loud moments. Cast member Ego Nwodim likens putting on the show then-at first virtually and then in front of limited audiences-to a “call to duty.” But what may have once seemed like a “just for now” way of working has become the new normal. Providing a release from the uncertainty, stress, sorrow, and trauma of the times was a gift, one the comics of Saturday Night Live took seriously. Early on in the pandemic, being able to make people laugh began to take on a new kind of urgency.