Key Points
Bowen Yang says he never felt “that central” to Saturday Night Live.
Yang said he left mid-season after Lorne Michaels asked him to mentor a new crop of players for season 51.
The actor considered himself just “the seasoning” on the show.
Bowen Yang enjoyed his time on Saturday Night Live, even if he never felt “that central” to the sketch comedy show.
Yang shared his take on his 2025 exit from SNL with Rachel Sennott during their Variety‘s Actors on Actors discussion on Monday. The pair discussed their comedy beginnings, the internet, and a surprise phone call from Lorne Michaels.
When asked why he decided to leave SNL mid-season, Yang told Sennott, “I was kind of resolute the season before, about leaving. There was a lot of uncertainty about what the show would look like after Season 50. I was like, ‘I think the show is in a great place without me.’ I never felt like I was that central to it, to be honest.”
Sennott disagreed with that sentiment before Yang added that he really never felt like a main player on the show.
“Well, I feel like there was a weird utility to me,” he continued. “I was like, ‘OK, I’ve accepted this.’ I never played the dad or the straight-man teacher. I was always there as the seasoning, and I’m like, ‘That’s great. I’m so lucky. I can’t believe I have a steady job in comedy. I will cherish it for the rest of my life.’ And I just felt like it was the right time. And then Lorne called me while I was at the U.S. Open eating Coqodaq chicken, and he was like, ‘Listen, you should come back. These are the people I’ve hired. It’s a lot of new kids, and a lot of people left. You should be there to set an example for them, at least in the first half of the season. I’m telling you, it would be very important.'”
Yang said that call felt like a big deal to him and cemented his so-called status on the long-running comedy juggernaut, which added featured players like Tommy Brennan, Jeremy Culhane, Ben Marshall, Kam Patterson, and Veronika Slowikowska in season 51.
“It was the first time I felt someone who made so many things possible for me being like, ‘I need you.’ And I’m like, ‘I’m not going to turn that down,'” Yang explained to Sennott. “I felt good about it, and I was like, ‘Let’s make sure to hire these writers.’ Our friend Jack Bensinger is there now. It was my one chance to till the soil.”
Yang left the show after seven seasons, following the Christmas episode with host and Wicked costar Ariana Grande, on Dec. 20.
“On my last day, the whole cast signed this cue card with little messages, and it all came full circle with what Lorne was saying to me,” Yang said. “Ashley Padilla, who was having one of the best seasons anyone’s ever had, wrote — I hope it’s OK that I’m sharing this — ‘You taught me how to be at this show, how to behave and how to treat people, and thank you. I’ll never forget that.’ That’s the thing I’m proudest of.”
Yang said he was a “f—ing mess, sobbing” at the table read for his last sketch — the “Delta Lounge” bit in which he played an employee working his last shift alongside Grande and pop icon Cher.
Host Ariana Grande and Bowen Yang during the “Delta Lounge” sketch
Credit: Will Heath/NBC
“The thing that broke me was just saying, ‘The thing I love most about this place is the people. Look how hard they work,'” he recalled on Actors on Actors. “I’m between Ariana Grande and Cher, and I look out, and it’s basically every single person who works at that show. I’d never seen that before for anyone else’s departure. I was like, ‘Oh, this is the most rewarding snapshot I can ever internalize in my life. I don’t think I’ll ever encounter this ever again.’ Just looking out at the people who have seen me struggle and fail and succeed. The people who have put in the hours with me.”
Yang said he was moved by Grande and Cher’s participation in his last episode, telling Sennott that SNL booker Keri Powers told him, “I booked Cher for you.”
He explained, “I was like, ‘I can’t deal with that. I’m the luckiest gay guy to ever live.’ And having Ari there, she was just such a good friend the entire time. Like, ‘Oh my God, you’re making this about me and you should be making this about you! You’re you!'”
Grande is actually the reason Yang was able to be in Wicked at all, after she called Michaels to request that he give Yang approval to be a part of Jon Chu’s two-part film adaptation of the beloved musical.
“I knew it was a huge, massive ask, and also probably an impossible one,” Grande said on Yang’s Las Culturistas podcast. “And I didn’t have anything — any sort of resolution to pitch him. So I just called him, and I was like, ‘Hi Lorne, oh my goodness, how are you?’ And he was like, ‘Hello Ariana, what’s going on?’ And I was like, ‘Is there any way? Is there any way?’ I was the most nervous I’ve ever been.”
Yang added that he also asked for permission from Michaels, saying, “It was the first time I ever pulled a pouty face with him.”
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Yang ended up playing Glinda’s (Grande) close friend Pfannee in the films, but had to fly back and forth between New York and London every week to fulfill his commitments to both projects.
When Sennott asked Yang what he learned about himself flying back and forth, he said, “That I need Lexapro. And thank God — Wellbutrin was not the girl for me. It just made me even more crazy. But then there are the people like Ariana Grande and every other big host who comes through, and you’re like, ‘How do you do that?’ And they’re always like, ‘I just tell myself I can.’ I’m like, ‘That can’t be it.’ But I believe them.”
You can watch Yang and Sennott’s full Actors on Actors video now on the celebrity.land app, and on Variety‘s YouTube page after 11:59 p.m. ET tonight.
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