Saturday Night Live could hold the record for launching the most comedy careers of any show ever. It would be exhausting to count all the comedians it introduced audiences to over the 50 years it’s been on the air. Even more exhausting would be trying to count all the ones who got shown the door, because let’s face it, for every Chevy Chase or Bill Murray, there had to be quite a few who weren’t up to snuff in the eyes of the producers. That doesn’t necessarily mean they were all duds; they just might not have been firing on all cylinders the day they auditioned. Here are a few that we can reasonably say, in retrospect, were mistakes to turn away.
4. Kevin Hart
Lorne Michaels chewing on some popcorn was the only sound Kevin Hart heard after auditioning for Saturday Night Live in 2001. Hart was excited when he was given the opportunity, but then he was told that doing impressions was part of the deal. He settled on a mix of former NBA player Avery Johnson and actors Robert De Niro and Denzel Washington. As he would soon find out, these were poor decisions across the board because no one there was familiar with Johnson, and Hart couldn’t remember a single line De Niro ever said. As for his Washington impression, he just yelled until embarrassment convinced him to wrap things up.
3. Bill Maher
Before Norm Macdonald swooped in at the last second, Bill Maher came close to taking over the “Weekend Update” spot from Kevin Nealon. As former SNL writer Jim Downey tells it, Maher’s only competition before Macdonald’s audition was Al Franken. It seemed like a done deal for Maher since he had the same agent as Lorne Michaels at the time. Ultimately, Michaels went with Macdonald at Downey’s suggestion and, years after the fact, wound up firing both of them.
2. Kevin James
King of Queens star Kevin James auditioned for Saturday Night Live in the mid-1990s. He later called it the “worst audition” he’d ever gone on. He apparently got no laughs while doing his stand-up routine, but still managed to tough it out until the end. Looking back, he said it was the best thing that happened to him because not getting SNL allowed him to audition for—and subsequently land—his role on The King of Queens.
1. Jim Carrey
Unlike the others on the list, Jim Carrey actually auditioned for SNL more than once. He was also rejected every single one of those times. Why that happened isn’t exactly clear, but Lorne Michaels, for his part, has denied responsibility, saying that Carrey never auditioned directly for him. Carrey did at least leave an impression on two future SNL stars, though. According to Dana Carvey, he and Phil Hartman were present for one of Carrey’s auditions, and at one point, he did a handstand using just his pinky; they thought for sure it’d get him hired.
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