Caleb Hearon has candidly said not getting cast on “Saturday Night Live” twice were “the two best things that ever happened to me,” and on Wednesday’s “Las Culturistas” podcast, he pulled back the curtain a bit more on his experience through the audition gauntlet.
“Las Culturistas” co-host Bowen Yang was a writer for “SNL” during Hearon’s 2019 audition, and the latter comic remembered Yang being “so sweet and lovely to me” through the process, even taking him out to dinner after his screen test.
It was at that dinner, Hearon said, that he realized Yang’s continued success at “SNL” would be one of the factors that didn’t get him cast.
“I was like, ‘They’re not going to put two gay guys on,’” Hearon remembered thinking.
“SNL” comes up in the episode, co-hosted by Matt Rogers and titled “Animal Style,” around the 41:30 mark, when Hearon begins talking about his screen test and his dinner with Yang — a “faded night” at Veselka in Lower Manhattan.
“But do we talk about it?” Yang questioned. “Because I think it was best case, I think things happened exactly as they should have, they were meant to.”
Hearon carried on: “I was screen-testing for the show and I was like, ‘Bowen, can we go out and get food after my thing?’ And we, Bowen took me to Veselka, and I was like, I feel like I was like, ‘You’re gonna be on the show, right?’”
“Yeah, and I was like, even back then I was like, ‘I don’t know,’” Yang recalled. (He was a writer on “SNL” for one season before becoming a cast member through to his 2025 departure.) “I just literally was like they would never put an Asian person on.”
“And I was like, ‘They’re not going to put two gay guys on,’” Hearon shared. “So I left that meal being like, Bowen’s getting on the show and this was a fun exercise, but I’m not getting this job. And then that is what happened. But you were so sweet and lovely to me, and I was nervous about the thing.”
It’s not the first time Hearon has opened about his experience making a run for “SNL.” In an interview on Vulture’s “Good One” podcast last fall, the comedian remembered getting “all the way through to the round in front of the producers” and killing it.
“I just really murdered that night, and it doesn’t always go that way for you, but it was a good night for me, and they loved my stuff,” he said at the time.
“I would’ve killed for that job the first time. I had no career, I had no followers, I had no team, I was just making comedy in Chicago. I would’ve killed for that job, it would have changed my life,” he continued. “I’m glad I didn’t get it, not a place for me to work, for many reasons, not the least of which I’m fat and they’re telling people to lose weight who work on that show. No one likes to talk about that, but that’s reality. And then when they didn’t hire me, that, if anything, lit a fire under my ass … I was pissed. I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’”
But in hindsight, after going for the series a second time — and after that fateful dinner with Yang — Hearon said that it was all for the best.
“I genuinely mean it when I say the two best things that ever happened to me are that I didn’t get that job twice because I am not meant for that place,” he said on “Good Ones.” “I don’t like being told what to do, I don’t like routine, I don’t like crazy schedules. The way that it all worked out for me, that I get to be in charge, that I get to hire the people I want to work with, et cetera — way better.”
Hearon can currently be seen in Hulu’s new comedy “Pizza Movie” and in the upcoming “The Devil Wears Prada 2.” His comedy special, “Model Comedian,” is streaming now on HBO Max.
Watch his full episode of “Las Culturistas” in the video above.
The post Caleb Hearon Says He Knew ‘SNL’ Would Reject Him After Bowen Yang’s Success: ‘They’re Not Going to Put 2 Gay Guys On’ appeared first on TheWrap.
