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Andy Samberg has been a constant presence on Saturday Night Live this season, playing wannabe First Fella Doug Emhoff to Maya Rudolph’s Kamala Harris. “It’s been fun, I gotta say,” Samberg said on The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast. “It’s been really fun going back, but again, also inheriting — re-inheriting — the stress of it and being like, ‘Oh, right, this is intense.’”
That stress was the reason Samberg had to leave SNL after seven seasons. Back in July, he talked to Kevin Hart on his Hart to Heart interview show about his struggles working at the late-night institution. “It was a big choice. For me, it was like, I can’t actually endure it anymore. But I didn’t want to leave,” Samberg confessed. “Physically and emotionally, like I was falling apart in my life.”
It’s amazing that more former cast members don’t talk about the physical toll that Saturday Night Live takes on its cast and crew. “I got to a place where I was like I hadn’t slept in seven years basically,” he said. “We were writing stuff for the live show Tuesday night all night, the table read Wednesday, then being told now come up with a digital short so write all Thursday, all Thursday night, don’t sleep, get up, shoot Friday, edit all night Friday night and into Saturday. So it’s basically like four days a week you’re not sleeping, for seven years. I just kinda fell apart physically.”
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Before he left, Samberg turned to former castmates for advice. “I had talked to (Amy) Poehler and other people that had already gone,” he said. “I was like, ‘Once I go, when I have an idea, I can’t just do it.’ The craziest thing about working there is once you get going, if you’re just in the shower and you have an idea, that shit can be on television in three days, which is the most intoxicating feeling.”
Since SNL kicked his ass so much as a cast member, what brought Samberg back? “It’s a little more mellow,” he told his podcast pals. “Me and Maya have been talking about how it’s a little bit more mellow because we know why we’re there specifically.”
Yeah, about that. Given last night’s election results with Trump retaking the White House, it appears unlikely that SNL will need regular appearances from Doug the Shrug. That might be good news for Samberg’s adrenals but sad for his joyful SNL comeback. “I’m enjoying Doug a great deal,” he said on an earlier podcast episode. “My first pitch when I got asked to do Doug was, ‘Can I first walk out to ‘Teach Me How to Dougie’?’ Everything after that was icing.”