It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when former Saturday Night Live cast members just could not get any traction at all in TV or movies after they left the iconic late-night show. There was the occasional exception, but for the most part, former SNL cast members’ careers ended up dying a slow death, despite many, many attempts at finding Eddie Murphy-like glory. In the nineties, it became somewhat of a sad joke that if you were on SNL, that meant your career had peaked.
Well, things have certainly changed.
Not only is SNL now considered a proving ground for some of the best talent around, it has demonstrated, time and time again, to be a place for some of the most immensely talented artists to test their boundaries, make connections and, most important of all, gain the confidence and fame they need to be able to make challenging and brilliant work once they’ve left the show. We saw it with Kristen Wiig and Bridesmaids. We saw it with Adam Samberg and Palm Springs. We saw it with Jason and Ted Lasso. And we saw it with Bill Hader and a show called Barry, one of the best television shows produced in the last twenty years.