Andy Samberg’s gruelingSaturday Night Live (SNL)schedule led to his exit following the show’s 37th season. Samberg, whose time on the sketch comedy series can best be remembered by the wildly popular The Lonely Island digital shorts he created alongside Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone (and yes, that Weekend Update with Nicolas Cage), quietly leftSNLin 2012, after being a cast member for seven seasons.
His online hits, including “Lazy Sunday,” “D— in a Box,” and “Natalie Rap,” brought a new audience to SNL and helped modernize the show’s humor. During a conversation with Kevin Hart on Peacock’sHart to Heart, Samberg shared that while starring on SNL, he was falling apart and couldn’t “endure it anymore.”
“Physically, it was taking a heavy toll on me and I got to a place where I was like I hadn’t slept in seven years basically. 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. So I just kinda fell apart physically.”
Saturday Night Live
The longest-running sketch-comedy/satire show on television, premiering in 1975, Saturday Night Live is a weekly series that features new hosts for each episode, with a core cast of actors and comedians that rotate over time. Episodes feature several skits that are sometimes ad-libbed on the fly, with the hosts engaging in most of them, and also provide musical guest performances that cap off each night.
The digital shorts resulted in an even bigger workload for Samberg when Schaffer and Taccone leftSNLas their writing contracts expired after five years. Noting the impact of their departures, Samberg shared:
“I was basically left in charge of making the shorts, which I never pretended like I could do without them. We made stuff I’m really proud of in my last two years, but there’s something about the songs that I can only do with Akiva and Jorm. It’s just how it is, we’re just a band in that way.”
Working through his decision, Samberg reached out toSNLalum Amy Poehler (who was starring onParks and Recreationat the time).
“I had talked to Poehler and other people that had already gone. 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 s— can be on television in three days, which is the most like intoxicating feeling.”
Not surprisingly, theSNLteam did not want Samberg to go, telling him: “We prefer you would stay” which he admits made his decision harder. But ultimately, his desire to “get back to a feeling of like mental and physical health” dictated his choice.
Andy Samberg’s Post-SNL Career
Following hisSNLexit,Samberg found success withBrooklyn Nine-Nine,which follows the antics of a quirky group of detectives in the fictional 99th Precinct of the NYPD. Samberg led the series as Jake Peralta, securing a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in 2013. The sitcom went on for eight seasons, concluding in 2021. While starring inBrooklyn Nine-Nine, Samberg worked on several other projects, includingthe mockumentaryPopstar: Never Stop Never Stoppingalongside Schaffer and Taccone,Hotel Transylvania, and the critically acclaimedPalm Springs. He hostedSNLin 2014 and has made several other cameo appearances.
Even though Andy Samberg has enjoyed a successful post-SNLcareer, he confessed to Hart that being on the show fulfilled his childhood dream. This achievement, he said, gave him a new perspective on his professional path. He said he remembered thinking:
Even if it doesn’t go as well, I got to do the thing I wanted to do so everything past this point is icing.
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Samberg can next be seen as Ben Reilly / Scarlet Spider inSpider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse. In 2025, he’ll star in Jay Roach’sThe Roses, a reimagining of Danny DeVito’sThe War of the Roses.
