Andy Samberg is revealing the real reason he stepped away from Saturday Night Live as a full time cast member after 7 seasons with the sketch comedy variety show.
He exited after the 2011-2012 season wrapped up.
Keep reading to find out more…
“It was hard. I didn’t like leaving,” he said on Kevin Hart‘s Peacock interview show Hart to Heart.
Andy shared, “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.”
He continued, “I had talked to [Amy 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 sh-t can be on television in three days, which is the most like intoxicating feeling.”
“They told me straight up, ‘We prefer you would stay,’ and I was like, ‘oh, that makes it harder.’ But I just was like, I think to get back to a feeling of like mental and physical health, I have to do it. So I did it and it was a very difficult choice,” he added.
Find out who has been banned from SNL over the years.
