Leslie Jones says Saturday Night Live made her a “caricature of myself”
Jones recalled her less than exemplary experience on the sketch show in her new memoir, Leslie F*cking Jones
Aux News Saturday Night Live
Leslie Jones isn’t harboring any nostalgia for her time in Studio 8H. Despite spending five seasons making jokes and occasionally gagging on fake blood every Saturday night, Jones—who recently hosted ABC’s Supermarket Sweep reboot—said in 2020 that she doesn’t miss her time on Saturday Night Live “at all.” “That job was like two jobs and very restrictive too. I wasn’t very free there,” she said, although she neglected to elaborate on exactly how constricted she felt in that particular interview.
In her new memoir Leslie F*cking Jones, however, the comedian isn’t holding back. In an interview with NPR to promote the book—out this week—Jones had some choice words for how her identity and the identities of her fellow cast mates were treated by the show.
“SNL, they take that one [trope] and they wring it. They wring it because that’s the machine. So whatever it is that I’m giving that they’re so happy about, they feel like it’s got to be that all the time or something like that. So it was like a caricature of myself,” she said. “Either I’m trying to love on the white boys or beat up on the white boys, or I’m doing something loud.”
While these character beats certainly speak to the show’s questionable history with Black performers—Jones, who left the show in 2019, is one of only eight Black women featured in all 48 seasons—the comic asserts that this hemming in applied to all cast members regardless of their race. “I was talking to another cast member that retired and they said ‘But in fairness, that’s how they do all of them. Not just the Black ones,’” she said, suggesting that this certainly happened to Taran Killam, who suddenly left the show (along with Jay Pharoah) ahead of its 42nd season. “Taran wanted to do so much other stuff, but they would only have Taran in those very masculine [roles] and singing and stuff and I said, ‘Oh! This is a machine.’” (Pharoah has also echoed Jones’ sentiments about being boxed in.)
Still, Jones tempered her statements by expressing her “love” for Lorne Michaels. “In his defense, I used to always be like, ‘He’s a puppet master. So he has to make the cast happy, he has to make the writers happy. He has to make the WGA happy. He has to make NBC happy. Then he has to make a family in Omaha, Nebraska, who’s watching the show happy,’” she said. “Imagine the strings that have to go out to him? So it’s a machine that has to work, you know?”
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Has she had a single good experience in her whole career? I know these excerpts are trending to the more dramatic stuff to increase interest in the book, but I’m starting to wonder.
I’ve had jobs I’ve hated, but I’ve usually found an exit strategy in less than 5 years. Does SNL really pay that well?
I think most people join SNL in the hopes of using it as a launching pad to movies or something else.
I’m sure it pays quite well, although you definitely get worked pretty hard.
They make $250,000 – $600,000/ yr. based on how long you’ve been on the show. Plus you can work, do standup etc. in the summer. For someone like Leslie Jones who was a club comedienne that was not only a lot of money but also a nice steady paycheck. When you can make $1 Million for a movie like Kate McKinnon, it’s time to move on.
Does SNL really pay that well?I mean, yeah! Of course it does. Jay Mohr did a tell-all book about his time on SNL (mostly about how much he sucked) and between being a writer and a featured performer, he was making close to half a million a year in salary and that was just in the 90’s. Throw in residuals (SNL rebroadcasts a lot) for several years and you’re doing good, even for somebody who didn’t do a lot, like Mohr. Imagine you’re struggling. Working a full time job and going out to do standup or improv, at night, and just trying to make it. Getting SNL has gotta be the closest thing to getting a golden ticket.
and boy does the comedy world know it. Every improv group seems to revolve around when a scout from SNL will be in attendance.
Yep. Like, I think it was in an oral history of Kids in the Hall where they talked about how important it was to try to impress the SNL people (and obviously they did, since Lorne produced their show and Mark McKinney eventually landed on SNL). But yeah, I’ve read a few books and articles where comedians make a very big point about how crucial it was to be your absolute best if you knew an SNL scout was going to be there.
Really? I’m surprised by that. Spade overlapped with Mohr and has talked on FotW many times about how little he was making in his first couple seasons, having to rent dumpy apartments, share a house in LA, etc., and I feel like he was a much bigger member of that cast than Mohr was.
yeah but you earn that money-so many former cast members said its a meat grinder.
I didn’t read Mohr’s book but and no disrespect to him, but per FotW, Dana Carvey was making about $5k an episode a couple years before Mohr came on the show and Carvey was one of the biggest stars SNL ever had. Spade overlapped with Mohr and made $1500 an episode when he started. There’s just no way Jay Mohr was making $20,000 per episode from SNL.
I mean, you do get pretty famous, so there’s that? Especially if you’re a comedian which is a profession almost by definition made for attention-seekers (I don’t mean that in a bad way). You also get probably more commercials and endorsements and stuff like that. You meet tons of A-listers, so maybe you end up like Colin Jost married to an Avenger. It’s not just about the pay. It sounds like it sucks but there are also a lot of perks.Not to mention performers are always told they have to “pay their dues,” so they look at suffering through a difficult job as part of that probably and think they just have to do it.
Having listened to a number of podcasts about the SNL experience, not ALL cast members do that well. Some were essentially making minimum wage, if not WORSE. But, I think being there five years surely gets some dollars in the pocket. (And who knows what contractual bullshit they dream up!)
I do not believe anyone makes less than $10K per show.
Get ready to be shocked:
She made UNDER $300 per episode in the beginning and was under $5K per episode when she left. Doubt that was very unique.
ive heard it pays like $5000 a week.
Dis aint like cleanin toilets homie
Seems like something you would probably know before going in, although I’m sure some people think they’ll beat the odds and be the Bill Haders and Tina Feys of the cast and get more variety, or at least a springboard to greener pastures.
Did Hader and Fey have a lot of variety? Hader mostly played weird middle-age or elderly guys (both real and fictional) and Steffan, while Fey (ASFAIK) only did Weekend Update and later played Palin in the lead up to the 2008 election.
Leslie Jones is pretty much a one trick pony, and the people at SNL obviously understood that, where she fit into the ensemble cast, and used her accordingly. SNL is the only reason anyone knows who she is. It’s unprofessional to diss the people who gave you your chance at a career but if her past is anything to judge by, it’s not surprising. She seems dead set on burning every bridge available to her. I hope your 2 weeks on the bestseller list is worth it.
Checked your history. You hate Black people and women. Probably yourself too.
Everything you write is idiotic. Have you ever considered that your opinion doesn’t matter?
Dats rayciss
i dont know, are you really a one trick pony if they only LET you do one trick? if every other trick you can do gets cut out or rejected?
God, redneck nazis are such pissy little bitches.
I…thought she mainly wrote her own material? At least for Weekend Update and the fake relationship with Kyle?Just like Pete Davidson I thought she was finally getting the hang of the sketchwork when she left
Someone’s still gotta decide to put it on air. Just because she wrote it doesn’t mean that’s all she wanted to do, just that’s what they would let her.
Yeah she probably learned the type of stuff they’d “let” her do so that’s what she wrote so she could get airtime.
Definitely. Then again, TV is going to do that in general. You’re not exactly gonna get a subtle representation of yourself on a sketch show run by Lorne Michaels.
Has this woman ever had a positive experience?
dont act like shes at fault, tons of people have said SNL sucks to work at.
Interesting, considering she was one of the more recent cast members who popped in sketches as opposed to the ones who struggle for airtime. But I suppose just because a comedian seems to be outwardly crushing it doesn’t mean they are enjoying the work they are doing.
Did SNL also make her flub every line she had?
“Say Leslie, can you be like…like a ‘black Jimmy Fallon’?”
“Taran wanted to do so much other stuff, but they would only have Taran in those very masculine [roles] and singing and stuff and I said, ‘Oh! This is a machine.’” (Pharoah has also echoed Jones’ sentiments about being boxed in.)Yeah, that’s the thing. The SNL cast is so massive, the competition is so cutthroat, and the formula is so rigid that you’re lucky to get typecast. You’ve got like 80 people competing with each other, 5 of whom get their “big break” and get to be Target Lady for 300 sketches or whatever, a handful of whom carve out a niche doing digital shorts, 2 or 3 of whom can do a passable impression of a temporarily interesting public figure so they get to stick around for a bit, and the other 65 cast members just kind of float around in the background for 1.5 seasons.
anybody I’ve talked to who has worked on the show still sounds traumatized about it decades later. Writers, cast, crew. The only guy who ever sounded positive I met was one of the band.
Lucky to get typecast. It’s always interesting when people argue for mediocrity.
If you think I’m arguing in favor of mediocrity then I must not have phrased my initial comment very well.
what about the vast majority of acting hopefuls who don’t get any work at all?
That’s certainly true, but no reason to justify under-using talent.
“SNL, they take that one [trope] and they wring it.” Had she ever seen the show before she got the job? That’s what they do. They take an actor and make sketches based around their caricatures.A few cast members are good enough that they grow beyond that, but she’s describing the vast majority of actors on the show.
The real issue is that SNL is pretty much the equivalent of going to an Ivy League school for comedians who don’t plan on churning out stand up specials for a living. You put it on your resume and suddenly you get comedic roles and get read in on the great McCarthy vs Sandler mediocre comedy film war where the biggest casualties are the audience and your own dignity.
“You like-a ‘de juice? Juice is good, eh?”
“Either I’m trying to love on the white boys or beat up on the white boys, or I’m doing something loud.” Not a big Jones fan, but I gotta say it made me uncomfortable how hilarious they thought it’d be if she was actually fucking Kyle Moonie.
They seemed to think anybody actually fucking Leslie Jones was hilarious.
I honestly thought it was kinda mean the other way around, like “Can you BELIEVE someone would fuck THIS guy?” Not a flattering bit for either of them… admittedly, I did still laugh
I wonder if she dedicated a chapter to the horrible reputation she has earned for herself the Comedy Store?
SNL has become a caricature of itself. So no pity for anyone so lacking in artistic integrity that they willingly work for SNL.
I’ve really enjoyed her in pretty much everything she’s done except for SNL (she’s really fun as the Supermarket Sweep host). Her experience tracks with everything we know about SNL. She was also older when she got it so it was probably a lot harder to take the bullshit of that place. Perhaps at one time it was a place where creativity could thrive but it really hasn’t felt like it for most of the 2000s, with brief bright spots here and there. And there are so many places talented comedians can go now without taking that bullshit and being allowed to make wildly creative stuff that SNL’s deficiencies are much more glaring.
By coincidence, I recently read Bill Carter’s book on Leno vs. Conan. Lorne Michaels plays a supporting part in that whole debacle, since he got Conan on Late Night and later got Jimmy Fallon on both Late Night and The Tonight Show. The most fascinating part of the book is the epilogue though, where Michaels tells a story from his past.
The big debate in the book is Ratings vs. Content. Leno vs. Conan. Mediocrity vs. Ingenuity. Michaels tells a story of when he first left SNL, and he spoke to the Head of Entertainment at NBC about how he was tired of fighting with the network. Whoever this suit was, his response was chilling in its frankness. Like the Devil laid out exactly how he works and dared you to see the flaws.
“You leave, the show gets worse. The audience won’t notice right away, but they will after a year or two. After that, we’ll cancel it and move on, ‘cause that’s what we do. Your contract says that you have go on for 90 minutes and that your budget is a certain amount. Nowhere in the contract did it say your show had to be good.”
And the most amazing part of the story is that Lorne apparently took that to heart. Like instead of standing up for his principles he realized, “Oh, my show doesn’t have to be good! Phew! Load off my back.”
So to anyone who thinks about being on SNL, remember that Lorne’s priority isn’t to make a good show. It’s to satisfy the network and the advertisers. Quality went out the window in ‘79.
She sure whines a lot
Again, if everyone around you is an asshole…you’re probably the asshole.
Choice words for a show that’s the only reason we know who she is.
I still wish I could have been on the show. But yeah, that system is messed up there.
Ok now, let’s look back at her time on the show. She’s a naturally very funny person who has tremendous charisma and some decent standup chops.She was NOT, however, a very gifted sketch performer, lacking either the talent or discipline to hone that specific set of muscles. She screwed up lines a lot, had strange nervous energy when reading cue cards in sketches, and generally didn’t come across as naturally as when she was just being herself and doing her thing.So I guess what I’m asking is, what was she hoping for here? It’s a sketch show, and she did pretty well considering what I just listed above. The show made her a star and a household name. I think that should be enough.She was never going to be the next Myers, Carvey, Meadows, etc.
Look, not to gaslight or anything, but Leslie Jones is crazyFOR DAVID PUMPKINS!
Kenan Thompson must know by now that he’s been turned into a Black reaction gif.