Former Saturday Night Live star Vanessa Bayer explains why she had to keep her casting a secret. Bayer first joined the late-night sketch comedy series in September 2010. During her time on the series, she played a number of recurring characters, such as Addi “News Flash” Sweeney, Ms. Meadows, and Weekend Update’s Dawn Lazarus. Bayer was nominated for an Emmy in 2017 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. After seven seasons on the series, Bayer left Saturday Night Live in May 2017.
Speaking on the Where Everybody Knows Your Name With Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes) podcast (via Entertainment Weekly), Bayer reveals that she had to keep her Saturday Night Live casting secret. Bayer explains that when she was first told about her casting, she was instructed by the SNL team not to tell anyone until the show was going to “make an official announcement.” She moved to New York, but could not tell anyone why even when a blog leaked the news and people started asking. Check out the full quote from Bayer below:
“What was so crazy was I was so excited, and they said, ‘Please don’t tell anyone because we’re going to make an official announcement about it.’ Like, ‘We’ll let the press know soon,’ or whatever… Some blog picked it up and and and broke the news, and we still had to deny it.
It was getting to the point where, like, I told my parents — I swore them to secrecy because I had heard horror stories about cast members telling people too early. Nothing horrible had ever happened, but I was so warned. My agent in Chicago was like, ‘You cannot tell a soul.’
I had family members calling my parents being like, ‘It’s really in a lot of the trades that she’s hired.’ And I’m living in New York in this time, and my parents have to be like, ‘Well, you know, that’s the trades.’ Because I was like, ‘You cannot tell anyone.’ It was crazy. Just a month of lying to everyone close to me.
It was such good news that I was like, ‘People are going to want to talk about it, so you just can’t tell anyone.’ So I think I told my best friend, Gwen, and my brother and my parents, and that was it.”
What This Means For Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live’s Cast Members Are Vital To The Show
Bayer’s story shows just how seriously Saturday Night Live treats the casting of new members. The comedy series’ cast members are what makes or breaks the show. While there are occasionally unforgettably funny hosts (e.g. Ryan Gosling and his Beavis and Butthead skit), it is the cast members who craft the most unforgettable characters and iconic moments in the show. As such, being a Saturday Night Live cast member is a huge achievement in the comedy world, and thus a big deal for the show to announce new members.
The fact that Bayer’s casting was leaked on a blog highlights how coveted the information is, and also how easily it is for Hollywood news to get leaked. While, of course, early leaks can sometimes lead to misinformation, it is common for movie or TV show casting to be rumored months before the news officially comes out. In the case of Bayer’s Saturday Night Live casting, it sounds like the series did not fully get a say in how the press was handled, as a smaller source caught wind of the news before they were able to go about their official process.
Our Take On The Hush-Hush Saturday Night Live Casting Process
Saturday Night Live Can Be Career-Changing
Part of why the Saturday Night Live cast announcements are so intense is likely due to the stronghold the series has in the comedy industry. When SNL finds new talent, they are not simply casting a series, but introducing the world to the next big names in comedy. Many cast members, such as Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Kate McKinnon, and Bowen Yang, have gone on to have significant careers in film and TV outside of Saturday Night Live, exhibiting just how vital casting on the series can be.
Source: Where Everybody Knows Your Name With Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes) podcast (via Entertainment Weekly)
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.
- Release Date
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October 11, 1975
- Cast
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Leslie Jones
, Aidy Bryant
, Kyle Mooney
, Alex Moffat
, Kate McKinnon
, Beck Bennett
, Kenan Thompson
, Colin Jost
, Mikey Day
, Cecily Strong
, Michael Che
, Pete Davidson
, Melissa Villaseñor - Franchise
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snl
- Seasons
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50
- Story By
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Colin Jost
- Writers
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Colin Jost
- Directors
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Lorne Michaels
- Showrunner
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Lorne Michaels