Over the last few years, there have been some subtle changes to “Saturday Night Live” that you might not have noticed. Sure, popular stars such as Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant have decided to move on, and new cast members such as the “Please Don’t Destroy” trio got viewers’ attention. But young breakouts are nothing new to the NBC staple. It’s more than that. For instance, Bowen Yang just celebrated his second Emmy nomination for his work in front of the camera (he was also nominated for his writing contributions in 2019). Yang pulled this off in just three years as a cast member, yet he has no recurring character or skit. He exploded in the pop culture zeitgeist with his fan favorite “Iceberg” character in 2021 but has purposely not brought it back. That would have been unheard of in the halls of 30 Rock even just a few years ago.
“I think everybody in this cast really likes to push themselves as far as expanding their scopes a bit, in terms of what they can do,” Yang says. “I mean, I even went into this season thinking, ‘You know what? I probably won’t have a moment like the Iceberg again.’ It just felt too slippery, or it just felt like something that was just really, really special.”
For “SNL’s” most recent season, Yang did the nearly unthinkable. Despite coming off that historic Emmy acting nomination, he didn’t push for more star-making moments. Instead, he focused on being even more of a utility player.
“I’m really proud of myself for working in the background of sketches that I’ve written or helped come up with, and not necessarily hogged the spotlight,” Yang says. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But that was the weird little directive that I put on myself. I think everybody has their own personal approaches to how they come up with stuff.”
Of course, Yang still managed to deliver several classic moments for the show’s 47th season. As a cast member, Yang will tell you that every now and then you get an opportunity to appear on the venerable “Weekend Update” portion of the show. Yang was talking to the show’s head writer for the first half of the season, Anna Drezen, when he came across the first photos of Timothée Chalamet in his upcoming role as the new Willy Wonka.
“I was like, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be funny if I played an Oompa Loompa that was actively speaking out against these injustices at the factory?’ This was coming off of a big industry story at the time, which was IATSE as a union demanding better working conditions in the film and TV industry, across both coasts,” Yang says. “We were just able to fold in that, just blend those two ideas together.”
Bowen Yang.
(Peter Fisher / For The Times)
The brilliance of the sketch, however, is it worked on an additional level.
“I think that’s the thing that I like. It’s an Oompa Loompa reacting to this entertainment story of Timothée Chalamet, but then he gets outed on national television by Colin Jost,” Yang says. “Then he has to balance both his personal life and his professional empowerment. That’s where it all gets fun.”
Another sketch Yang was particularly proud of involved guest host and “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” star Simu Liu. That filmed bit involved both actors playing themselves and attempting to top each other with all of the different “first Asian to do [blank]” awards they had received. Yang notes it’s a bit he couldn’t have pulled off with any other host or, possibly, during any other moment in “SNL’s” history.
“You’ve got to have two Asian people remark on the fact that there’s this comical granularity in terms of the way Asian people in entertainment acquire the title of a first, that it gets ridiculous at a certain point,” Yang says. “Simu’s definitely received a lot of that. I think he came with his own experience as far as being the first Asian Marvel superhero to lead a film. I think that’s the stuff that is the coolest thing, when you can lean into the specificity of something and have it be totally translatable.”
The 31-year-old is one of the few out gay or Asian cast members in “SNL” history. From his experience, it’s all part of those subtle changes that have occurred on the show. Perhaps it’s “SNL” maestro Lorne Michaels shaping the show in this new era. Perhaps the talent pool is more diverse than ever. Or maybe it’s a little of both. Yang is cognizant of the change, however, and provides his thoughts in an anecdote regarding a conversation with cast member Sarah Sherman.
Yang recalls, “Towards the end of last season, she made a comment that her friends in this very alt Brooklyn scene of comedy have said, ‘It’s the first time in a while at the show, at ‘SNL’ where you get a different sampling of different strains of comedy, and they all get to coexist.’ You get someone like Sarah, who’s very DIY, alt, very funny, very physical, dabbles in body horror, dabbles in some classic clownery. You get multiple impressionists. You get someone who is able to disappear into these comedic characters. You get people who get to wink from behind the character. You get multiple people with queer sensibilities. It felt very cool to see different kinds of people represented.”
Bowen Yang.
(Peter Fisher / For The Times)