Kenan Thompson shares hardest part of working at ‘SNL’ so long: ‘There’s a lot of bittersweet’

Saturday Night Live standout Kenan Thompson — the cast member who’s been on the show the longest by far — says there are downsides to sticking around for so many years.

“Being there a long time, you watch people come and go,” Thompson, who’s been on the sketch show since 2003, said on a recent episode of the Thanks Dad With Ego Nwodim podcast hosted by his SNL costar. “So you have to, like, deal with the parting of friendships, that kind of thing. The mourning of the loss of certain people’s presence and all that. So there’s a lot of bittersweet to it.”

Thompson noted the recent departures ahead of the current 50th season of cast members Punkie Johnson, who left in August after four seasons, and Molly Kearney, who announced the same month that they were not returning after two seasons.

He explained that it wasn’t just show exits that made it hard to say goodbye. “We’ve had crew members die. All kinds of s—,” said Thompson. “So, like, it’s a heavier thing than just like ‘s— is sweet for me ’cause I’ve been there a long time’ kind of thing.”

While the Good Burger alum didn’t specify the deaths he meant, the show’s longtime announcer Don Pardo died during Thompson’s tenure, in August 2014. Pardo, who’d been with the show from its 1975 debut, except for season seven, was 96.

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Thompson has spent 21 seasons on SNL. To put that into perspective, he joined the cast two years before Andy Samberg, who returned as a guest star this season after leaving the show 12 years ago.

“The wildest s— about Kenan is he was there before I got there and obviously now still is, and he still gets me,” Samberg said on an episode of Kevin Hart’s Hart to Heart earlier this summer. “I’ll still be watching the show, and I’ve seen his moves, like I know what he’s going to do, but it just kills me still. And he’ll do some new s—. I’m like, ‘How is this fool still killing it so hard?'”

Thompson has earned multiple Emmy nominations for his work on SNL, scoring a win in 2018 for co-writting the comedy song “Come Back, Barack.”

Listen to Thompson’s full episode of Thanks Dad With Ego Nwodim below.

Saturday Night Live airs Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET/8:30 p.m. PT on NBC and Peacock.