Luke Null may have had a short-lived tenure on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” lasting just one season. But it wasn’t for a lack of trying to get screen time.
“I was getting cut at dress rehearsal. No one gets to see or hear about that,” Null told Vulture. “So it was hard to leave and not think I didn’t get much of an at bat.” Null was part of the Season 43 cast, but appeared only sparingly. When he was hired, Null thought he’d get to do some musical stuff, since that’s what he auditioned with.
And though he says he tried over and over to get a chance to showcase his guitar skills, a la Adam Sandler on “Weekend Update” he could never make it past dress rehearsal. “I have to absolutely be one of the best people to pitch that week, but a lot of other people have to have a bad week. Even if I do great, I’m the lowest man on the totem pole,” he said. “I had a few ‘Updates’ that were cut for time, cut at dress rehearsal.”
Null was jostling with 15 other cast members — he was part of three newcomers last season alongside Chris Redd and Heidi Gardner — and he said that bloated cast made “SNL” very stressful, for everyone.
“You definitely have a lot of questions looking back: Did I do something wrong? Was I not writing good enough stuff?” he said. “Honestly, looking back — knowing how the show works, the mechanisms and the politics, and its energy — it’s a very tense and stressful place. No one there is ‘having fun.’ Air quotes.”
But Null said he isn’t bitter about it, pointing to that fact that even the last man on the bench is still on the team.
“I would happily take a year of being a waiter and giving Kenan his water, and waving at the camera and walking away, than not doing that,” he said. “So I couldn’t be happier they made the mistake of hiring me.”
Read the full interview in Vulture here.