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Louise Thomas
Editor
Andy Samberg has revealed he quit Saturday Night Live in 2012 because the weekly sketch comedy show was so demanding that he “hadn’t slept in seven years.”
The comedian and actor, 45, became one of the show’s biggest stars after joining alongside his Lonely Island collaborators Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone in 2005.
The trio created a number of viral shorts including “Dick in a Box,” with Justin Timberlake, and “Natalie Rap,” with Natalie Portman.
Speaking to Kevin Hart on the interview series Hart to Heart, Samberg said that behind the scenes he was “falling apart.”
“Physically, it was taking a heavy toll on me and I got to a place where I was like I hadn’t slept in seven years basically,” said Samberg.
“We were writing stuff for the live show Tuesday night all night, the table read Wednesday, then being told now come up with a digital short so write all Thursday, all Thursday night, don’t sleep, get up, shoot Friday, edit all night Friday night and into Saturday, so it’s basically like four days a week you’re not sleeping, for seven years. So I just kinda fell apart physically.”
Schaffer and Taccone departed the show in 2010, which meant Samberg was left to create digital shorts alone for two years.
“I was basically left in charge of making the shorts, which I never pretended like I could do without them,” Samberg explained.
“We made stuff I’m really proud of in my last two years, but there’s something about the songs that I can only do with Akiva and Jorm. It’s just how it is, we’re just a band in that way.”
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Samberg added that despite the workload, it took him time to decide to leave because he feared losing his creative outlet.
“I was like, once I go, when I have an idea, I can’t just do it,” he said.
“The craziest thing about working there is once you get going, if you’re just in the shower and you have an idea that shit can be on television in three days, which is the most, like, intoxicating feeling.”
He said the show’s producers pushed back against his eventual departure. “They told me straight up, ‘We prefer you would stay,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, that makes it harder,’” he said. “But I just was like, I think to get back to a feeling of like mental and physical health, I have to do it. So I did it and it was a very difficult choice.”
After leaving SNL, Samberg found further success as the lead of police sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine from 2013 to 2021.
