Saturday Night Live has been the dream of so many comics who work their entire lives for a shot to appear on the show. Famously, the grind doesn’t stop when someone gets cast. It’s been rumored to be a grueling work environment, full of late nights, long hours, and competition fueled by a desire to get material on air. This seems to be a lot of people's shared view of SNL, but apparently stand-out featured player Ashley Padilla didn’t feel that way, based her own take on competition at the show.
If you ask most former cast members, SNL is far from a cakewalk. Bill Hader has been open about the intense amount of stress the show caused him. Also, Conan O’Brien talked about the levels of anxiety the work environment caused for the cast and crew. Aside from the stakes apparently feeling high, it's been rumored that cast members even use using tactics to get more screen time. Padilla, on the other hand, says this has not been her experience at all that that she's actually found the show to very collaborative. She said during the Hollywood Reporter's Comedy Actresses roundtable discussion:
It’s funny, because I do not see the show as competitive. That sounds so silly to people. It almost feels disrespectful to people. I remember someone saying to me, ‘There are sharks in the water there.’ That was what I was going into. But I see it as a collaborative place to be funny with wonderful friends. And if your thing gets on, that’s awesome. If not, you’ve got to help your teammates and their sketch. You’ll try again next week.
Many of the other comic actresses at the table were surprised to hear those thoughts, because most of them have heard anecdotally about how much competition had supposedly been fostered and encouraged at SNL. Of course, it's possible that the work culture has potentially changed over the years as people have cycled out. Also, Padilla may have just been prepped to deal with any "sharks in the water." She revealed that she credits a lot of this to her previous training at the Groundlings improvisation theater, saying:
At the Groundlings, you have to write for yourself to get on that stage. So, I had that tool with me going in. I empathize with my peers who maybe came from the stand-up world or don’t write sketches [because] they’re like, ‘I need help!’ But I’m having a good time. The online stuff is surreal to me.
Lisa Kudrow, who was also involved in this chat, said she thought Padilla could be having such a positive experience because others may be intimidated by her talent, and this would certainly be understandable. Padilla shined in her SNL audition and, ever since her first appearance on the show, she's arguably received more acclaim than a number of her co-stars. She was the cast member with the most airtime and was a key part of many of the show’s most viral sketches last season.
Padilla is still early into her tenure, but she’s already cementing herself as one of the show’s best sketch actresses. While this might be a lot of pressure, and intimidating for some, it seems like Padilla isn’t focusing on what’s hard about working at SNL and is just enjoying what makes it such a fun place to work. This outlook and energy may give her a lot of longevity at the show and, as a fan of her work, I'm hoping that's the case.
You can see Ashley Padilla, and the rest of the Season 51 SNL cast on this past season of the show, which is streaming now with a Peacock subscription. She had some all star moments this season, and I'm expecting to see her crush it even more next season.
