Bowen Yang recalls ‘disaster’ first ‘SNL’ screen test

Bowen Yang’s first screen test to join the cast of Saturday Night Live was a “disaster.”

According to Yang, his interview with SNL boss Lorne Michaels was the reason he didn’t get the job.

During his appearance on the newest Hot Ones with host Sean Evans, Yang recalled: “I had screen tested in 2017. The final step in that process is you have a one-on-one meeting with Lorne. It was him and another producer, Erik Kenward. The first thing out of my mouth was, ‘I’m Canadian, too. I grew up in Montreal. I grew up in Quebec’ — and immediately it was done, it was a vibe killer.”

“I didn’t get the job because I had pandered to his Canadianness and it was a disaster,” he added.

Yang, who’s a part of the Wicked cast, revealed that a co-star later told him to approach Lorne again.

“Aidy Bryant was the one who told me, ‘You can be, like, friends with him now,'” recalled Yang.

“I think Lorne at one point was hanging out with Aidy and kind of chuckling about it like, ’I think Bowen sees me as a mountain to climb, and I don’t want him to think that anymore,'” recounted Yang.

He shared: “That kind of gave me the encouragement to go up to him and be like, oh, we can relate to each other on a human-to-human level, which I never thought would happen with him.”

Yang finally joined SNL in 2018 as a writer and later joined the cast.