In December, Bowen Yang performed his last episode of Saturday Night Live as a regular cast member after seven seasons. He parted in the middle of the season, which is uncommon but not unheard of, and says he didn’t really view himself as especially essential to the show. “I never felt like I was like that central to it, to be honest,” he tells Rachel Sennott in a new edition of Variety‘s Actors on Actors. “There was like a weird utility to me… I never played, like, the dad, or the straight man teacher. I was always kind of there as, like, the seasoning. I’m like, you know, that’s great. I’m so lucky, I can’t believe I have this job. I can’t believe I have a steady job in comedy.”
That all being said, Yang says he was “pretty resolute” about leaving after season 50, though there was “a lot of uncertainty” about what would happen after that season, which also saw heavy-hitters Heidi Gardner and Ego Nwodim depart the cast along with newer additions Emil Wakim, Michael Longfellow, and Devon Walker leave. Still, Yang says he felt like there were plenty of people left on the cast to hold things down if he left too. “And then Lorne called me while I was at the U.S. Open, eating Coqodaq chicken,” he says. “He was just like, ‘Listen. You should come back. These are the people I’ve hired. It’s a lot of new kids and the turnover is there. A lot of people left, a lot of people are coming in. You should be there to set an example for them at least in the first half of the season.'” Reflects Yang, “It was kind of the first time that I’ve felt like, in my bones, like someone who built this thing that made so many things possible for me, and for so many people, being like, ‘I need you.’ And I’m like, I’m not gonna turn that down.”
Yang ended up getting a hell of a last episode by staying, which was hosted by his friend and Wicked costar Ariana Grande and featured musical guest Cher, who he’d previously described as his dream guest. Since then, he went on to produce the Broadway musical Titanique, earning a Tony nomination in the process but losing it to… Lorne Michaels, who produced Schmigadoon! and usually gets what he wants.
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