An eight-year veteran of Saturday Night Live, Horatio Sanz went up
through the ranks at Chicago improv theaters like Second City and ImprovOlympic
to become a founding member of the influential sketch/improv troupe Upright
Citizens Brigade in the early '90s. Since departing SNL last year, he's kept busy
with supporting roles in films like School For Scoundrels and Lucky You. Before he appeared in
Chicago with a group of performers dubbed The Kings Of Improv (which includes
fellow UCB founder Matt Walsh and Late Night With Conan O'Brien writer Kevin Dorff), The
A.V. Club
spoke to Sanz about leaving SNL, laughing during sketches, and buying pornography.
The A.V. Club: How do you know when it's time
to leave Saturday Night Live?
Horatio Sanz: You don't really know.
It's such a fun and easy thing once the nervousness of being there [wears off]
and you're not afraid of getting fired. Once you're finally in a place that
you're really comfortable, that's when you should probably be leaving,
unfortunately. I think most people stay two or three years longer than they
should, because it's very simple, the vacations are great, and you get good at
what you do. It's like any job, you're like, "Oh, I know how to do this." You
know it's a temporary thing, but it's easy not to walk away from. You find
yourself going, "I'll leave next year, or I'll leave the year after." But it's
a job you probably shouldn't be at for longer than five years, to be honest.
AVC: What did you learn in five years?
HS: Obviously, I don't get people coming up to me
saying, "I hate when you laugh on the show," but I understand some people don't
like that so much. I get a lot of people going, "That was the best, when you
and Jimmy [Fallon] would crack each other up."
AVC: Why do you think that bothers so many
people?
HS: I think people are purists about what sketch
comedy should be, and I think sometimes having too much fun can be a little
annoying to some people. Especially my process and Jimmy's process—it was
never to be perfect on camera, it was to show we were having fun. We didn't
specifically go out trying to make each other laugh—I mean, we did try to
make each other break, but it wasn't about "Let's break so the audience will
think it's funny." That was never the intention.
AVC: It was a side effect of you having fun.
HS: Yeah, we wanted it loose; we wanted to have fun. I
think that's something the audience for the most part enjoyed. It's a live TV
show, and it's not like this document. It's not this perfect piece of artwork.
We rewrote it two times and rehearsed it for cameras a few times. Some people
are very exact in their process, but that was never the way we did it. And I
thought, "Let other people do that. I will just add this part to the show."
It's not my show, and it wasn't anybody else's show. You just bring your
ingredients—what you think makes you laugh.