Before he was a cast member of “Saturday Night Live,” Jason Sudeikis “hated” and berated the iconic sketch comedy series, he admitted on Thursday’s episode of “Hot Ones.” Unpacking why he publicly disowned the show before joining its ensemble cast, the “Ted Lasso” Emmy winner felt it was a case of “protecting” himself.
“They’ll never let me play football at Notre Dame, I’ll never get a chance to play basketball at KU, so how am I going to get a chance to work on ‘Saturday Night Live’?” Sudeikis remembered thinking. “So yeah, let’s hate it. It wasn’t so much hating it, because I had heroes on that show. I had friends on that show at the time. I had a specific reason why I tried to explain , but I think deep down, I was just shielding myself from the possibility of not achieving something that ‘boy oh boy if I did it wouldn’t be clean.’
Host Shawn Evans said that Sudeikis and actor Bob Odenkirk were the only people he heard out loud for his short dismissal of “SNL”, a comparison in which Sudeikis felt proud and said he loved Odenkirk.
“Metaphorically it feels like that girl in school that you have a crush on that you hate until you realize, ‘Oh, it’s weird that you feel that way because she’s talking about you. I was asking,” he said. “It was just a small part of that youthful ignorance and arrogance.”
As he conquered the 10 Wings of Death on the “Hot Ones” – praising the signature Da Bomb sauce, which hails from his own Kansas City – Sudeikis also recalled a fond memory he had with the late Norm McDonald and the famous praised the comedy lessons learned from acting. Teacher Dale Close.
Watch all of that and more in the full video above.
