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Aziz Ansari Reveals Kash Patel ‘SNL’ Sketch Was Put Together in a Week

By
Neil Griffiths
SNL
Courtesy of NBC

Aziz Ansari‘s turn as FBI Director Kash Patel was one of the highlights of last season’s “Saturday Night Live.”

But as the actor and comedian revealed on the latest episode of the Rolling Stone Uncut podcast ahead of this weekend’s season 52 premiere of “SNL,” it all came together within a week.

“I happened to be in New York, and that article came out about that guy, Kash Patel,” Ansari, who is currently touring Australia, recalled. “And I’m friendly with people on the show. So I texted Colin Jost. I said, ‘Hey, I saw this, and someone told me there’s all this stuff on the internet about me playing this guy. Just so you know, I’m in town. I think it’d be really funny. Let me know.’

“And then he said, ‘Okay, that’s great. Let me talk to Lorne [Michaels].'”

Ansari said that the initial text was sent “on a Monday or Tuesday” and he had assumed by Friday that nothing would come from the idea.

Until Jost wrote back Friday evening.

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“He was like, ‘Hey, Lorne loves it! Can you be here at like 10.30 for rehearsal?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, sure,'” Ansari said. And then I get there, and I’m like, ‘Can you send me anything before?’ And he’s like, ‘Oh, we’re still working on it.’ And I was like, ‘Okay.’ I’m just worried. I just want to do a good job.”

“And I get there, and he hands me the pages. I didn’t know what I was gonna do. I didn’t know if I was just gonna pop up and say one thing. I had no clue. And then I read the whole thing, and I was like, ‘Oh my god.’

“And then at the end, I saw it said I say, ‘Live from New York, it’s Saturday night,’ which is every entertainer’s dream! You never think you’re gonna get to do that. Hosting is one thing, but to say ‘Live from New York’, I never thought that would be a thing I got to do.”

Ansari would go on to appear on the following two episodes of “SNL,” again as Patel.

“The next week I was like, ‘Hey, do we want to do something else? What’s happening?’ And then on Friday, they’re like, ‘Yep, we’re doing it again.’ And I was like, ‘Great.’ And then that week, we did it with Matt Damon. And then by the third week, it was the season finale.”

“And then I was like, ‘Oh yeah, they’ll probably tell me Friday.’ I wasn’t as stressed. Like, ‘Oh yeah, we’ll figure it out tomorrow. We’ll write it on Saturday, don’t worry about it.’ I got used to the rhythms of the show.

“It was really interesting because it was almost like I got to be a tiny cast member for like three weeks, because I only had to do that one thing, and then I was free the rest of the night. It was really fun. It was a really great random thing that just fell into my lap.”

Watch above or listen to the full episode on Apple Music and Spotify.

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