‘I Was Thrown Straight Into the Fire’: ‘SNL’ Freshmen on Crazy Auditions, Hate Comments and Advice From Lorne Michaels

Like any freshman year, one’s first season on “Saturday Night Live” is full of new friends, late nights and nervous poops.

At least, that’s according to the five new cast members of Season 51, who together mark “SNL’s” biggest single-season intake since 2013, when six were added to the cast.

The venerable sketch comedy series rang in its 51st year with some serious personnel changes. Series vets Heidi Gardner and Ego Nwodim bid Studio 8H adieu, and the credits rolled for Michael Longfellow, Devon Walker and Emil Wakim as well.

The exodus allowed for an influx of new blood, like the Instagram-famous comedy star Veronika Slowikowska and raunchy stand-up Kam Patterson, who cut his teeth on the live roast podcast “Kill Tony.” Plus, “SNL” brought on L.A. improv performer Jeremy Culhane and Minnesota-born stand-up Tommy Brennan, while promoting Ben Marshall to the main cast after four years as a writer and member of the sketch trio Please Don’t Destroy.

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Ahead of the May 16 season finale with Will Ferrell and Paul McCartney, Slowikowska, Patterson, Culhane, Brennan and Marshall gathered for a rare interview in a conference room at 30 Rock to trade jabs and reflect on their freshman year at “SNL.”

Describe the season in one word.

BEN MARSHALL: Fresh.

TOMMY BRENNAN: OK, so we’re going positive …

KAM PATTERSON: Quick.

JEREMY CULHANE: Fantastic.

VERONIKA SLOWIKOWSKA: Inspired.

BRENNAN: Oh, God …

MARSHALL: Grow up.

SLOWIKOWSKA: Shut the fuck up!

BRENNAN: Roller coaster.

PATTERSON: What kind of roller coaster?

BRENNAN: Mostly a fun one.

What has been the biggest culture shock?

CULHANE: Moving to New York. The life I was living in L.A. was very relaxed. I was feeling at the top of my league in L.A., and then I came here and had to restart. Nobody treats you like you’re at the bottom, but because everybody’s had so much more experience than you, you’re like, “I don’t know how to do this job in the slightest.”

Ben, your situation is different because you joined “SNL” in 2021 as a writer. What has the transition to the main cast been like?

MARSHALL: I feel like a senior and a freshman at the same time. Relinquishing control is part of it. As a writer, you often have the final decision. As cast, you’re like, “OK, I have to do this thing for someone else.” Especially when it comes to pretapes versus live stuff. In pretapes, you can edit everything, and in live stuff, it’s like, “We’re doing it once, and that’s what goes out to America.”

In live performance, how do you learn to let things go?

BRENNAN: It’s hard. Sometimes you’re in a sketch you have no ownership over, and you had one line that you loved, and it gets cut. You don’t know why or if it was your fault, but you just have to be like, “Yep. It’s all good.”

CULHANE: I was watching my dog this weekend. This is so stupid, but I realized I’ve gotten a lot better at being like him. He never knows what’s going to happen at any moment of his life, but he remains chill and calm. That’s what this job feels like. “Oh, it made it? Cool! Oh, it got cut? All right, whatever. Let’s go to the park and pee on something.”

SLOWIKOWSKA: Getting here was in our control: You choose how many times you go onstage; you choose your set; you choose how many videos you post. And then you get here and everything is so not in your control.

BRENNAN: The biggest challenge is working up the courage to believe you have ideas that people here haven’t already thought of. It’s fun to be like, “I’m gonna pitch an idea, and I have to believe that Mikey Day and Streeter Seidell haven’t thought of the same thing 100 times.”

CULHANE: To give Ben credit, he’s been like our uncle this whole time, which is so nice. He’s like our “unc.”

PATTERSON: “Unc” is crazy.

MARSHALL: Jeremy’s older than me. Tommy’s older than me.

Kam, you’ve done stand-up about having never seen “SNL” before joining the cast. Is there any truth to that?

PATTERSON: I had obviously seen it. It was just never super huge in my household.

The show has such a vast cultural shadow. I was wondering if you all had childhood memories of watching it.

PATTERSON: When I got cast, I went back and watched a bunch of sketches. Hearing the music at the end of the YouTube videos, I was like, “I’ve heard this my whole life.” I’d been seeing “SNL” sketches my entire life not realizing what they were attached to. Being here, I realized how amazing it is to be a part of this alumni. I go to L.A. and walk down Sunset and see all the billboards. Half the people on the billboards are from this show! So jokingly I said I’d never seen it. But “SNL” has been a part of my life the whole time.

Who are your heroes from the show?

PATTERSON: Will Forte.

CULHANE: That’s unexpected.

MARSHALL: I know why. Because he’s the voice on an animated show that Kam watches: “Haunted Hotel.”

PATTERSON: I love it so much.

BRENNAN: It was so funny. Will showed up to the show one time, and Kam goes, “That’s the dude from ‘Haunted Hotel.’” I was like, “No. I don’t even know what that is.”

MARSHALL: Very similarly, Kam was like, “Yo, that’s Shrek!” when Mike Myers was here.

PATTERSON: Oh, yeah. That blew my mind. He was also Cat in the Hat. Did you know that?

I would love to hear each of your audition stories.

CULHANE: I had sent in a tape each of the last seven years — new material every time — and I finally gave up the dream. My manager was like, “Just do it one more year.” So I did. And during my live showcase in L.A., I did a character that was a nunchuck pastor. I was swinging the nunchuck, and it flew out of my hand and hit a woman in the audience in the face. I completely lost the crowd — I was crushing, and then it went completely dead. Everybody was quiet. I looked at my old manager who dropped me, and he was shaking his head. On the side, my two best friends were crying with laughter. It triggered something in me: This is all silly. Even though this job is serious, at its heart it’s stupid and fun. So I started improvising out of it, and kind of won the audience back. I finished with a song called “I’m Addicted to Giving Women Head.” I’ve never seen an audience turn from “We hate you” to “That was the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

BRENNAN: I submitted a tape of my stand-up on “Fallon,” and then my manager was like, “They want to see a characters tape from you.” I was like, “Great, that’s the thing I don’t do.” So I put together a characters tape and sent that in, and they were like, “OK, don’t do characters. But can you come audition?” At the showcase, I went 19th out of 20th. I sang a song about how no one’s having sex in Washington. This was before the Epstein files were released, so it’s probably out of date now.

MARSHALL: I auditioned in a trio. Lorne came backstage after our show at UCB, shook our hands and said, “I think I’ll be seeing you soon.” For some reason, we interpreted that as we didn’t get it.

CULHANE: “I think I’ll be seeing you soon”?

BRENNAN: “… in hell”?

MARSHALL: Literally. And then we got hired as writers and made videos. After four years of doing that, they didn’t make me screen test again.

SLOWIKOWSKA: I auditioned for the 50th season and did two showcases back-to-back in L.A. That’s where I met [cast member] Jane [Wickline], actually. We got drinks after and became friendly. Then I did a screen test that same year. They waited 10 days and went, “You have to do another one, all new, in 10 days.” That was fucking crazy. I felt really good about my first one, and then at the second one I absolutely ate shit.

BRENNAN: Nooo!

SLOWIKOWSKA: It was right here. I remember going outside and staring at myself in the reflection of the Rockefeller Center J.Crew as my manager was like, “It’s not happening this year.” I looked at my phone at that same moment, and I got an audition for “Tires,” which I ended up booking. I had a whole year of doing my thing and realizing I was OK without “SNL,” which was great. This year, I was just nicer to myself. I laughed throughout my own audition and just had fun.

PATTERSON: I wasn’t nervous because I didn’t think “SNL” was a possibility.

CULHANE: The first time I met Kam was during that audition. Everybody was so nervous and stressed. He was sitting on the floor going, “I gotta charge my phone!”

PATTERSON: I was in Mikey Day’s dressing room, and his outlets didn’t work!

BRENNAN: That is how I always see Kam: on the floor with his phone plugged in the hallway.

PATTERSON: During the first test at UCB, my dad was in the audience. He went up to everybody with a clipboard and said, “That’s my son. You like him?”

How did you find out you were cast?

CULHANE: I was asleep and hungover. It was Labor Day, and I was sulking in my bed, like, “It didn’t happen for me; they would have called me.” And then I turned on my phone and saw a missed call from [producer] Rebecca [Schwartz]. I waited an hour for her to call me back. I texted her like three times, “I’m available whenever!” She called me back when I was on the toilet doing my third nervous poop.

BRENNAN: I was in Las Vegas for eight days straight, working a comedy club, and my rental car had been stolen the morning I was supposed to leave. I was freaking out and called the rental car company. They said, “We’ll track it down and call you back.” I get a call back and I’m like, “Yes …?” And it was Rebecca. She was like, “Oh. Hi, Tommy. It’s Rebecca from ‘SNL.’ We’d like to offer you a spot in the cast.” I was like, “OK. My rental car just got stolen!”

I called her back an hour later after the car company told me insurance would cover it, and I said, “Hey, sorry I ruined that so hard, but yes! This is the greatest day of my life.”

Looking back on this season, what would each of you classify as your breakout moment?

CULHANE: Should we do it for each other?

SLOWIKOWSKA: Jeremy’s is Tucker Carlson.

PATTERSON: Tucker was a big moment, but I really love “Pinwheel.”

CULHANE: I was in your office with Mikey [Day] when you were writing that, and I thought, This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s not going to work. And then it was awesome.

PATTERSON: Anna! Anna!

CULHANE: That became the earworm of “SNL” for a week and a half. Everybody would just look me in the face and go, “Anna!”

PATTERSON: That made me so happy. Anna! That shit killed me.

CULHANE: For Kam, obviously your stand-up is amazing, but when you did Black Snape, that’s when I was like, Kam is cemented. You were doing cerebral commentary as a character.

SLOWIKOWSKA: And I really love Tyson.

PATTERSON: Ben does something that I hate. He’ll come in and be like, “This is gonna be nothing.” And then it’s the biggest sketch of the week. He’s a real piece of shit when it comes to that.

SLOWIKOWSKA: The “Harry Potter” “Heated Rivalry” parody was the most viral of the season.

CULHANE: And “I Miss My Ex’s Dad.” That was Tommy and Ben’s big breakthrough, and I was so jealous because the week before, Tommy and I had written a really, really, really bad country song [that was cut].

BRENNAN: For Veronika, I was going to say “Guy’s Girl.”

CULHANE: You had done other sketches, but with “Guy’s Girl” I was like, “This is Veronika.”

Veronika, you did Alix Earle recently. How do you know if you can do an impression?

SLOWIKOWSKA: Chloe Fineman asked me to do that with her, which was really nice. I’m not an impressions person at all, but the wig and the fake boobs is like 50% of it.

Jeremy, what about Tucker Carlson?

CULHANE: We were supposed to do a completely different thing with another political person, but it wasn’t working. I remembered that two years ago I was working on a Tucker for my “SNL” audition, but nobody knew I could do this — and I had forgotten! With the writers, we figured out these key words. I had “Huh! Really?” and someone else pitched “What’s going on? What are we doing? And that’s the goal now.” We kind of rested the whole thing on that.

Do you all read internet comments or do you try to avoid it?

CULHANE: I’m kind of twisted; hate comments usually make me giggle. The nice ones are the worst. One woman was like, “I love your stuff! Here’s a link to get rid of your double chin.” Another one was “Oh my God, you’re so cute. I love how close your eyebrows are to each other.”

PATTERSON: That’s hate, man.

SLOWIKOWSKA: I read comments at the beginning of the season, and then I realized that it really hurts me. I’m way too sensitive. Sometimes I’ll read the top three and then just close it.

You started your career online and had already built a huge audience by the time you joined “SNL.” I wonder if you have a different relationship to public feedback than these other guys.

SLOWIKOWSKA: Yeah. On my page, it’s my fans, so they know what to expect. In the “SNL” comments, you can never make everybody happy. I thought I had thicker skin. I’m always looking for the bad thing, no matter what. I’ll read a million great things and then, “That’s the thing I was looking for: ‘She’s trying too hard.’” Or whatever thing I was already thinking about myself.

What was the most nerve-racking moment of the season?

SLOWIKOWSKA: “Update” is always scary.

PATTERSON: The first episode, I was thrown straight into the fire on “Update.” And I’ma tell you something: I wasn’t big on reading growing up.

MARSHALL: Growing up!?

PATTERSON: Fuck you! I never really enjoyed reading. So it’s my first day on national television, and I’ve got to read? Understand, this man’s moving these cue cards, going between the first camera, second camera. At one point he was dancing, I think? He was jerking and shit. I was reading on the fly.

SLOWIKOWSKA: And sometimes they’re behind!

MARSHALL: That happened to me last week in the cold open. Something happened where they switched the cue cards to the wrong camera, and it was in the middle of my sentence. They were behind one, so I had to be like, “Umm …”

BRENNAN: I think I was most nervous the first time I did an “Update” feature at the table read. The table read, to me, is more nerve-racking than the show.

CULHANE: You’re so right. That first table read is like, “Oh, wow. Everybody I know and love and respect and have looked up to my entire life is now going to judge and criticize my work.”

PATTERSON: That first one was crazy too, watching everybody do voices. This is my favorite story about Jeremy: I was trying to do a sketch about a British spy. I can’t do a British accent. So I go to Jeremy and say, “Hey, man, can you do a British accent?” And he goes, “What region and what year?” And I was like, “Man, please shut the fuck up.”

CULHANE: [In British accent] “I just need to know the neighborhood.” The most nerve-racking moment for me was in the first episode, when I had to deliver the first line.

Yes, you were the first frame of Season 51!

CULHANE: I found out the day of. I got really close to throwing up.

MARSHALL: I had a crazy one last week in that sketch with Ashley [Padilla]. There was this whole bit with a sweater — I had to take off my shirt and put on her sweater — and it wasn’t set 15 seconds before we went live. The wardrobe person came running out through the hallway holding it, and they were like, “10… 9…” She threw it to me, and I set it behind Ashley’s chair right as we were starting.

BRENNAN: I don’t know what would have happened when we got to that part of the sketch.

SLOWIKOWSKA: I had a costume fall apart in the second episode, with Sabrina [Carpenter]. It totally broke. I had to be like, “OK, I’m holding it together now, and everyone knows.” But that’s part of the show.

Is anyone still holding on to a character or sketch that didn’t make it to air?

CULHANE: Me and Tommy’s failed country song, “Outlaw Guys.”

BRENNAN: These cowboys who are actually a moving company who actually have a dream of becoming country rock stars? Yeah, that one’s gonna make it.

CULHANE: It’s an amazing thing: Tuesday night at 3 a.m. you’re like, “This is going to change comedy.” You’re crying with your friends, like, “There’s gonna be a before ‘Outlaw Guys’ and after ‘Outlaw Guys.’” And then you read it to no laughs, and you go, “How could I have been so wrong?”

BRENNAN: We were bombing on page 6 like, “Don’t worry, page 7 has a song.”

CULHANE: Last week, I wrote this sketch with Jack Bensinger. Tommy helped come up with the idea. We pitched it out together. Jack wrote a whole draft. We pitched it again. I wrote a whole draft. We sent it back and forth. Finally, we’re like, “This is gold.” We included Martin [Herlihy], one of the writers, and he emails back immediately: “Hey guys, I regret to inform you the host is currently not in this sketch.” We had completely forgotten to include the host whatsoever.

Have any of you received advice from Lorne that you didn’t understand at the time, but you do now?

CULHANE: When Lorne gives notes, he always says something that sounds like Gandalf but sassy. “There’s a show in there; we just need to find it.” When you parse it out, it’s very true. It just needs a little zhuzh.

BRENNAN: The first time I really had a sketch on was “Karaoke Night” with Nikki Glaser, which was a two-hander. At the after-party, Lorne was like, “Do you feel different now?” And I was like, “Uh, yeah! I felt confident out there.” And he goes, “Yeah, you can stop auditioning soon.” I didn’t really know what he meant, but now it’s like, “You’re on the show. You can stop trying to prove yourself.”

PATTERSON: The first time I had to cut my mustache off for a sketch, I was like, “Hey, can I keep my mustache?” And Lorne goes, “Well, Flip Wilson shaved his whole body.” And I was like, “For sure.”

What are your goals for Season 52?

BRENNAN: Come back.

SLOWIKOWSKA: Keep our job.

CULHANE: Be in the opening credits.

MARSHALL: Have fun.

SLOWIKOWSKA: Be a bit more comfortable. It’s still scary going live, but in a good way.

BRENNAN: Take more swings.

CULHANE: The senior people are so good at capturing their own voice in sketch, like Andrew [Dismukes] and James [Austin Johnson]. That’s something I’d be happy to get better at.

SLOWIKOWSKA: And working together. This year, we were all trying to get our own thing on, and rightfully so. Next year, I’d like to find characters together.

Photographs by: Mary Ellen Matthews; Photo team: Alex Schaefer, Will Crakes, Rosalind O’Connor, Caro Scarimbolo, Colin Cauldwell; Styling: SNL Costume Department and Billie Rose Owen; Makeup: Amy Tagliamonti; Hair: Jodi Mancuso, Elliott Simpson