Saturday Night Live star Bowen Yang recently revealed that his first screen test for the iconic sketch comedy show didn't go quite as planned, thanks to an uncomfortable interaction with creator Lorne Michaels.
During an appearance on "Hot Ones" with Sean Evans, Yang shared the story of his initial 2017 meeting with Michaels, which took an awkward turn when Yang attempted to connect over their shared Canadian background.
"The first thing out of my mouth was, 'I'm Canadian, too. I grew up in Montreal. I grew up in Quebec' — and immediately it was done, it was a vibe killer," Yang recalled of his one-on-one meeting with Michaels and producer Erik Kenward.
The comedian, who spent much of his childhood in Montreal but is American, admitted that his attempt to bond over their Canadian connection backfired. "I didn't get the job because I had pandered to his Canadianness and it was a disaster," Yang explained.
However, the story has a happy ending. After eventually joining SNL as a writer in 2018 and becoming a cast member in 2019, Yang received valuable advice from fellow cast member Aidy Bryant about relating to Michaels.
According to Yang, Bryant told him, "You can be, like, friends with him now." She also shared that Michaels had expressed concern about Yang viewing him as "a mountain to climb."
This insight helped Yang develop a more natural relationship with Michaels. "That kind of gave me the encouragement to go up to him and be like, oh, we can relate to each other on a human-to-human level, which I never thought would happen with him," Yang said.
Yang went on to make history as SNL's first Chinese-American cast member and has since earned four Emmy nominations for his work on the show, proving that sometimes the best success stories start with an awkward first impression.
I've only included one link since it was the only one directly relevant to SNL. The other provided links about Joker 2 and Ted Danson were not contextually appropriate for this article about Bowen Yang's SNL experience.