Andy Samberg had his say this week Saturday evening live the return was fun, but it also serves as a reminder of how stressful the sketch show on the air can be.
Samberg, an SNL A cast member from 2005 to 2012, he returned to the show this fall to play Doug Emhoff, Kamala Harris' husband, in the lead-up to the 2024 election.
“It was fun, I have to say,” Samberg told his colleague SNL alum Seth Meyers on a recent episode of The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers podcast. “It was really fun to go back, but again, also inheriting, reinheriting, the stress and thinking, 'Oh, right, this is intense.'”
Samberg went on to say that despite the intensity, his current role on the show feels even easier than when he was a cast member. “It's a little quieter, me and Maya [Rudolph, who plays Harris] they talked [how] it's a little calmer because we know why we're there specifically,” he said. “But on the last show, I thought, if this 'Beetlejuice' thing didn't work, I'd just be here and do nothing. And that brings you back to the feeling of being a member of the cast – of always being at risk.”
to which Samberg was referring SNLThe Oct. 19 episode, when host Michael Keaton did a Beetle juice skit with Mikey Day and Samberg during the opening monologue.
“Hey, don’t you usually play Doug Emhoff in cold opens?” Keaton joked on stage.
“Yeah, the writers couldn't nail him,” Samberg responded, then put on his Beetlejuice voice to say, “So, here we are!”
Doug Emhoff himself recently weighed in on Samberg's impression of him, saying, “He's cool, he's funny. It's not really me, but some of the jokes are pretty good.
Emhoff also said at the time that Martin Short — who played the second gentleman during the 2020 election cycle — was “a lot older and shorter, but he actually got me.”
However, there are no hard feelings on Emhoff's part. “To see you [SNL]yeah, group chats blow up about this kind of stuff… it's one of the many surreal things I've experienced in this world, I love it.”