The Best Saturday Night Live Auditions (That Didn’t Make the Cast)

Over the span of its 50-year run, Saturday Night Live has played host some of the most talented comedic performers in American TV history. Equally as impressive as SNL‘s roster of cast members, however, is the list of folks who tried out for the show and failed to make the cut. Why is it that so many successful comedic figures couldn’t crack the rotation on SNL? It turns out that not even the people in charge of the auditions fully know why.

“There’s a lot of people I brought in and thought ‘I can’t believe’ we’re not hiring that person,'” Marci Klein, SNL Head of Talent from 1995-2012, says in the new Peacock docuseries SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night.

Produced by Morgan Neville and released a month in advance of the “official” observance of SNL‘s 50th anniversary, SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night is a fascinating watch. Three of the docuseries’ four episodes dive into SNL specifics (including a behind-the-scenes peek at the writing process of a 2024 episode, an oral-history of “More Cowbell,” and an autopsy of what went wrong with season 11). But episode 1 “Five Minutes” takes a broader look at the most important five minutes of every SNL cast member’s journey: their audition.

Footage of SNL‘s audition process is frequently hard to come by. Aside from an SNL 40th anniversary compilation and Will Ferrell’s iconic tryout, viewers don’t often get to see video of successful SNL auditions, let alone the ones that ended in disappointment. SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night provides viewers with a privileged look at both. In addition to the auditions of SNL heavy-hitters like Amy Poehler, Fred Armisen, Kristen Wiig, and more, the doc reveals some unsuccessful, but still impressive, auditions as well. In the list that follows, we highlight the best of the “almost-weres.”

NOTE: While each of these entries is accompanied by a YouTube video embed to break up the textual monotony, only the Jim Carrey, Kevin Hart, and Stephen Colbert sections contain footage from their respective auditions as those have been previously released. Footage from the remaining auditions can be found around the 18:30-mark of SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night‘s first episode.

Jim Carrey

Of all the people who stopped by the Studio 8H audition stage, Jim Carrey looms large as “the one that got away.” Not only did the elastic performer become one of the biggest comedy stars at the box office, but he proved his sketch chops by becoming part of the cast of In Living Color. His audition, while raw, contains plenty of hints of the excitement to come – like his rendition of a baby-armed “post-nuclear Elvis.”

Jennifer Coolidge

“Jennifer Coolidge was so funny. But I couldn’t get anybody to get it,” Klein says in SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night. Jennifer Coolidge is indeed very funny but it probably takes longer than a five-minute audition to fully connect with her laidback comedic style. Thankfully, SNL‘s loss on this one was the world’s gain. Coolidge had a successful career in Christopher Guest mockumentaries before joining HBO’s The White Lotus and winning an Emmy award. She’s also a popular impression for current SNL cast members and hosts.

Kevin Hart

Before he became one of the most successful stand-up comedians and movie stars of his era, Kevin Hart was just a young background actor in Judd Apatow projects trying to make his way in the world. His path led him to an SNL audition, which he kind of killed! Unfortunately his rendition of a man who had a spinal fusion didn’t connect with the panel.

Mindy Kaling

Mindy Kaling has made a name for herself as both a comedic performer and writer in TV series like The Office and The Mindy Kaling Project. Based on that dual experience, one would imagine that she would be a perfect fit for SNL. Still, the audition panel didn’t vibe with her audition for whatever reason. In the one bit we see in SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night, the Massachusetts-native is wearing a Boston Red Sox hoodie and playing a character from New England. Perhaps the show felt it had already hit its “Masshole” quota in the wake of Jimmy Fallon and Rachel Dratch “Boston Teens” sketches.

Donald Glover

Now the ultimate multi-hyphenate as writer/producer/actor/stand-up/director/Grammy-winning musical artist, Donald Glover a.k.a. Childish Gambino got his start in television comedy. Hell, he got his start in television comedy on SNL‘s own home turf of NBC! While a writer on 30 Rock (and just before he got his breakout role as Troy Barnes on Community), Glover attended a rare mid-season audition for SNL, which was looking for a regular Barack Obama impersonator. While his Obama impression apparently didn’t pan out (the show chose Fred Armisen – a white performer already in the cast 😅), he did uncork a killer Chris Rock impression in which he complained about an influx of vampires in New York City.

Jordan Peele

Also brought in to audition for the role of SNL‘s Barack Obama impersonator was then-Mad TV star Jordan Peele. Thanks to its subsequent deployment on Peele and Keegan-Michael Key’s own sketch show Key & Peele, we know that said Obama impression was a good one. And SNL agreed! They reportedly were prepared to give Peele the job but Fox refused to let him out of his Mad TV contract. Oh well, Peele decided to settle for becoming a generational horror filmmaker instead by creating Get Out, Us, and Nope. In SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night, we get a look at the non-Obama portion of Peele’s audition. It contains a hilarious impression of a Starbucks barista from the hood who is adamant that a customer requested a “caramel mint mocha latte.”

Stephen Colbert

The Late Show host Stephen Colbert is the only non-SNL cast member that SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night invites on to watch footage of his own failed audition. “I was hoping I’d never see this,” Colbert says right before the clip plays. His concern is unwarranted as the young Stephen Colbert’s audition is very good! He plays a waiter who is nauseated by the mere thought of food and has to hold back vomit while reading the day’s specials.

Henry Zebrowski

Henry Zebrowski never got a chance to be a star on Saturday Night Live but he is very much the start of the first episode of SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night. “There was a guy named Henry Zebrowski who did his audition,” Lindsay Shookus says. “Three minutes in he came out from behind the wall and he was completely naked. It was such a shock. I’m not even sure what he did at that point. He was the naked guy and he didn’t get hired. Not because he was naked.” We then get to see Henry in all naked glory. Zebrowski did just fine without SNL, enjoying a long career as a sketch comedian and getting a supporting role in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street. Currently he is one of the hosts of paranormal/true crime podcast Last Podcast on the Left and a co-owner of the Last Podcast Network.

All four episodes of SNL: Beyond Saturday Night are available to stream on Peacock now.