10 Famous Comedians Who Were Rejected By Saturday Night Live

Nowadays, Philadelphia native Kevin Hart is known for his films like Ride Along (2014), Get Hard (2015), the Jumanji series, and Borderlands (2024). But he revealed to Conan O’Brien that he once auditioned in front of Michaels for SNL. “I did an impression of Avery Johnson,” he said, referring to the former San Antonio Spurs player-turned-NBA coach-turned-sports analyst. “I did an impression of a person nobody knew,” he admitted. “If you had seen this tape, you would understand why I didn’t get it.”

Hart has since taken the stage three times as host—and on his first time in 2013, he recounted his audition story. “They passed on me, which I’m fine about now,” he said in his monologue, adding: “It’s so long ago, I’m over it…you’re talking about something that happened 67 months ago, 22 days, like 6 hours ago.”

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While Lisa Kudrow’s comedic talent was clearly strong enough for network television as she starred as Phoebe Buffay on Friends, she claims she didn’t have SNL-level characters in her repertoire when Michaels came to see her, Julia Sweeney, and Kathy Griffin perform as part of the improv comedy troupe The Groundlings. “Of course, he pulled Julia, not me,” Kudrow said in a Television Academy interview referencing Sweeney ending up on the cast from 1990 to 1994. “I didn’t know how to go too far outside of myself,” she explained of the characters she played at the time.

However, Kudrow did appear on the show as a host in 1996 during her Friends tenure. “I don’t think I was a great host either,” she continued. “It felt like you’re on this train and it’s going too fast toward a brick wall and that’s what it is...it’s going to smash, but you just do the best you can.”

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By the time The Late Show host Stephen Colbert auditioned for SNL, he was used to rejection. After all, he had already lost out on the role of Screech on the 1990s teen show Saved By The Bell. But perhaps more frustrating than not earning Michaels’ approval was that he was completely forgettable to his fellow auditioner Tracy Morgan.

When the 30 Rock alum appeared on Colbert’s talk show in 2017, the host noted that he remembered Morgan’s SNL audition. Surprised, Morgan asked how. “I was there! You and I were both there in the final callback going to network in 1996,” Colbert informed Morgan, who went on to be a cast member from 1996 to 2003. But putting his usual humorous spin on it, Colbert joked they were “too alike” to both get hired.

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With a Dartmouth degree in playwriting, Mindy Kaling always had a way with words—which landed her on both sides of the camera on The Office in 2005, as both an actress and writer. But halfway through the second season, she got an invitation to audition for SNL while she was on contract with The Office. So she made a deal with the sitcom’s showrunner Greg Daniels that he would let her out of her contract if she were cast, since it was her “childhood dream,” as she recounted on The Daily Beast’s Last Laugh podcast. “I auditioned and afterward I had heard that Lorne wanted to offer me a job as a writer there, but not as a performer,” she said. “But there was some hint at that point that if I stayed on long enough, like Jason Sudeikis, that I could maybe graduate to be a performer.”

Since she wasn’t cast, Kaling stayed on The Office for eight seasons and served as an executive producer and director. She received six Primetime Emmy nominations for her work on the show.

While Jim Carrey has topped the box office in comedies such as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994) and Liar Liar (1997) and dramas including Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), the multi-talented performer auditioned for the late-night show but never got to perform for Michaels himself. “I wasn’t at the Jim Carrey audition, but somebody who was there said, ‘I don’t think Lorne would like it,’” Michaels told Vanity Fair. “They were probably wrong, but it doesn’t matter. Or maybe they were right—who knows? No one gets it all right.”

But Carrey went on to break through in another sketch comedy show, In Living Color, and eventually hosted SNL three times in 1996, 2011, and 2014. He also made regular cameo appearances on SNL in 2020 during the presidential election cycle as then-Democratic nominee President Joe Biden.

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Once called “red hot” and “arguably the most prolific creator of his generation” by The Hollywood Reporter, Donald Glover’s life may have taken a seriously different detour from creating the TV comedy Atlanta and starring on Community and Mr. and Mrs. Smith if he had landed on the sketch comedy show. But he aired out all his grievances when he hosted and served as the musical guest as his alter ego Childish Gambino. “It’s truly an honor to be hosting SNL instead of auditioning for it, which I did—twice,” he said in his opening monologue in 2018. “That’s not a joke, I’m just still pissed.” He then jokingly proved how multi-talented he is by asking other cast members about their auditions and walking around the studio singing, “I really can do anything.”

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The ultimate payback for not getting hired as an SNL cast member? Host the show 13 times, which is exactly what John Goodman did. He had long wanted to be part of the show, even starting out by grassroots networking.

“I remember stalking NBC when I first moved up here in 1975,” he said, according to the book Live from New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told By Its Stars, Writers, and Guests. “I would always come through here just to see if I could see any of the cast members and stuff. And then I auditioned for the show in 1980 when they replaced everybody. It’s something I’ve always loved, because I was a big fan of the National Lampoon and the Radio Hour and Michael O’Donoghue.”

Before Zach Galifianakis had a beard and before he was a household name due to his breakthrough role in The Hangover franchise, he faced numerous rejections, as he told on The Conan O’Brien Show. After his 1999 SNL audition, he did get hired — just not as on-screen talent. He was a part-time writer for just a few of the episodes that year. While it's not uncommon for a cast member to start as a writer (cases in point: Sudeikis, Colin Jost, and Bowen Yang), Galifianakis didn’t make it to the Studio 8H stage until he hosted in 2010. He hosted two more times in 2011 and 2013.

Delaware-born Aubrey Plaza was obsessed with SNL from a young age, ever since her mother introduced her to the show. “I wanted to be on that show for as long as I could remember,” she told The Guardian. So she made an action plan, researching how other cast members made the cut. She followed their paths, going to improv school in Philadelphia and later joined the Upright Citizens Brigade, putting her in all the right circles, even performing with future SNL writer John Mulaney. She went the extra distance by interning on the show in 2005. Three years later, she finally got to audition but didn’t get an offer.

However, the rejection gave her the opportunity to show off her comedy chops in the 2009 movie Funny People and then the series Parks and Recreation. Her more recent projects have included the 2024 comedy movie My Old Ass and Marvel Cinematic Universe TV series Agatha All Along.

Pee-wee Herman on Saturday nights instead of Saturday mornings? It could have happened. Paul Reubens, the actor behind the childish caricature, came up with Pee-wee while he was in comedy group The Groundlings—and went on to audition for SNL at a time his star was on the rise. “I was starting to be in a lot of those ‘up and coming’ sections of magazines,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “It really seemed like I was going to be on SNL. It was a year Lorne Michaels did not produce. I walked in the room, [saw comic Gilbert Gottfried], and I said, ‘It’s not going to be both of us. We’re the same type of performer.’ I knew then I wasn’t going to get it.”

He was right, but the rejection gave him the chance to develop Pee-wee on stage and later on the silver screen in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and on TV as Pee-wee’s Playhouse. The character remained his most beloved until Reubens’ death in July 2023.