Amy Poehler
“I was making some really funny faces in the mirror while I was brushing my teeth before bed one evening in 2001. Fortunately, Lorne was taking a stroll in the neighborhood that same night when he noticed me through my bathroom window. I guess I was just in the right place at the right time.
As I was getting under the covers, he entered my house and encouraged me to audition for his show. I told him ‘I’d sleep on it, excited but unsure how I would even be able to manage SNL on top of my job at the coal mine where I had been working.
Lorne then fluffed my pillow, tucked me in, kissed me on the forehead and said in a sing-songy voice, ‘Well, in that case, you'd better sleep tight. It was sooo awkward.”
Seth Meyers
“I grew up in a small village of about 500 people. Every summer, suited men on horseback would raid our peaceful hamlet in search of new talent. That’s just the way it was in those days. You weren’t discovered on Twitter or YouTube, you were forcibly captured in a raid.
In past years, Sandler, Spade, Rock, Schneider, and Nealon were all taken from our tribe. I had always been able to escape the brutality, but I didn’t get so lucky in August of 2000.
Lorne and his cavalry cast a weighted net over me and dragged me away on a dirt road. I knew my life was about to change forever.”
Kenan Thompson
“I hit Lorne with my car when I was only 20 years old. He got injured pretty badly so I took him home with me where I nursed him back to full health.
Having Lorne stay rent-free on my couch while I spoon-fed him soft foods for a month definitely made things weird at first, but we eventually became friends. He hired me as a featured player for the following season as a gesture of goodwill.
Isn’t it funny how nobody in show business has the exact same success story? Except, of course, for Sandler, Spade, Rock, Schneider, Nealon, and Meyers.”
Jimmy Fallon
Before my audition, everyone at SNL told me the same thing, “He’s [Lorne] not going to laugh. He’s testing you. If you hear silence, you’re doing fine.”
Thirty seconds into my set, Lorne was in stitches, which made me think I wasn’t doing fine. After five minutes of howling laughter, I exited the stage, humiliated. I didn’t get the job.
I auditioned again a year later and played to complete silence. Lorne hired me on the spot.
Tina Fey
I bumped into Lorne (literally!) on the sidewalk just a couple weeks after I moved to New York. Lorne was carrying this tall stack of papers which went flying everywhere when we collided. We both fell to our knees and apologized profusely to each other for being such klutzes.
I frantically tried to pick everything up, but couldn’t help but pause for a moment to see what was written on his papers. I tucked my hair behind my ears and started reading. “This is actually, like, pretty funny,” I told him. Lorne blushed and shook his head, “No, It’s stupid,” he said. “just this week’s comedy sketches for Saturday Night Live… it’s dumb…” But I insisted and eventually he took the compliment.
“Well, if you really like them, maybe you could, I don’t know, write/perform on the show sometime?” he offered. Now I was the one blushing…
“Um, yeah haha, I think…I think I’d like that…” I remember saying. The rest is history.