Kenan Thompson Says He Thinks About Exiting ‘SNL’: “It’s Gonna Suck”

Kenan Thompson ponders his time at Saturday Night Live coming to an end.

Thompson, who holds the title of being the longest-running cast member in the show’s history, recently spoke to People about what it’s going to feel like to leave the show one day.

“I definitely do. It’s, it’s gonna suck,” Thompson said about potentially exiting the sketch-comedy series. “There’s just so many layers to it. It’s not just the on-screen that you see in that one, camera shot. It’s so many people behind the scenes and years and years and years with each one of those people. So it’s gonna be a lot.”

He also opened up about what it’s like to see his cast members leaving. Last month, Bowen Yang left the show after joining as a writer in 2018. He is the most recent cast member to exit.

“It’s tough for me because I have yet to have the moment,” Thompson said. “If I was on the other side of it, I’d be a little more like, ‘Yeah, you know, it’s all good,’ like, ‘Shake it off’ kind of thing. But, I’m dreading the moment. I might collapse in the moment because it’s been so many years and so many relationships.”

“That’s gonna be a drastic change at this point that I never thought, you know, ‘SNL’ would be such a large component in my life,” he continued. “I never thought I’d even get the job in the first place.”

The comedian has been a main player on the sketch-comedy series since 2003. He joined in season 23.

In a 2018 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he spoke about his fear of leaving the show. “I think about leaving and I fear it. This is such a special place, you want to do your part here, but you also want to make room for people who are coming behind you,” he said. “This was the first year I really started feeling like, ‘OK, I could push out of it now.’”