Working at Saturday Night Live has its major pros. However, it's no secret that it's also really hard, and the pressure to perform is real. So, while I was chatting with SNL alum Abby Elliott, she got real about her time on the sketch comedy show and the challenges she faced.
Ahead of Season 4 of The Bear premiering on the 2025 TV schedule, I had the chance to interview Abby Elliott, who plays Sugar. While most folks likely know her for this role now, she’s also very well known for her four-season run on Saturday Night Live. So, when I asked her about a personal experience that compared to the pressure the characters face this season on the FX hit, she threw it back to her time on the NBC show and got real about why it was so hard, saying:
For me, being at Saturday Night Live was a pressure cooker. And, you know, every week, it was like a race to get something on the air, and to make sure that you had something this week, because if you didn't have something last week, that's going to look bad. That looks like you're kind of failing.
This all makes a ton of sense, too. SNL is notoriously hard to work on. There’s no shortage of stories about it. In fact, Chloe Fineman’s advice for new SNL cast members included her saying you feel like you’re “thrown into the fire.”
Every week, cast members and writers have to write sketches that will get on the air, but not everything makes it. So, the pressure is on to make sure their work gets onto the show, so they can get their names out there and keep producing content for SNL. It's a relentless and fast cycle, and I can see why she talked about this time when I asked her about a life experience that compares to The Bear characters facing a hard deadline to save their restaurant in Season 4.
To that point, Elliott, who is one of the youngest SNL cast members, as she joined the show at 21, told me that the pressure on top of the relationships she had to build in a competitive environment was difficult:
I think also with SNL, you have to work really well with each other in order to succeed on that show. And that was hard for me at the time, when I was 21 and didn't know what I was doing and was learning to write for myself for the first time, but also building relationships. So, yeah. I think SNL is a good example of that.
Saturday Night Live takes a toll, that’s no secret, and Abby Elliott’s point proves that.
However, it’s also an environment comedians thrive in, and it serves as a valuable foundation for them to build their careers. That was certainly the case with Elliott. She was on the show for four seasons between 2008 and 2012, and after 81 episodes, she left and has had a fantastic career.
Now, she’s one of the stars on The Bear, and she’s killing it as Sugar in that high-pressure environment as well. To see her in that show, you can watch The Bear with a Hulu subscription. If you want to go back and see her on Saturday Night Live, you can stream old seasons with a Peacock subscription.
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