Kristen Wiig didn’t glide into her most iconic Saturday Night Live characters fully formed and brimming with confidence. In fact, according to her, some of her funniest lines that now feel inseparable from her legacy were born out of frustration and a very real fear that she’d simply run out of ideas. However, an apparent "breakdown" helped Wiig create one of her funniest sketches.
While appearing on the Las Culturistas podcast with hosts Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, Wiig opened up about a creatively rocky period during her early years on Saturday Night Live. Three seasons in, she says she hit a wall and already used the characters she’d leaned on to get cast, and the pressure to keep reinventing herself on a weekly deadline became overwhelming. She said:
Three seasons in, [I was] having a breakdown being like, ‘I've done every voice. I have nothing.’
That anxiety wasn’t unique to the Skeleton Twins lead. Yang admitted he felt something similar early in his own tenure, but hearing it from someone so closely associated with SNL success is striking. Wiig explained that part of surviving that period was learning to accept failure as part of the job. Some sketches won't go as planned, will bomb, and table reads will flop. Not everything works, and that realization, while uncomfortable, is necessary.
She also credited her castmates and writers for helping her push through the slump. Being nudged into roles she wasn’t sure she could play forced her to experiment, even when she felt creatively tapped out. She added:
And then that's that hump you get over with, also the help of other people being like, ‘Can you play blah blah blah?’ And you're like, ‘Well, we’ll see.’ And then you end up trying or doing it. It doesn't always work. And then you just like find new things.
The biggest shift, though, came when Wiig stopped relying so heavily on voices. Early in her career, that had been her entry point for characters, but during her third season, she began approaching comedy from a physical angle instead. She was considering posture, movement, and discomfort.
That pivot led directly to the now-legendary “Don’t Make Me Sing” catchphrase from the "1920s Party" sketch, which wasn’t born from a fully formed concept but from a moment of creative exhaustion. The Palme Royale actress recalled standing in a writer’s office, thinking she had nothing left to offer, so she just stood there, which led to a lightning strike of an idea. She continued:
And then, you find other ways to find characters. Like it became not just vocal. It became physical. I remember, I think I was in Paula Pell’s office, or James’, I can’t remember. But like the ‘don’t make me sing,’ that came from just standing like that. ‘Let’s just do something that stands like this,’ because I was like, ‘I’m out of things to do.’
That simple physicality turned into one of her most recognizable bits, a perfect encapsulation of SNL’s strange alchemy. It’s also a reminder that even the most celebrated runs are built on moments of doubt. And who knows, just changing your posture could make you stumble onto one of the most beloved SNL sketches, like "Cow Bell" or the “1920's Party” one Wiig is referencing, which you can watch below.
Looking back, the Bridesmaids star has called her years on SNL some of the best of her career, not because everything went smoothly, but because she learned to fail publicly and keep going anyway. And in her case, that breakdown didn’t end her momentum, but instead, quietly reshaped it.
You can rewatch all of Kristen Wiig's sketches, or the entire 50+ year run of Saturday Night Live, as it's now streaming for anyone with a Peacock subscription.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
