There is a time-honored tradition of Saturday Night Live cast members and hosts “breaking” on the show, when they just can’t contain their laughter. It’s often some of the best moments of any episode, but it can really stress out cast members when it happens. Ashley Padilla recently opened up about it and how she reacted to a specific example of that happening to her while working in a sketch with host Ryan Gosling and fellow castmate Mikey Day.
In a recent interview, Padilla talks about how she writes sketches and thinks of them like a song, with beats to follow. If every sketch has a rhythm to follow, fellow actors going out of their way to make her laugh is like someone banging out of rhythm with a cowbell. It happened to Padilla in a sketch called “Cyclops” last season while Gosling was hosting (and it wasn't the only time in that episode). She talks about how it affected her and what goes through her head when it happens to her. Padilla told Time:
It depends because if someone is making you laugh, the laughter's coming from like, ‘What are you doing?’ I felt that in Cyclops. There was this like — Mikey Day [and] Ryan Gosling were just messing with me like two older brothers and I was laughing out of sheer — I couldn't believe what was happening. I was like, ‘How dare you guys. Stop it.’ They were making me laugh, you know?.... That was not planned.
In the sketch, you can see Padilla begging the two of them to stop, though they are clearly entertained enough to keep it going. Honestly, they pretty much abused her, though Day did (kind of) warn her about what they would be up to. Padilla explains:
Mikey said, ‘We might come at you once.’ I went, ‘OK, bring it on,’ you know? That, where I couldn’t get a word out, that was me begging. I have a cue card in front of me. I got to read this thing. I couldn’t believe [it]. I was laughing so hard. So that was because the audacity from these two was killing me.
I have to be honest here: the sketch is actually much funnier with Padilla trying as hard as she can not to lose it as Day and Gosling keep moving towards her, as she literally begs them to “stop.” I’m not sure the sketch would’ve been funny otherwise. Clearly Day and Gosling (plus Kenan Thompson) are having a blast hazing Padilla. They even cheer when it seems they got her to break. Lorne Michaels might not like it (though that might be a misconception), and the cast members get frustrated by it, but as a member of the audience, I love it.
Saturday Night Live Season 52 is well underway on the 2026 TV schedule, and cast members have been breaking for decades. Gosling himself broke in a previous hosting gig, so it’s not like it’s ever going to stop. I hope it never does anyway. Heck, I’d love to see it happen more often!
