Add Ashley Padilla’s name to the long line of Saturday Night Live cast members who walked out of their audition interview with Lorne Michaels convinced they’d lost the job—only to learn minutes later they were in.
Padilla, now in the midst of a breakout second season, told the story during her late-night talk show debut on Late Night with Seth Meyers Thursday night, recalling how her audition interview ended with Michaels telling her, “There’s really no room for you in the cast.”
She responded with a simple “Okay” and left the building. Minutes later, she was across the street with other performers who had tested that day, all comparing versions of the same discouraging exchange. “I think he said the same thing to each of us,” Padilla said.
Then her phone rang. “A producer called, like, 30 minutes later, and said, ‘You’re on the cast,’” she told Meyers. “And I said, ‘Are you sure?’”
Meyers noted that he’d had a similar experience, joking that the SNL creator may simply be trying to avoid any emotional reaction from an overexcited cast member: “I think he’s so worried somebody’s gonna hug him.”
Padilla’s anecdote now joins a long line of stories about Michaels’ enigmatic audition interviews—an unofficial SNL rite of passage where an apparent rejection can turn out to be anything but.
Watch Padilla’s full interview with Meyers at the top of this post, and catch her with her castmates this weekend as Josh O’Connor makes his SNL hosting debut alongside musical guest Lily Allen.
