Bowen Yang made a point to ensure that getting hired on Saturday Night Live didn’t mean he’d have to step away from co-hosting Las Culturistas, the podcast that helped him make a name for himself in the comedy world.
In a new interview with The New Yorker‘s Michael Schulman, Yang shares that his podcast gig became a bit of an issue when he was joining Saturday Night Live. Schulman writes that Yang “had to negotiate for permission to continue the podcast” once he was cast on the show.
“They were, like, wait, we haven’t encountered this in the past, where a cast member has had a weekly outlet to express themselves,” Yang told the outlet. “But we got it into the contract.” (Yang also delved into the tensions his SNL hiring created with his Las Culturistas co-host, Matt Rogers.)
Yang was hired as a writer on SNL in 2018, then joined the cast the following year. At that time, Yang and Rogers’ pop culture podcast had already built an established audience, having launched in 2016.
Indeed, Las Culturistas has continued, with Yang and Rogers even hosting a limited spinoff podcast during the Olympics in partnership with NBCUniversal. While Yang took some time off from the podcast in 2023 to recover from what he described as “bad bouts of depersonalization” (which he also spoke about at length in The New Yorker profile), he has since returned to the show.
Yang’s hiring on SNL was the culmination of a long journey for the comedian. After sending in an audition tape in 2017, Yang landed a spot in a live showcase for the program, then a screen test. After an “awkward meeting” with Lorne Michaels, Yang wasn’t given a spot in the cast, but he returned for two more tests the following year. That eventually led to a Los Angeles meeting with Michaels, who told Yang he’d “been getting better every time” and offered him a job in the writers’ room.
After a year in that role, Michaels called Yang again with news that he was being made a cast member. “There are going to be a lot of eyes on you, and I had to make sure you knew how the show worked before I put you on camera,” Yang recalled Michaels telling him.
Las Culturistas continues to put out new episodes every Wednesday, and Yang is set to return to SNL when its 50th season kicks off on September 28.
