Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” duo is a team onscreen and off.
Sitting down for an extended interview on The Howard Stern Show Monday, Michael Che and Colin Jost shed some light on how they envision their futures at SNL.
“Do we have a game plan as [to] when we exit?,” Stern asked the pair.
“We definitely don’t have a game plan,” Jost replied. “We never had a game plan. Every year, it’s sort of like you’re just re-eval—You’re seeing if you still like it.”
“But has there been a discussion between the two of you?” Stern pressed, “You close the door and you have a private discussion, and you go ‘Listen, if you’re leaving, I’m leaving.’ Has there been that discussion?”
“We’ve had that discussion at different times,” Jost admitted. Che concurred.
Stern then prodded Che, who has publicly (if cryptically) toyed with the idea of leaving SNL in the past.
“Michael seems like a guy who every year wants to leave, but he sticks around,” Stern suggested.
“Yeah, but it’s not a matter of I want to leave because I want to leave,” Che explained. “It’s like I want to leave because I always just feel like I miss standup and all this stuff. It’s always that.”
For now, Che and Jost are expected to return for another year—their eleventh season behind the desk. The two have helmed “Weekend Update” together since Season 40, and are now the longest-serving news team in SNL’s history.
But while the two longtime SNLers are taking things one year at a time, they each reiterated to Stern that they envision themselves as a team. When Stern asked Che if he’d do the news by himself if Jost departed, Che was quick to reply, “No.” Then, when Stern reversed the question, Jost confirmed that he wouldn’t do the show without Che either.
“In a heartbeat, he would,” Che retorted. “He’s lying through his teeth.” When Jost denied that, Che put his loyalty to the test.
“I’m leaving,” Che joked.
“Sh*t,” replied Jost. “I’ll do three years.”
Despite all this future thinking, Che and Jost say a life outside SNL is not something they canquite wrap their heads around. “The funny thing is… It’s hard to imagine being gone,” Che told Stern. “My brain is on the clock of Saturday Night Live.”
Stern being Ster, he didn’t let the pair go before trying to get the scoop on their salaries. “Is there a negotiation with Lorne every year about it,” he asked the anchors, “where you sit down and say, ‘Listen, we want X amount of dollars’”?
“No, we don’t get paid, man,” Che answered.
Che and Jost’s working relationship extends beyond their years as “Weekend Update” co-anchors and writers at SNL.The two occasionally perform on the road together (and told Stern that they’d do it more if they were better planners), and they’re currently gearing up to host a live comedy special for Peacock this Thursday. Colin Jost & Michael Che Present: New York After Dark will feature a lineup of comedians doing drop-in sets at The Bell House in Brooklyn.
They’ll then return to the Update desk for Saturday Night Live’s fiftieth season on September 28.
