Bob Odenkirk is getting candid about his time on Saturday Night Live.
During a recent appearance on Tig Notaro’s podcast Don’t Ask Tig, the Better Call Saul star explained it was difficult for him to start out in comedy, especially his time as a writer on the late-night sketch series from 1987 to 1991.
While at SNL, he said, he was “unsure of myself. It was hard. It was existentially dangerous. I had feelings of ‘I should erase myself.’”
He continued, “I was too young when I got hired at SNL. That was not a good thing. That could’ve gone wrong. That could’ve gone so wrong. It came this close so many times to going so wrong. You gotta believe me.”
Odenkirk added that he had “no fucking clue” what he was doing and was genuinely “scared out of my wits” for years. While he was on the show, he wrote for icons such as Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Mike Myers, Chris Farley and Tim Meadows.
Despite his struggles on SNL, the actor has previously talked about how it wasn’t all bad. In an appearance on Hot Ones in March, Odenkirk recalled his time working on Chris Farley’s Matt Foley sketches.
“I played the dad in the sketch, and we did it seven times a week at Second City,” he said. “Every time I did that was the most fun I had in show business.”
Since his time on SNL, Odenkirk has gone on to have a recurring part in Emmy-winning series Breaking Bad, which led to a starring role in spinoff Better Call Saul, which he’s been nominated for every year since it premiered. Most recently, he stars in AMC’s Lucky Hank.
