Taran Killam Recalls 'Manifesting' HisSNLCasting the Summer Before His Audition (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Taran Killam.Photo:NBC/Noam Galai/NBC via Getty

NBC/Noam Galai/NBC via Getty

Taran Killamwished hisSaturday Night Livecasting into existence.

The comedian spoke with PEOPLE about his time on the iconic sketch comedy show while on the red carpet ofSNL50: The Anniversary Specialin New York City on Sunday, Feb. 16. When asked whether could have predicted that he’d be where he is in his career, Killam says: “Kind of.”

“I’ll tell you what, I mean, it’s hard to know because we’re tented up and it’s covered, but we’re pretty close to the ice rink here at Rockefeller Plaza,” he explains. “The summer before I auditioned [forSNL] and got the job, my wife [Cobie Smulders] was doing a play here. I looked after our one-year-old child while she was doing that, and then at night, I would go wander the city and do something fun. And every night that I was in the area, I would sit at a bench, literally probably 80 feet there, and stare up at 30 Rock and go, ‘It’s going to happen. It’s going to happen. It’s going to happen.’”

“If you asked me then, there was a lot of manifesting going on,” he adds. “A lot of people-affesting.”

Taran Killam.NBC/Jamie McCarthy/NBC via Getty

NBC/Jamie McCarthy/NBC via Getty

Killam joined the cast ofSNLin 2010 beforebeing let go with one year lefton his contract in 2016. Killam toldUproxxthat year that he wasn’t sure why he was cut from the show.

“I don’t know the other side of it,” he said. “I was never given a reason why, really. I can assume until the cows come home. But I do know I’m directing this movie [Why We’re Killing Gunther, withArnold Schwarzenegger] and I’ll have two months of post-production that would have bled into theSNLproduction schedule, so we kind of communicated that.”

“I honestly don’t know what happened on the other side, but I do know we had expressed I have work on this film and in bonding this picture, that has to get cleared withSNL,” he continued at the time. “And then [another offer] came up. I wasn’t going to have to take any time off to do it, but it was a thing that they would have had to okay.”

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“The first and maybe only time I got called out for it was the first timeMiley [Cyrus]hosted,” he remembered, thinking back to March 2011.

He went on to note that Cyrus remembered him, recalling a Monday pitching meeting the cast did withLorne Michaelsand that week’s host.

“When it came to me, Lorne’s like ‘Taran,’ and Miley’s like ‘Oh, I know who you are, I know who you are. Anything that ever happened on Disney, I know everything about it.’ Which was really funny,” he said.

“And all of these very funny but cynical, too cool for school comedy people are like, ‘What the hell?’ ” he joked.Michaels’ daughter, however, was “very excited” when he joined the show because she was aStuck in the Suburbsfan.

“That’s the power of Disney!” he added.

SNL50: The Anniversary Specialis now available to stream on Peacock.

source: people.com