Kristen Wiig Explains She Had a Difficult Time During Her Third SNL Season, and How It Led to One of Her Most Iconic Sketches

Being a cast member on Saturday Night Live isn’t always as glamorous as it looks.

Kristen Wiig recently appeared on the Jan. 21 episode of Las Culturistas, hosted by Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers, where she reflected on her years at the long-running sketch show. Wiig was part of the cast from 2005 to 2012, emerged as one of the series’ biggest breakout stars, and earned four Emmy nominations during her run.

Looking back, Wiig called the experience “career-wise… the best years of my life.” She said spending that much time with her castmates felt like “living with them” for seven years.

One of the biggest lessons she took from the show, she explained, was learning how to be okay with failure — something she described as genuinely difficult. She admitted she sometimes wrote sketches knowing they would bomb at the table read, but came to accept it as part of the process.

“And you realize, like, oh, that’s just part of figuring out what will get on or what is funny,” she said.

Wiig also opened up about hitting a rough patch around her third season. Yang told her that when she first joined, she seemed to arrive “fully formed” with a clear point of view. Wiig disagreed, saying she never felt that confident — and remembered auditioning twice before getting the job.

During her second audition, she said she walked away thinking, “I literally did every character that I have,” and had no idea what else she could possibly bring.

After she was cast, that pressure built up. “Three seasons in, [I was] having a breakdown being like, ‘I’ve done every voice. I have nothing,’ ” she recalled. Yang said he related to the feeling, explaining that in his second season he realized he’d already used many of his audition ideas on the show.

“That’s how you feel,” Wiig agreed.

She said she got through that “breakdown” by leaning on her fellow cast members — and by staying open to being pushed into new ideas. Sometimes, she explained, someone would suggest a character and she’d think, “Well, we’ll see.” Then she’d try it, and even if it didn’t work, it would help her find something new.

Wiig said that earlier in her career, she often developed characters by discovering their voices first — but around that time, she began approaching it differently. “It became like physical,” she said.

She remembered standing in someone’s office and saying, “Let’s just do something that someone stands like this,” because she felt she’d run out of ideas. That simple physical choice eventually helped inspire one of her most memorable bits: a woman who repeatedly warns, “Don’t make me sing.”

Rogers and Yang also brought up another fan-favorite Wiig character — “flirting expert” Rebecca LaRue, who repeatedly tormented Seth Meyers on “Weekend Update.” Yang said he saw the sketch struggle at dress rehearsal, but then land during the live show.

Wiig said the shift may have been because she realized it wasn’t working and decided to fully commit. “It’s probably because it didn’t play. I was like, ‘I’m gonna go for it,’ ” she said.

Yang also mentioned that one of the most valuable pieces of advice Wiig gave him was to avoid obsessing over reactions. “Don’t read the reviews and the comments and the feedback,” she told him. She explained that negative criticism sticks in your brain, while positive feedback tends to disappear quickly.

Since leaving the cast, Wiig has returned to host the show five times — most recently in 2024.