Yahoo News Kenan Thompson Reveals How He Kept His Cool In 'Beavis And Butt-Head' Sketch On 'SNL'
Kenan Thompson revealed how he maintained his composure as fellow “Saturday Night Live” cast members and host Ryan Gosling fought back laughter during a “Beavis and Butt-Head” sketch last weekend.
In the sketch, Heidi Gardner portrayed a NewsNation anchor discussing artificial intelligence with a professor (played by Thompson), who becomes distracted by two crowd members (Gosling and Mikey Day) resembling the lead characters from the ’90s cartoon.
The longtime “SNL” cast member, in a Variety interview published Friday, explained that he can sometimes hold back laughter on the show, but other times he can’t.
“I got lucky on ‘Beavis and Butt-Head’ that I cracked so hard at dress rehearsal,” Thompson said. “I haven’t had a break like that in a while where I was in tears and I couldn’t talk.”
He continued: “It was that funny to me and what I was about to say next was funny to me. And I was frozen. I was literally quivering and then I started to panic. Because I was like, I can’t talk without cry-talking. I don’t want to waste the line! It could throw off everything. It was like, three seconds of just chaos.”
He explained that he hadn’t been “quiver-lipped in a long time,” although he “smirks” often on the show.
“I can’t just sit here and laugh! We’re supposed to be doing a job,” he said.
Thompson went on to give props to Gosling, who broke character and laughed at other times during his hosting gig, as well as Day, who co-wrote the cartoonish sketch.
Thompson isn’t the only cast member to weigh in on the laugh-filled sketch.
In an interview with Vulture earlier this week, Gardner said she’d coached herself for “so many years” not to break character, but that it was “nice” to bend the rules when she laughed during the “Beavis and Butt-Head” segment.
She said the sketch had been in the works for roughly five years prior to it airing on live TV and noted that she “lost it” during dress rehearsal.
Gardner added that the extras who appeared in the sketch were the “No. 1 heroes” for keeping straight faces.
“They must have had the same coaching at some point as I did,” she said. “I hope all of them get a moment where they can completely lose it in a sketch and be supported after.”
Read more from Thompson at Variety.
