Recently fired Saturday Night Live actor Devon Walker thinks the show could use a “measure of humanity.”
Speaking with Variety a week after he was released from the show, Walker said, “What ends up happening over the summer is oftentimes people are left hanging with big life decisions” as they wait to find out whether or not the show will invite them back for another season, adding, “a sprinkle of humanity could be added into it.”
“People trying to start families or buy homes—and there’s no word from the show about whether they have their job,” he continued, clarifying that that wasn’t his personal “situation” but he feels for his former co-workers all the same. “The show won’t tell them all summer and then will ultimately end up firing them when there’s been months of them trying to work their situation out.”
“I understand it’s show business and it’s cutthroat, but people have lives, and people deserve to know the status of their job at a reasonable juncture,” he added. “Most people are told they’re coming back to work in a week.”
Walker, who worked on the show three seasons, was revealed to be part of SNL boss Lorne Michaels’ cleaning house after the 50th anniversary season last week. Writers Celeste Yim and Rosebud Baker announced they were leaving the show prior to that.
After Walker’s Instagram post calling the series “toxic as hell,” other cast members Emil Wakim and Michael Longfellow were let go. Heidi Gardner, who has been with the show for eight seasons, also won’t be returning, though she was unlikely to have been fired. Please Don’t Destroy member and SNL writer John Higgins announced his exit on Tuesday.
Walker has been adamant that his being fired from the show was a mutual separation and even “good news.” He added via Instagram last week, “It was just time for me to do something different. Please don’t be hitting me with the ‘I’m so sorry’—we not on that at ALL.”
He clarified Wednesday some of what made the firing “good news,” contrasting Wakim and Longfellow’s more somber announcements. “If you read about the show, if you’re knowledgeable about it at all, you can certainly pick up on things that are toxic about it,” Walker told Variety.
“The show hasn’t changed much in all the years they’ve been doing it. There are things that went down on the show that I wouldn’t talk about for free. There are a lot of things I’m still trying to find the right avenue to go into detail about.”
He seemed to validate, albeit coyly, the experiences of some past Black SNL cast members. “Do your research and come to your own conclusion. I don’t think it should be hard to find wherever you land on that,” he said when asked about what it was like to be Black on the show.
That being said, he’s “satisfied” with his time there. “I got to do this thing I wanted to do, which is make stuff with some of my friends,” he said. :Life can be funny, because when I started in comedy, at no point was I ever like, ‘I gotta get on SNL.’“
Walker added, “If you’re not Tina Fey or if you weren’t on there for 10 years, there’s an inclination for people to be like, ‘He didn’t fulfill his potential’ or whatever. But for me, the fact that I got on there at all and stayed around for a few years is beyond a success for me.”
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