Donald Glover: Being on SNL would have killed me

April 4, 2023

“I dodged so many bullets,” the “Atlanta” creator said of being turned down from “Saturday Night Live” in 2007 and 2009.

Donald Glover is thankful he didn’t get a role on ‘Saturday Night Live.’

The “Atlanta” creator and “Swarm” producer admitted he was turned down for the live sketch series after auditioning in 2007 and 2009. Glover previously worked as a writer on “30 Rock” in 2006 and was already part of the NBCUniversal family. .

“I dodged so many bullets,” Glover said GQ. “Being on SNL would have killed me. I have friends who taped SNL and at the time I was like, damn. But if I got on SNL, my career wouldn’t have happened.”

Glover continued, “And thank God, thank God I didn’t get some pilots. I wanted so desperately to be on “Parks and Rec” because it was the cool, hipster show. I’m the bullet dodger. I feel like Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction. It wasn’t a mistake, you know? God did it.”

Glover was later cast in 2009’s ‘Community’ after writing ’30 Rock’.

Glover said of the sitcom writing gig: “I definitely didn’t feel like I should be there. Every night I had stressful dreams where I was driving on top of a skyscraper in New York while the other writers were watching me.”

Glover continued, referring to being hired as part of NBC’s diversity initiative: “There’s no animosity between us or anything, but (Tina Fey) said it herself… It was diversity. The last two people fighting for the job were me and Kenya Barris. Only later did I know it was between me and him. One day he hit me and said, “I’ve hated you for years!”

Former “Saturday Night Live” star Pete Davidson recently spoke out as a cast member and the subject of current affairs jokes about the show becoming too meta.

Davidson joined the cast in 2014 when he joined as a featured player at the age of 20.

“When your own show (makes me laugh), I sit in the back and watch the cold open and — the cold open (is) current, political humor, whatever is in the culture. Then make fun of you,” Davidson said. “Then you have to go out and do a sketch next time and you hit your mark and the show just made me laugh. So why will they laugh at you? It’s like they just teased me in front of everyone. And you’re like, “I’m a fucking loser, man.”

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