Sarah Silverman Reflects on Being Fired From ‘SNL’ After Just One Season: ‘It Never Occurred to Me That Was Possible’

Sarah Silverman remembers being in shock and denial after being fired following her first season at “Saturday Night Live”

The two-time Emmy Award-Winning comedian stopped by “The Howard Stern Show” on Thursday and talked about going to the “SNL 50” anniversary show despite only appearing as a cast member on the sketch comedy program for one season in 1993.

“That place is so magical,” Silverman said. “It’s so amazing but there is just something about it … where they just have this energy that puts you in your place, where you feel like a piece of s–t and terrified. It’s so the anxiety. It’s very hard to be like zen and chill there.

Silverman joked that fellow alum Andy Samberg hit the nail on the head with his digital short for “SNL 50” about everyone having anxiety on the show and she added that everyone “feels like losers.” (It’s become a growing conversation in recent years about the pace of the weekly schedule often leads cast, writers and crew members to feeling burnt out. Bill Hader admitted that the show took a physical and mental toll on him.)

Stern then could not help but ask if Silverman’s relationship with the show was tainted because she was let go after only one season.

 “You know, I was totally thrown for a loop when I was fired ‘cause it just never occurred to me that was possible,” Silverman said when asked if she felt like a failure after being fired. Stern then asked if it was Lorne Michaels directly, who has helmed the show since it’s debut in 1975, who was responsible for it. She responded saying she guessed so but only found out when her agents called her with the troubling news.

“I was so new to the industry and they were like ‘yeah, you’re fired’ and I was in such denial about it. I couldn’t believe it,” she added.

Silverman then pointed out that none other than Conan O’Brien was the one to help get her career back on its feet. O’Brien had coincidentally started hosting “Late Night” that same year.

“Conan was the best thing for me, that his first year was my first and only year at ‘SNL’ and he put me on all the time you know even after I was fired and that was the start for me,” Silverman said. She added that while her time at “SNL” was bittersweet she never would have been able to transition to stand-up without the sketch-comedy show.

You can watch the full “Howard Stern Show” clip in the video above. You can listen to the full podcast episode here.

The post Sarah Silverman Reflects on Being Fired From ‘SNL’ After Just One Season: ‘It Never Occurred to Me That Was Possible’ appeared first on TheWrap.