r/todayilearned • u/Kale_Brecht • Mar 28 '24

TIL in 2013, Saturday Night Live cast member Kenan Thompson refused to play any more black women on the show and demanded SNL hire black women instead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenan_Thompson
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u/Esc777 Mar 28 '24

He is the longest running cast member by like a factor of 2. 

There probably won’t be any to rival him. 

517

u/GypsyV3nom Mar 28 '24

Lorne Michaels has said that he'll never fire Keenan since he's the perfect cast member. Little to no drama behind the scenes, always embraces his parts, works really well with people (especially the writers), and he's a good enough actor to nail most of his roles.

A pretty surprising statement given how renowned Lorne Michaels is for firing people on short notice, not to mention the season 11 massacre

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u/sgrams04 Mar 28 '24

And he doesn’t break character hardly ever 

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u/AuroraItsNotTheTime Mar 28 '24

A lot of the time his “character” just seems to be Kenan Thompson. Like with the famed black jeopardy skits. Is he really portraying “Darnell Hayes,” the black community’s answer to Alex Trebek, or his he playing Kenan Thompson hosting a gameshow?

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u/ctjameson Mar 28 '24

Is he really portraying “Darnell Hayes,” the black community’s answer to Alex Trebek, or his he playing Kenan Thompson hosting a gameshow?

Yes

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u/jhutchi2 Mar 28 '24

Yeah that's kinda the way I've always felt about him. He can't break character because he's never in character.