Damon Wayans ‘Purposely’ Got Himself Fired From ‘SNL’ by Going Off Script: ‘I Snapped. I Just Did Not Care’
Damon Wayans has revealed how he “purposely” got himself fired from “Saturday Night Live” by going off script.
Wayans was a cast member for Season 11 of the sketch comedy series, which has been deemed “the weird year,” as it marked Lorne Michaels’ return after a brief hiatus. Instead of adding up-and-comers from the comedy clubs, Michaels decided to hire an all-new cast of already-established stars. With poor reviews and low ratings, the series was on the verge of being canceled.
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Wayans explained in the new Peacock docuseries “SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night” that he was not nervous about auditioning for the show, and that he had a handful of characters he had been working on. “I felt like I was born to be on ‘Saturday Night Live,'” he said.
He had former “SNL” star Eddie Murphy’s advice in the back of his head: “Eddie’s advice to me was, ‘Write your own sketches. Otherwise they’re going to give you some Black people shit to do, and you ain’t gon’ like it.'”
Wayans recalled having his ideas shot down by the writers. “I could feel something was wrong and that’s why I was like, ‘Hey, give me the ball. I know what this needs,'” he said.
He brought a sketch titled “The Gifted Rapper,” in which he played a gift wrapper with a penchant for rhyming, to then-writer Al Franken. “He read the sketch and was like, ‘I just don’t get the rap thing.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah but 50 million other people do,'” Wayans said.
“Everything Eddie said came true,” he added. Wayans was written into other sketches, often cast as stereotypical or offensive roles. “I’m like, ‘Hell nah! My mother’s gonna watch this show. I can’t do this. I won’t do this.'”
Jon Lovitz, an “SNL” writer and cast member at the time, said of Wayans, “He was mad because he felt like he couldn’t be funny the way he’s funny. But, you know, we were very young, and there’s a lot at stake.”
Wayans’ frustration bubbled up during a live sketch called “Mr. Monopoly.” He didn’t feel that the sketch was strong, but after dress rehearsal, it was chosen above one of his own sketches, which was once again cut for time.
“I snapped. I just did not care,” Wayan said. So, on live television, he delivered all of his lines in “Mr. Monopoly” with a completely different voice. “Damon starts doing his lines like a very effeminate gay guy,” Lovitz recalled.
“I purposely did that because I wanted [Lorne Michaels] to fire me,” Wayans admitted.
Griffin Dunne, who hosted that episode and was in the sketch, said, “I thought it was weird, but people still laughed. And then Lorne fired him pretty much as soon as he walked off the stage.”
Michaels, in an old interview featured in the docuseries, said, “Having not fired anybody for the first five years, it was really, really hard. But it had to be done.”
That’s because, according to “Live From New York” author James Andrew Miller, Wayans “broke the ultimate golden rule, which is no surprises.”
Former “SNL” writer A. Whitney Brown said, “You cannot go rogue. You cannot try to steal a sketch.” He added that the amount of actual improvisation on the series is “miniscule.”
At the time, Andy Breckman, who wrote the “Mr. Monopoly” sketch, called Wayans’ choice “career suicide.” But, as Breckman recalled in the docuseries, another writer corrected him.
“Tom Davis said, ‘No, no, no,'” Breckman said. “‘We are all going to be standing in line within three years to see a Damon Wayans movie. That was not career suicide: that was a career move.'”
Sure enough, Wayans would go on to lead comedy movies like “Mo’ Money,” “Major Payne” and “Celtic Pride.”
Despite Michaels firing him, Wayans was invited back to appear on “SNL” later that season, to perform stand-up comedy in the final episode. “Lorne is a very forgiving man, and I think he just wanted to let me know he believed in me,” Wayans said.
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