In the fourth episode of the Peacock docuseries SNL 50: Beyond Saturday NightDamon sat right down to reminisce and chuckle about his quick time on the present. “Yes, I bought fired. We’ll speak about it,” he stated.
“I felt like I used to be born to be there Saturday night time reside. So I wasn’t nervous in regards to the audition,” he stated and added that he had beforehand labored on creating characters like Homey D. Clown and others, who would develop into fan favorites in In dwelling colors.
Eddie Murphy, who had lately left the present, informed Damon, “Write your personal sketches. Otherwise, they will provide you with some black shit to do, and you will not prefer it.” But as Damon discovered his footing engaged on the sequence, he had hassle connecting with the writers.
“Hey, give me the ball; I do know what it wants,” he’d inform the writers, attempting to get his work into the present. “But they might have shot down my concepts.”
“Everything Eddie stated got here true. They began writing me into their sketches,” he stated of the stereotypical roles he was given. He additionally stated that there have been occasions when he brazenly rejected the roles that the writers had created for him. “I say, ‘Hell no.’ I stated, ‘Listen, my mother goes to look at this present, I am unable to do that.'”
Then, 12 episodes into the season, he determined to lean into a distinct stereotype for a sketch that’s now notorious for all of the unsuitable causes. In “Mr. Monopoly,” Damone and Randy Quaid performed cops interrogating a suspect (performed by host Griffin Dunne) whose lawyer is actually Mr. Monopoly.
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Damon sketched in response to the ebook throughout costume rehearsals, however took issues into his personal arms on the time of the reside recording and went off script. He portrayed his character utilizing the “effeminate homosexual boy” stereotype. “I believed it was bizarre, however individuals nonetheless laughed,” Griffin Dunne stated of the sketch.
“And then Lorne principally fired him as he walked off stage,” Griffin remembers. “I snapped. I simply did not care. I did it on goal as a result of I wished him to fireplace me,” Damon added. Lorne additionally stated that firing Damon was “actually, actually onerous, however it needed to be accomplished”.
And whereas the playtime resolution might have destroyed Damon’s profession, it did the precise reverse as he continued to co-create and star within the sketch sequence. In dwelling colors.
Damon concluded by saying that he and Lorne have been in good standing, and though he was fired halfway by way of season 11, he was nonetheless invited again to carry out as a humorist in that season’s finale. “Lorne is a really forgiving man. And I believe he simply wished me to know that he believed in me,” she stated.
Clock SNL 50: Beyond Saturday Night on the Peacock.
