Working on “Saturday Night Live” is not for the faint of heart — take it from series darling Andy Samberg. During his seven-year tenure on the sketch comedy show, from 2005 to 2012, Samberg became one of its most prolific and beloved members. As the frontman for the Lonely Island singing comedy trio, he made digital shorts an “SNL” fan-favorite segment with hits like “I Just Had Sex” and “Motherlover.
” He also barely slept, he told Kevin Hart in a Thursday episode of the “Hart to Heart” Peacock talk show. “Physically, it was taking a heavy toll on me,” Samberg said. Between writing for the live show and churning out digital shorts every week, “it’s basically like four days a week you’re not sleeping, for seven years.
” The situation worsened after fellow Lonely Islanders Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer left the show in 2010 and 2011, respectively — effectively making Samberg the sole digital-short creator for his final two years. “I was falling apart,” he said, and eventually, he just couldn’t “endure it anymore.” Predictably, the “SNL” producers tried to persuade him to stay: “They told me straight up, ‘We prefer you would stay,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, that makes it harder.
’” Aside from any external pressure, Samberg said he also feared leaving the show would slow his creative output. “The craziest thing about working [at ‘SNL’] is once you get going, if you’re just in the shower and you have an idea, that s.
