Bowen Yang seems to have learned well the lesson earlier this year: “Authenticity is dangerous and expensive.” Whatever personal problems he may have had with hosts and guests on this season (i.e.
, Dave Chappelle, , and ), he’s keeping those problems personal. In a new interview with , both he and co-star Keenan Thompson elegantly sidestepped airing any true dirty laundry about the show’s direction. First, they addressed for the goodnights of the Dakota Johnson-hosted episode, during which Chappelle did not appear.
Yang clarified that he wasn’t keeping his distance from the stand-up as some outlets reported (“I stand where I always stand on good nights. It was not a physical distance that anyone was creating”), but he was “confused” in the moment, which Thompson also describes as “jarring.” However, as far as the “controversy” (as Thompson deems it) of the next two episodes with Haley and Gillis, Yang diplomatically said, “I’m going to give Lorne Michaels some credit to that meta-narrative.
There’s a story around the show now, and it’s his show. He gets to do whatever he wants.” In other words, don’t blame the Not Ready For Primetime Players, blame the gamemaster.
Yang expressed justifiable discomfort with the way his career has been tied to Gillis’, due to the fact that they were hired for at the same time but Gillis was fired before ever appearing in an episode. “Anytime our names are in the same sentence, at least in a journalistic.
