Why Amy Poehler’s SNL Audition Was Unlike Any Other

“Saturday Night Live” is now in its 50th year, which means the sketch comedy show will spend most of 2025 celebrating its own legacy. Some of them are earned. Producer Lorne Michaels was in the right place at the right time to assemble an epoch-making collection of comedic talent in 1975, and it’s amazing to think that the show has remained relevant through 10 US presidents and God knows how many shifts in popular culture. While many people still watch the show live, viewers with other plans on Saturday night can wait until Sunday to read episode recaps on any number of websites (NO BETTER than Ethan Anderton in /film) and/or watch individual skits on YouTube. “SNL” isn’t going anywhere — however, as a fan who has lived through its lowest lows (seasons 6 and 11 in particular), I feel like it’s never been more mechanical than it is now.

No matter how you feel about the current state of “SNL,” it certainly hasn’t lost its knack for spotting pop-ready comedy talent. One of the secrets to this continued success is his audition process, which, when you’re in the thick of it to get a promotion, boils down to a five-minute display of improv skills. Everyone should experience it, even if they’re a little more ready for prime time than others. And then there’s Amy Poehler. Although she did Apply for the five-minute audition, which was unusual for several reasons.

Amy Poehler revealed her audition was “one of a kind” in a new behind-the-scenes episode of SNL50: Behind the Scenes of Saturday Night Live. Anyone who was going to the Lawn in New York, or the Stella on Wednesday night in Fez (placed by the state Michael Showalter, David Wayne and Michael Ian Black) in 1996 and 1997 knew Poehler as one of loyal brigade of citizens The Fab Four. Everything she did was destroyed. The casting director of Late Night with Conan O’Brien wisely brought her on the show to play the recurring character of Andy Richter’s little sister sketch – which, given that the series was produced by Lorne Michaels, put her on the fastest of the fastest Tracked to “SNL”.

On “SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night Live,” director Beth McCarthy Miller recalls Poehler’s audition as a “formality.” She was, apart from the actors. All they wanted to see was Poehler. So she prepared a “weekend update” opinion piece about Shaquille O’Neal being too big to play Pro Basketball. Poehler performed, but as she watches her audition for the documentary, you can see her trying to mentally extinguish the clip from existence. “Have you ever made a video for someone’s birthday and you send it wrong,” Poehler asks. “That’s what this audition feels like, like an audition project. Like what I’d like to prepare for an audition.”

We don’t see the whole audition, so I can’t judge it as a comedy. I have, however, seen Poehler in Stella more than once, and I’m shocked it took four years for “SNL” to wise up and put her on the show.