Saturday Night Live is a true TV feat. The majority of the show is live, there's a full deck of cast members playing in different scenarios every 5-10 minutes and reading lines off cue cards while being ready for the complexity of quick changes semi-regularly. Even though the cast and crew pull this off week in and week out, many break at some point, including ex-cast member Aidy Bryant. She revealed one of her favorite breaking moments on the series and it involves a regular backstage hand being cued at the wrong time to help her change outfits.
Aidy Bryant sat down with Entertainment Weekly to discuss her recent hosting duties at the Independent Spirit Awards. Also a topic of interest was SNL’s big reunion weekend which aired amid the 2025 TV schedule and was attended by the I Feel Pretty alum. (Bryant was also present at the SNL50 homecoming concert.) The actress also recalled one of her favorite breaking moments in Studio 8H. The sketch in question was the "Inside the Beltway" segment from 2019 as Bryant recalled:
That was a sketch that was kind of built around these live quick changes where we were changing clothes mid-sketch during these really quick packages. And I mean, in some ways it's almost like they're writing that in hopes that something like that will happen because it's so on a razor's edge.
The mere thought of a quick change during one part of the show makes me sweat! To have multiple happening during one sketch seems so nerve-wracking. Although, the results, at least in Bryant’s eyes, are still hilarious. I’m sure this was a best-case scenario for it to happen to her and a familiar BTS face.
Aidy Bryant went on to explain that it was her usual dresser, Audrey, who surprisingly came to her at the wrong point in the sketch. The news-oriented scene starred Bryant, Cecily Strong, Kenan Thompson and guest host Woody Harrelson. During the back half of the sketch, Audrey was cued incorrectly and, needless to say, Bryant was surprised:
Audrey, who was my dresser, was such a close friend of mine, so there's a way where seeing her face in that moment was like, oh no. It's almost like seeing your sibling or something in trouble. So that was kind of part of what was going on there, and it was just a complete mistake. Someone told her 'Go' and she was like, 'Okay, here I go.' But I kind of gently touched her arm and shook my head, no, but it was too late. … I had all these long serious lines afterwards that I was supposed to say and I was like, I can't get these out.
What a memorable and maybe initially jarring moment for the two friends. I can only imagine how the pair's thoughts were racing when they realized the wrongness of the timing. The error was quickly fixed for Audrey but, for the Shrill star, all hope of her getting through the sketch normally was gone (and the same was seemingly true for Cecily Strong).
During the interview, Aidy Bryant also revealed how Audrey felt after everything went down:
I think she was a little worried, 'Am I in trouble?' But of course not. She's a legend.
That's a hell of a fun moment that I wouldn't be surprised was a contributing factor to Bryant's decision to delay her SNL departure even beyond the pandemic, and one she’ll never forget. Check the sketch for yourself, with the comedy of errors starting around the 4:40 mark:
After learning all the behind-the-scenes moments of that sketch, I'm not surprised that Aidy Bryant couldn’t keep it together following the early quick change cue. And there’s no question that Audrey shouldn't have been faulted for the mistake. I'd say that they're both legends for ultimately pushing through the rest of the sketch.
You can check out Saturday Night Live when it returns on March 1 at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC. Season 50's latest host and musical guest will be Shane Gillis and Tate McRae, respectively. Episodes are also streamable with a Peacock subscription.
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