Jenny Slate Explains ‘SNL’ Exit Taught Her Importance Of “Long Game”

Nearly 15 years later, Jenny Slate doesn’t appear to have any hard feelings about her short-lived Saturday Night Live run.

The actress recently explained she was “embarrassed and heartbroken” the NBC sketch comedy show chose not to renew her contract following her debut on Season 35, but she’s now proud of that early part of her onscreen career.

Recalling that she “was kind of limping along, emotionally, just kind of embarrassed” at the time, Slate explained on The Last Laugh podcast how she currently feels: “I think it’s so fucking cool that I sort of touched that dream. I’m proud of myself.”

Slate added, “It’s almost magical, in this weird way, to think about it. There’s a lot of weird rewards that come from situations that we might think are more shadowy.”

Although Slate’s premature dismissal from the cast in 2010 was thought to be a result of her accidentally saying “f—” during her first episode, the actress has clarified it was simply because she “didn’t click” with the show.

Slate’s departure from SNL gave her “a belief in the long game. A belief in many, many options. It’s always important to believe in something plural rather than primacy. It’s really important to believe that there’s actually 20 really cool, weird, secret doors, rather than one big golden ornate legendary door.

“That doesn’t make any sense for any artist that has actually ever existed. There’s just a lot of little places to scurry in and find a bigger space for yourself,” she continued. “If I hadn’t had that experience at the start of my career, I wouldn’t have understood how much is really up to me.”

Following SNL, Slate starred alongside Nick Kroll on Kroll Show from 2013 to 2015. “It felt like, ‘Oh, this is where I’m supposed to be because I’m growing and I like myself,'” she said of the experience.