One of the things that I really like about Pete Davidson is his lack of filter. With some people, that can be too much, but with Pete, you know it’s earnest and probably largely not said to cause controversy. Last week, New York Mag released a video clip in which they interviewed a ton of current and former Saturday Night Live cast members in honor of their 50th season. In the video, Pete revealed that cast members are only paid approximately $3,000 per episode. If you do the math, that only comes out to around $54,000 – $60,000 per season. Jason Sudekis seemingly backed this up, saying that an SNL salary isn’t “enough money to make big purchases.”
Variety caught up with SNL’s longest-running cast member, Kenan Thompson, to ask him about Pete’s comments. Kenan responded by saying that being on SNL is more about the prestige and opportunities it comes with rather than the money. The 21-year cast member also reminded his former co-worker, who spent eight years on SNL, that you “gotta pay your dues.”
Kenan Thompson tells Variety that new cast members at “SNL” have to “pay [their] dues a little bit” when it comes to starting salaries at the NBC sketch show.
“It’s pretty notorious that it’s more so about having the job than getting paid for the job,” Thomspon, who declined to give specific salary numbers, told Variety at the American Museum of Natural History gala on Thursday night. “You gotta pay your dues a little bit, yeah.”
Thompson’s comment comes after his former costar Pete Davidson made headlines this week when he revealed that new cast members get paid around $3,000 per episode. “Do you guys know what they pay us?” Davidson, who spent eight seasons as an “SNL” cast member from 2014 to 2022, said in a video roundup for New York Magazine. “It’s like three grand an episode. I think I got dinner.”
Jason Sudeikis shared a similar sentiment about his “SNL” salary in the video roundup, saying, “I mean, you don’t make enough money to make big purchases.”
Thompson was joined by fellow “SNL” cast members Bowen Yang, Colin Jost, Chloe Fineman, Sarah Sherman, Heidi Gardner, and Marcello Hernandez at the New York City museum’s star-studded gala on Thursday night. Other bold-faced names in attendance include Paul Mescal, who will make his “SNL” hosting debut this weekend, alongside Lorne Michaels, Scarlett Johansson, Steve Martin, Shaun Levy, Fred Armisen, Alec Baldwin and more.
Honestly, I think it’s kind of f-cked up that SNL cast members make so little in salary because they are the ones who drive in ratings and clicks and viral moments. Sure, SNL makes money in its sleep, but the writers and cast members are the ones who keep it relevant. They also work really hard with awful hours. I think it’s interesting that after eight years, Pete was (allegedly) only making $3k an ep. I also totally believe that Kenan, after two decades, is making much more than that. I guess that as a worker, I consider eight years at one company to be at a level higher than “paying your dues.” The whole thing makes me wonder about SNL’s pay scale in general. I kinda hope that Pete’s opened a floodgate (a la the Ellen staff in 2020) so that more people speak out.
Photos of Kenan Thompson, Michael Che and Pete Davidson are from 2018. Credit: Jeff Grossman/Wenn/Avalon. Other photos are screenshots from SNL via YouTube
I saw some comments that that amount must be after taxes, agent payments, etc. Also, didn’t Pete buy a home for his mother? The opportunities they get by being on SNL is enormous. That is why they are getting away with paying so little. I also read in the past Lorne didn’t allow the cast to book other gigs while working for him. So, imagine how they survived back then. At least now, they do other jobs while still showing up for SNL.
I think we should keep in mind that Pete started 10 years ago, and that the starting salary has gone up since then. Even so, the pay goes up every year you are there. I read that a cast members who makes it to 5 years gets 15k and episode. Colin Jost, the head writer, makes half a million. Kenan makes somewhere between 2-3 million a season. I don’t think most people who go on that show are planning to stay forever and it’s a jump off to things that make more money and the people who do stay get compensated.
I might be in the minority but there is something about Kenan Thompson I just don’t like….I can’t put my finger on it but I don’t like him…
I get it… is it because he’s dead inside? It’s hard to trust someone who doesn’t age.
Maybe it’s because you can tell Kenan Thompson’s working super hard at convincing you he’s funny, yet his jokes are landing nowhere near your funny bone?
He rubs me the wrong way because he’s always the first to defend anything SNL and Lorne Michaels, even when it’s wrong. It always protects the institution and does not question or reform the show’s biases with him. He was in lockstep with Lorne back in the day when people pointed out the lack of black female performers on SNL, saying that the black women who auditioned weren’t ready for primetime. This is bullshit, given the number of black women who auditioned for SNL and went on to do great comedy.
His devotion is probably because he has no where else to go if he leaves SNL.
These comedians are supposedly the best of the best, and they should be paid accordingly. They “paid their dues” to get on SNL.
Employers should pay thier employees a living wage. Period.
60k is not a living wage in New York.
It’s funny this came up now because recently I was wondering how SNL makes money. paying some cast members $3000 an episode makes sense to me because don’t they have a cast of like 10 to 15 people, plus writers and producers, and NBC needs to make a profit off of it? Maybe because I only watched SNL for a brief period in my youth and I’m never up at 11:30 anyway, but I also wonder how many people are watching SNL at 11:30 PM on a Saturday night. Does it really make that much money?
I watch clips weekly with my kid and I’m in a similar industry. SNL probably gets most of its views from people watching replays (that’s what we tend to see in my field).
One weekend, we happened to catch the clips as they were posting them and they were getting 5-10k views in just a few minutes. They’re getting millions of views (per clip posted to YouTube) in a matter of days-weeks.
They are probably operating at a loss in terms of ads revenue. But, the clips on social media (youtube) get a lot of clicks, even those from years ago. They are probably now earning more through that. Conan’s late night show was the same. No one was watching live, but the clips were getting millions of views through youtube.
SNL is the #1 show in the 18-49 demographic and it’s currently in its 50th season, so people definitely still watch it. Advertisers pay big money for those slots – their ad revenue for the last few years hovers between 74 and 85 million. Pete also started out as a featured player rather than a regular cast member and until he hit big because of his relationships he was pretty peripheral, so his salary wouldn’t have been the same as a regular and would’ve gone up fairly significantly each year especially after the whole Ariana Grande moment. So SNL could absolutely afford to pay more but Pete isn’t necessarily the one to take as spreading 100% truths either. The man loves his hyperbole.
There’s a lot of industries is like this unfortunately. We’re working there is supposed to develop your CV enough to whereas you can go on and book things that will pay you well because of that. Whether it’s working for Vogue, or in the writer’s room for some of these sitcoms, but basically being able to say I was a cast member for season 35 of snl, worked on Modern Family season 3 and 4, or I worked on the September issue in 2016 and 2017 are supposed to be the things that help you get better jobs. So no one rocks the boat because it has worked out for enough people unfortunately. For every Joe piscopo, there’s an Eddie Murphy.
Lorne is also very powerful in the industry. From time to time, he produces the shows of the former SNL cast members. Conan was the writer on SNL and Lorne suggested him as the host of Late Night to NBC. He also produced Pete’s shows. So, it is good for your career to stay close to him.
Keenan is repugnantly unfunny. Always exactly the same sh!t eating grin and dead delivery with a ridiculous undefinable accent/cadence. I fast forward him every time. He is the weak link on the show. There is so much talent that overshadows him.
I say let him go and see if he can make a living outside the show (he can’t, proven by he hasn’t).
Sorry for being mean 🙈
At least now the cast is able to do outside projects too, I’ve heard some of the earlier cast members say they were prohibited from doing other roles, commercials, etc.
The cast and the crew should all be paid fairly, it’s really hard work, long hours, lots of stress. There are great benefits to it, most people who land a spot do well after, but that’s basically like Loren Michels paying them in exposure.
I mean, $3,000 is a monthly salary for a lot of people, even in New York, so it isn’t nothing. HOWEVER, it’s absolutely repulsive when companies try to get people to work for less money by disguising things as opportunities. Sorry, work is work and people should be paid fairly for the position they have. And $3k seems low for the amount of work you have to put in on SNL.
What’s the time ask for the job? Are they pulling 40 hour weeks like a standard job, or is something more like 20 hours? I’m not justifying the pay because I do think it should be a higher given the area they’re in, but I do wonder how much time and expense it is for them to do that and possibly do other work on the side. I’d wonder how much they’re allowed to do supplemental income on the side and if they’re total hours balance out the same as the rest of us.