{"id":363443,"date":"2026-03-25T00:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T00:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/363443\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T00:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T00:32:08","slug":"former-snl-castmember-kevin-nealon-shades-character-breaks-it-doesnt-work-for-the-sketch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/363443\/","title":{"rendered":"Former \u2018SNL\u2019 Castmember Kevin Nealon Shades Character Breaks: \u2018It Doesn\u2019t Work for the Sketch\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Horatio Sanz mercilessly cracking up Jimmy Fallon to giggly guest host Ryan Gosling<\/a>, breaking character on \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d has become a bit of a \u2026 thing.<\/p>\n

Not to be a Debbie Downer \u2013 did anyone get through those alive? \u2013 but longtime castmember Kevin Nealon has no respect for the encroaching trend.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never broke character on SNL,\u201d Nealon, a regular from 1985 to 1996, posted Tuesday on X. \u201cI knew how much time the writers put into those scripts. You don\u2019t want to be the one who throws it off.\u201d<\/p>\n

That may be true, but it sure gets attention, the latest example being Gosling, who couldn\u2019t get through a sketch<\/a> earlier this month wherein the writers made some last-minute joke changes that weren\u2019t revealed until they were live, from New York. Moments like that may be viral, but there\u2019s one other \u201cSNL\u201d heavy who famously doesn\u2019t approve: Producer Lorne Michaels.<\/p>\n

\u201cLorne doesn\u2019t like when the cast breaks,\u201d Nealon continued. \u201cEven if the audience laughs, it doesn\u2019t work for the sketch. If I could get through the Chippendales sketch, I could get through anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

To be fair, Nealon did play the famous \u201cChippendale\u2019s\u201d audition sketch from 1990 \u2013\u00a0in which Chris Farley jiggles alongside a gyrating Patrick Swayze \u2013 perfectly straight. Also to be fair, Nealon played everything straight, including his stints as \u201cWeekend Update\u201d anchor, since that was pretty much his schtick.<\/p>\n

Nealon and Michaels may be in agreement about breaking character, but \u201cSNL\u201d hasn\u2019t exactly been demure about the spontaneous phenomenon that\u2019s been around as long as the NBC show. Andy Samberg and Adam Sandler devoted an entire digital short about for the 40th anniversary special \u2013 including a non-sequitur into \u201cpraise\u201d for Michaels:<\/p>\n

Not pictured: Kevin Nealon.<\/p>\n

The post Former \u2018SNL\u2019 Castmember Kevin Nealon Shades Character Breaks: \u2018It Doesn\u2019t Work for the Sketch\u2019<\/a> appeared first on TheWrap<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Horatio Sanz mercilessly cracking up Jimmy Fallon to giggly guest host Ryan Gosling, breaking character on \u201cSaturday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[164088,164089,93,164087,61,60,3721,65019,164086,22822,5195,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-363443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-breaking-character","9":"tag-debbie-downer","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-horatio-sanz","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-jimmy-fallon","15":"tag-kevin-nealon","16":"tag-radio-city-music-hall","17":"tag-ryan-gosling","18":"tag-saturday-night-live","19":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}