{"id":330659,"date":"2025-12-04T20:19:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T20:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/330659\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T20:19:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T20:19:08","slug":"snl-star-tim-meadows-reveals-the-one-sketch-he-really-didnt-want-to-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/330659\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018SNL\u2019 Star Tim Meadows Reveals the One Sketch He Really Didn\u2019t Want to Do"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tim Meadows was once the longest-serving cast member on Saturday Night Live. These days, he\u2019s subtly stealing scenes as the third lead on the CBS sitcom, DMV. But despite plenty of ups and downs over the course of his nearly 40-year career, Meadows seems to be at peace with his particular level of fame. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In this episode of The Last Laugh podcast<\/a>, Meadows traces the arc of his career, from his unusual path to Lorne Michaels\u2019 office to the disastrous attempt to turn his most popular recurring character into a full-length feature film. He reveals why he really didn\u2019t want the actual Monica Lewinsky to make a cameo as herself with The Ladies Man Leon Phelps\u2014and what changed his mind. <\/p>\n

Meadows also explains why he ultimately decided to leave SNL after 10 seasons, the late-night TV gig he now regrets turning down, and how he found creative fulfillment playing supporting roles in films like Mean Girls and Walk Hard.<\/p>\n

Meadows was initially hesitant to take on the role of Gregg on DMV because he was described in the pilot script as a former teacher and, as the actor puts it, \u201cI\u2019ve played a lot of teachers in my career.\u201d He started out as the \u201cyoung, handsome\u201d principal in 2004\u2019s Mean Girls before moving on to play middle-aged teachers in sitcoms like The Goldbergs and Schooled. <\/p>\n

After he was cast as a college professor opposite Nicolas Cage in the movie Dream Scenario, he told his agent, \u201cNo more teacher parts.\u201d But he made an exception for DMV, in which he plays a grizzled ex-teacher who is forced to take on the even more demeaning job of driving test examiner. <\/p>\n

\"APhoto Illustration by Thomas Levinson\/The Daily Beast\/Getty <\/p>\n

Before he entered the wearing-a-sweater-vest-and-yelling-at-kids phase of his career, Meadows was best known for his impressive 10-season run on SNL, which he joined in 1991 without ever having to go through the traditional audition process, and left in 2000. At that point, no one he had started with on the show was still in the cast. <\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until Meadows\u2019 seventh season that he debuted what ended up being his first real recurring character, the self-described \u201cLadies Man\u201d Leon Phelps. He says making that character work on the show \u201cvalidated that I could do something that was really underground and really edgy and get it on TV.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis sounds ridiculous, but I really was not trying to get a recurring character,\u201d Meadows adds. \u201cI was just trying to write funny sketches every week. And if something hit that would be possible to recur, then it would just happen naturally.\u201d Phelps was born out of a \u201ccrank phone call voice\u201d that felt embarrassing to do in front of people. \u201cI didn\u2019t want people to know about it,\u201d he says, \u201cso I would\u2019ve never done that as an audition.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI thought of it as something that if people found out about, I would get arrested,\u201d he continues. \u201cSo it was like a deep, secretive thing that I kept hidden.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"SATURDAYRob Schneider, Tim Meadows, Chris Farley, Adam Sandler during the ‘Santa Don’t Like Bad Boys’ skit on December 11, 1993. Gene Page\/NBC\/NBCU Photo Bank <\/p>\n

The Ladies Man sketches were far and away the most successful pieces Meadows did on SNL, recurring 26 times between the fall of 1997 and 2000. Perhaps the most memorable installment, in May of 1999, featured a cameo from a 25-year-old Monica Lewinsky, who was just emerging from being a national punchline in the Bill Clinton sex scandal. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were told during the writers\u2019 meeting that she was available for sketches that week,\u201d Meadows recalls. \u201cI think Lorne told us to write a Ladies Man, and I was against it, to be honest. I didn\u2019t want to do it.\u201d Meadows says he was never a fan of sketches where the real person comes on and makes fun of themselves on the show\u2014a practice that has only become more common in the years since, with cameos from political figures like Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and Kamala Harris alongside the person impersonating them. <\/p>\n

In Meadows\u2019 view, a lot of people had been \u201churt\u201d by the Clinton scandal\u2014Lewinsky most of all\u2014and he \u201cjust felt like it was just a weird thing for us to be having her on.\u201d <\/p>\n

But once he met Lewinsky that week at 30 Rock, he changed his mind. \u201cShe was the sweetest person, and I thought about all the stuff that she\u2019d been through,\u201d he says. \u201cSo yeah, when I met her, it changed everything. I told her right before the live show, let\u2019s just have fun. I said, if you mess up or you say something off the cards, it\u2019s fine.\u201d <\/p>\n

One of his \u201cfavorite moments\u201d in that sketch was a joke towards the end where Leon Phelps tees up \u201cthe one question that\u2019s on everybody\u2019s mind.\u201d As Lewinsky braces herself, he asks, \u201cJust exactly how big\u2026 do you think the opening weekend for Star Wars will be?\u201d Her prediction? \u201cHuge.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Meadows made sure she was OK with even alluding to that aspect of the scandal and she said, \u201cYeah, we can do that joke.\u201d It got one of the biggest laughs of the night.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the success of the Ladies Man character on SNL did not translate into box-office gold for the 2000 film version, as had been the case with the Wayne\u2019s World movies a few years earlier. \u201cNot to say that I didn\u2019t want to do a movie, but I knew how popular the character was,\u201d Meadows admits. \u201cAnd it was not Wayne\u2019s World popular. It wasn\u2019t even A Night at the Roxbury popular. So, I wish it had done better. And yeah, it was disappointing. But the thing I learned from it was to not get caught up in worrying about the success or failure or something. Just because it wasn\u2019t a success didn\u2019t mean that it wasn\u2019t a good movie. The movie is probably 90 percent what we wanted it to be.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"TimTim Meadows approaches Sofia Milos in a scene from the film ‘The Ladies Man’, 2000. (Photo by Paramount\/Getty Images) Paramount\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Meadows had hoped that project might be his entr\u00e9e to movie stardom, as had been the case for some of his former castmates like Mike Myers or Will Ferrell. It\u2019s part of what drove him to leave the show after 10 seasons earlier that same year. <\/p>\n

\u201cI remember Lorne telling me at one point that I could work there as long as he worked there,\u201d Meadows says. \u201cHe was like, you can stay as long as you want. But I just kind of felt like one, I\u2019ve got to give other people a chance to work here. And the other thing was, I was getting burnt out on trying to come up with something every week. And at the time, people didn\u2019t stay as long as they do now.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"SATURDAYTim Meadows with Lorne Michaels during the Goodnights at SNL\u2019s 40th anniversary special in 2015. Chris Haston\/NBCU Photo Bank\/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images <\/p>\n

A quarter century ago, Meadows held the record for longest-serving cast member at 10 seasons. Now, Kenan Thompson, who joined SNL in 2003, is currently in his 23rd season.<\/p>\n

\u201cKenan is perfect for that show,\u201d Meadows remarks. \u201cBut for me, it was just time to go. I don\u2019t regret it at all. I had some ups and downs after SNL, but you just have to see what\u2019s out there.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tim Meadows was once the longest-serving cast member on Saturday Night Live. These days, he\u2019s subtly stealing scenes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[42846,236,88,167684,12016,14409,127070],"class_list":["post-330659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-beastbiz","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-pbestin25","tag-snl","tag-sponsored","tag-the-last-laugh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}