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Chris Reddis a model of a modern majorSNLcast member.
On the show, hes doingpretaped sketchesand impressions, bothpoliticalandcultural.
At the same time, hes shootingKenan.
How does he do it?
On VulturesGood Onepodcast, which featuresMoses Stormas guest host, Redd literally explains how.
Below, you could read an excerpt from the transcript or listen to the full episode.
Tune in toGood Oneevery Thursday onApple Podcasts,Spotify,Stitcher,Overcast, orwherever you get your podcasts.
On Celebrity Impersonations
Im confident now because Ive been there, but I used to question myself.
Ive always loved the characters.
But I would never consider myself an impressionist, so I always overthought them.
But by year five, I was like,I know how to do the job.
But the first couple of years, if someone was like, Can you be Denzel?
Id be like, Uh umm uh uh uh ssssure.
Me, I can do my version of that person.
But Ive found an appreciation for impressions myself.
Ive always thought its cool when someone can do it.
But in Chicago, they were so anti-impression.
Its something that really intrigued us but was really hard to pitch.
It took five and a half years for a very good reason.
Maybe it was even 2014.
We leaned on each other to make it happen and not give up on the project.
Im really grateful for the other three because its so much easier to just quit.
The first iteration of this was bad in a way that had nothing to do with us.
It was a remake of a show.
I met this guy named Guy, whos a producer.
This was hot off the heels ofPopstar.
Do you have three friends?
And I was like, Yeah, I do.
I went home and watched it, and it was absolutely terrible.
So, the first version of this show was calledAll for One, like a UPN show.
Wed write a pilot and go from a Comedy Central deal to a Hulu deal.
We had so many different places where we had little holding deals for a while.
We tried to do their version of it, but it didnt work.
But what they did like was us.
So, we were like, Fuck that.
Lets ditch that shit and write something thats just really us.
But we didnt really make it to the casino until later.
It was just setting the tone for what the show could be.
Im not mad at Hulu.
You know how crazy it is to pitch a show like we did.
Now that its made, its so much easier to know what it is because its here.
Not too much, but they gave us enough to make the show.
On Pitching Sketches forSNLAs a New Cast Member
We used to do these pitches atSNLevery Monday.
We meet the host of the week and then go around the room pitching ideas.
Its like a bunch of us sitting on the floor.
All the writers and the cast, we squeeze in Lornes office.
My first year on the show, I was pitching, and I was so anxious.
I put too much on it.
A lot of buildup, a lot of context like, This happened on a train one time.
It would be such a bad pitch.
I was always overthinking it.
So, I did one of these long pitches to Larry David, and … it was bombing.
Larry sat with it for a second and was like, Is this a movie!?
Ive never seen anything like it.
Everybody in the room was like, AHHH!!!!!
like they dont work with me.
Everybody was laughing at me so hard, I wanted to kill myself.
Just Is this a movie!?
You know how when you get roasted so hard you cant say anything but support it?
He was like, Is this a movie?
And I was like, It could be …
