With the conclusion of Saturday Night Live’s 47th season also comes the departure of four principal cast members, including one of the more high-profile stars the show has produced in years. “I never imagined this would be my life,” comedian Pete Davidson, 28, admitted in his final “Weekend Update” appearance as a “Resident Young Person,” a role he first performed during his very first episode in October 2014 at just 20 years old.
This made him the fourth youngest cast member in the variety show empire’s history, behind Robert Downey, Jr. (20), Eddie Murphy (19) and Anthony Michael Hall (17). The underground comic-turned-MTV fixture first landed an audition after impressing his Trainwreck (2015) co-star, super-alum Bill Hader, who then recommended Davidson to showrunner Lorne Michaels.
“Back then, I was just like a skinny kid and no one knew what race I was. Now everyone knows I’m white because I became hugely successful while barely showing up to work,” he self-deprecatingly added, with regard to his propensity to miss several episodes on end due to his burgeoning film career.
It’s this same capacity for mockery pointed within that helped first endear the Staten Island-hailing stand-up to audiences well before taboos were lifted on partaking in mental health confrontation for all the world to see. Coming right out of the gate with a brave knack for finding humor in his firefighting father’s death on 9/11, then continuing to push the envelope with punchlines born from his own drug dependency and self-harm threats that came to a screaming head in 2018, Davidson has always made one thing clear: this is him, warts and all; take him or leave him.
In a celebrity-obsessed culture, it’s easy to forget the sheer talent that transforms overnight artistic sensations into unshakable tabloid mainstays. Those who have long-left SNL by the wayside may be hesitant to accept the funnyman chops Davidson sports correlate to the wealth – and, as is the top trending item on everyone’s feeds, his dating life – he has amassed in short order.
But viewers who have remained through thick and thin know better. They know Davidson’s ‘Update’ desk-spouted unsanitized social commentary, bluntly deadpan “Chad” schtick, and occasional impressions of everyone from Adam Sandler to Rami Malek yielded truly bellyaching laughs on a show accused of playing it safe elsewhere in recent years. And they also know the entirety of his contributions to the NBC stable equated to a bona fide movie star in the making. Or, as his SNL buddy-turned-sponsor and tourmate, John Mulaney, once put it: someone whose guard-less stage presence calls to mind “a young Frank Sinatra.”
Let this sentiment suffice as an ample enough answer the next time you wonder why everything the admitted damaged man seems to touch either turns to gold, or comes from it.
Unlike his now-fellow SNL alum and comedic fraternity chum Adam Sandler, Davidson didn’t wait a decade until taking the big tragicomic swing on the silver-screen (although technically direct to streaming, due to Covid-19). In fact, Davidson’s semi-autobiographical The King of Staten Island (2020) pre-dated his SNL exit, and served as a feature-length pre-emptive declaration: his foray into leading man territory was closer than anyone realized; it was here.
In the film that’s a borough-swapped A Bronx Tale-meets-“Good Will Inking,” Davidson defers to comedy kingmaker Judd Apatow, who directs infinite charisma and airborne empathy out of Davidson’s Scott Carlin – a disillusioned alternate version of himself who never found SNL. Instead, he seeks to overcome a bumpy upbringing dominated by loss and feeling imprisoned by the Staten Island waste so grand it’s registerable from space, through: tattooing his hoodlums-with-big-hearts friends; striking an unlikely bond with his mother’s new boyfriend; and allowing the old firehouse gang to remind him his heroically fallen father was no patron saint, but flawed just the same.
Next on the docket: Davidson will spearhead more quasi-fictionalized misadventures loosely plucked from his real life, this time in a half-hour Peacock comedy series, entitled “Bupkis.” The Sopranos’ Edie Falco replaces Marisa Tomei as Davidson’s mother for this outing, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Revealed in the same THR trade report: the series will “combine grounded storytelling with absurd elements from Davidson’s unfiltered worldview.”
As for Emmy Award-winner Kate McKinnon, Shrill star Aidy Bryant, and the criminally underused Kyle Mooney, they all bid goodbye to the “not-ready-for primetime” limelight as well this past Saturday night, May 20. They too will look to branch out beyond the limitations of a growing more crowded than a junior varsity baseball roster 30 Rock soundstage. Current cast members to look out for who are bound to take on elevated roles in light of the shake-ups: Andrew Dismukes, Chloe Fineman, and the new-and-improved Donald Trump impersonator, James Austin Johnson.
The social media-dark Davidson summed up the end of an era best in an Instagram offering prior to the Season 47 finale, via his writing partner Dave Sirus’ account:
“I owe Lorne Michaels and everyone at SNL my life. I’m so grateful and I wouldn’t be here without them. I appreciate you guys always having my back and sticking up for me even when that wasn’t the popular opinion. Thank you for always believing in me and sticking by my side even when it seemed comical. Thank you for teaching me life values, how to grow up and for giving me memories that will last a lifetime. SNL is my home. I’m so happy and sad about tonight’s show. For so many reasons I can’t explain. Can’t wait to be back next year in a Mulaney musical number. — Resident young person Pete Davidson.”
