The Saturday Night Live audition process is infamous; many well-known comedians have tried and been rejected by SNL during it. Meanwhile, some of those who do make the cast have horror stories about what it was like. Jeremy Culhane – who became one of my favorite new stars of the sketch comedy show thanks to his Tucker Carlson impression and his Weekend Update character, Mr. On Blast – has a doozy of an audition story, and he told it to Beck Bennett and Kyle Mooney. Culhane, who joined the SNL cast during Season 51 and who I have been a fan of for years thanks to Dropout, shared that he’d been sending in audition tapes “for a while,” but didn’t catch anyone’s attention until a few years ago. His TikTok is what helped him get in the room, and he said he tested for SNL for the first time in 2023. To use his own words, it went “really badly.” Here’s exactly how he explained it on What’s Our Podcast? With Beck and Kyle: The test went really badly, which is really funny. I had this character that was Giuseppe Cheese, who is an international roast comedian. And the whole idea is I get somebody’s name, and I go like, ‘What’s your name?’ and they go, ‘Oh, you know, Danielle,’ and I go, ‘Danielle is the name of an idiot.’ And then I danced to 'Boom' by P.O.D. right?...and I just flip off everybody. I was like, ‘Come on, this is going to kill.’ That mentality continued through tech rehearsal, because when Culhane asked if the producers would be OK with him asking for their names, people said they would be. That’s when the podcast’s hosts and SNL alums Kyle Mooney and Beck Bennett visibly cringed, with Bennett commenting that he was trying to do “audience interaction in the hardest audition room ever.” A post shared by Kyle Mooney (@kylemooney)A photo posted by It proved to be exactly that too, because Culhane was in a room full of producers, since this happened during the 2023 writers' strike. Upon hearing that, Bennett said that made it “even worse” because “the laughers are gone.” The current SNL star agreed with that and continued his story: The laughers are gone. Just cold, hard producers. And they’re all looking, you know, it’s like that dark. It was so much darker the first time around, and all you could see was the reflection of their face off of their reading lights. And so I go in there like, ‘Hey, what’s up? I’m Giuseppe Cheese. I’m an international roast comedian here to roast your asses. Get ready, 'cause your ass is about to be roasted. What’s your name? What’s your name? Excuse me, what’s your name?’ They won’t look at me. Nothing was hitting, they weren’t interacting, and it was mortifying. Kyle Mooney then asked what Culhane was thinking as this happened, and the Dropout performer said:I’m going, ‘Holy shit! Oh my God! I can’t believe it!’ because I was so ready. I was like, mentally, ‘Here we go!’ Well, despite the room going cold, the show went on, and Culhane didn’t give up. He tried to get a crew member involved, and they were very hesitant to give him their name. Here’s how that interaction went:[He said] ‘You want my name?’ ‘Yes, please, I’m dying!’ I literally go, ‘Buddy, I’m dying up here. Please, just give me your name.’ He goes, ‘Uh, Jeremy.’ Which is my name, [it] just turned out we had the exact same name. I went, ‘Yeah, Jeremy’s the name of an idiot.’ And I dance and do the whole thing. And then I have to go back to him after that, and he’s still so worried that he’s going to lose his job. Eventually, the bit ended, Culhane said he “shook it off,” and then the rest of his test went “alright.” He didn’t get the show that year. He had to go through the process again (which is a story for another time), but now he’s getting ready to head back for his second season on SNL. So, to see Jeremy Culhane on Saturday Night Live, make sure to stay tuned to the 2026 TV schedule so you don’t miss Season 52’s premiere. In the meantime, you can stream old seasons of the iconic comedy series with a Peacock subscription.