Jessica Williams Says ‘The Daily Show’ Was a Better Option Than ‘SNL’ Because the People There Are Actually Nice

For many comedic performers, scoring a job at Saturday Night Live is the ultimate career goal — even though it means signing up for a boatload of stress, receiving surprisingly meager paychecks and, judging from Andy Samberg’s SNL50 Digital Short, getting anxiety-induced IBS.

Other performers are a little more reticent about joining up with SNL, including Jessica Williams. The Shrinking star and Daily Show alum recently guested on Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend and explained why the Comedy Central news parody was a far better fit for her than SNL.

Williams recalled that, after dealing with established improv comics who were real “dicks about comedy,” working with Daily Show host Jon Stewart allowed her to come to the realization that “you don’t have to be a mean boss.” And O’Brien noted that Stewart’s comedic unselfishness seemingly allowed other contributors to regularly get big laughs, which was a far cry from his experience at SNL. 

“Sometimes I saw bad behavior at Saturday Night Live because (there were) 20 shows a year, which when you think about it — if you take away the music — it’s not a lot of real estate. Lot of people fighting to get their sketch on,” O’Brien recalled, adding that “there can be some sharp elbows because there’s less space.”

Williams went on to say that the show’s notoriously ultracompetitive mentality is the reason why she never pursued SNL, even when she was doing sketch comedy in New York. “I was at Upright Citizens Brigade when I got The Daily Show,” Williams explained, “and it was sort of that thing where the next move was either Saturday Night Live or The Daily Show.”

“And, you know, both are great,” Williams continued. “I’ve had friends who have done Saturday Night Live and been really happy with it. But for me, The Daily Show was a great fit because I’m really gentle and, like, very sensitive and I needed someone to be really nice to me. I do way better with that. I do a lot better when people are nicer to me, I don’t thrive when someone’s withholding.” 

“I think you made the right call,” Conan knowingly agreed. 

O’Brien also pointed out that the SNL machine has failed some true comic greats. “I know one of your heroes is Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Technically, it didn’t work out for her at SNL, and she’s become one of the iconic comedians of all-time,” he observed.

Obviously things worked out very well for Williams, both in this reality and the alternate Hot Tub Time Machine 2 timeline where she’s the host of The Daily Show.