Bill Hader Admits Anxiety Kept Him from SNL50 Celebration
Sage Matthews here, bleary eyed at 2 AM, muttering to myself because of course this happened. If you needed another sign that nothing ever goes smoothly in celebrity land, Bill Hader has finally owned up to why he skipped the big 50th anniversary bash of Saturday Night Live earlier this year.
The publicist line about scheduling conflicts was always fishy, and on Late Night With Seth Meyers the Barry star explained the truth: years of anxiety made him shrink from the spotlight. During his chat on the NBC show, Hader recalled friend and former SNL castmate Andy Samberg pitching him for a short skit about anxiety among the old guard. Instead of jumping in, Hader confessed he froze at the idea. He quoted Samberg asking, “What do you mean you don’t want to do it?” Only to have himself admit, “Because I’m anxious. I don’t want to do it.”
Samberg’s role in that anxiety sketch ultimately went to Bowen Yang, who Hader praised as “great” when he filled in. The replacement had to swallow the bit that Hader was too nervous to handle. It is not a surprise that behind the scenes, SNL can feel like a pressure cooker for performers who are already prone to panic.
Hader left the show in 2013 but his struggle with stage fright dates back to his entire run on SNL. Speaking to The Post in 2018, he admitted he spent four seasons expecting the ax at any moment. “At SNL, you always feel like you are going to get fired,” he said, describing a constant fear of getting tapped on the shoulder and shown the door.
Fast forward to a 2022 interview, and Hader shared more intimate details of his pre-show ritual. He would escape to a bathroom stall down the hall to endure a full-blown panic attack, complete with tears and hyperventilation, before suiting up in a giant banana costume. It is the kind of breakdown that most viewers never see on their TV screens.
In Susan Morrison’s biography Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live, Lorne Michaels’s response to Hader’s breakdowns is revealed. According to a New Yorker excerpt, the producer would stroll into Hader’s dressing room and snap “Calm the fuck down, just have fun, Jesus Christ.” That tough love came with a wink, while Michaels treated other nervous cast members with a gentler approach, offering reassuring eye contact instead of blunt orders.
Back on Seth Meyers’s couch, Hader could not help but admire how calm his old colleague seemed when something went wrong live on air. While Hader was trembling, Meyers and Amy Poehler appeared to have “ice in their veins,” shrugging off technical failures like a pair of zen masters.
So the next time you see Bill Hader nailed to a television screen, know that behind those effortless characters is an actor who has wrestled with overwhelming dread. He may be a genius in Barry or a scene-stealing cameo on SNL, but his own mind can turn the simplest TV gig into an ordeal.
This confession refutes the neat scheduling excuse and shines a harsh light on the toll live comedy can take. It also reminds us that even our most beloved funny people are human—and sometimes completely undone by their own thoughts.
Now let us brace ourselves for the next round of Hollywood revelations, because if this is how it looks when a star is telling the truth, what’s coming next is bound to be even more unsettling. Anyway, mark my words, the chaos is only just beginning.
Sources: Celebrity Storm and New York Post, Late Night With Seth Meyers, The New Yorker
Attribution: Creative Commons Licensed
