Jimmy Fallon’s SNL Angst: From Sketch Dreams to Dark Thoughts
Let’s take a collective breath and marvel at how an obsession with late-night comedy almost derailed Jimmy Fallon’s life. The former SNL cast member, now a late-night legend, recently admitted he was so fixated on landing a spot on Saturday Night Live by age 25 that he seriously contemplated ending it all if he failed. According to a recent BuzzFeed interview and a past People Magazine profile, this wasn’t your garden-variety hope-it-works-out anxiety—it was full-blown existential dread, delivered with a deadpan punch.
Fallon, who first saw SNL as an 11-year-old wide-eyed at the TV screen, told BuzzFeed that he started hoarding notebooks of sketches and impersonations like a caffeine-addled squirrel. By high school, he couldn’t talk about anything else. His parents even joked that he’d marry his taped-up VHS copies of Chris Farley’s earliest bits. Every audition felt like a life-or-death exam, which, in his mind, it almost was. He set a deadline: 25. Miss that mark, and he planned his exit strategy—cue the unsolicited PSA on career-based self-worth.
Sure, it reads like a dramatic script, but sources confirm Fallon spilled these details on a March 2024 BuzzFeed sit-down and echoed much of the same in a 2018 People Magazine feature. Sprinkle in some corroboration from podcast guest host Bill Burr—who once quipped that Fallon’s SNL hustle was “borderline clinical”—and you’ve got an obsession worthy of a true-crime doc.
Fast-forward to 1998: Fallon, dazed and hoping his demo reels did more than collect dust, got the call that changed everything. NBC wanted him for SNL. He joined at age 23, two years before his self-imposed cliff edge, and never looked back—unless you count that time he tried to prank Chevy Chase and almost tripped over the desk. Now The Tonight Show host, he radiates gratitude and somehow still manages to make balloon animals look cool.
Let’s pause and digest the irony: a man who once saw SNL as the only way to stay sane now spends his nights delivering monologues about tech billionaires and viral TikTok dances. At least his childhood self got to see those sketch notebooks validated on national TV. Here’s a toast to dreams realized—and to not actually acting on suicidal deadlines when your career stalls.
Sources: Celebrity Storm and BuzzFeed (BuzzFeed.com), People Magazine (People.com)
Attribution: Creative Commons Licensed
