This interview is part of Variety and CNN’s Actors on Actors series. Watch the full video interview now at CNN.com/Watch (or on the CNN app) and on Variety’s YouTube channel starting at 11:59 p.m. ET.
Bowen Yang and Rachel Sennott first met as young, eager, internet-savvy members of Brooklyn’s alternative stand-up scene, who didn’t fit into the boxes prescribed by Manhattan institutions like the Comedy Cellar. But less than a decade later, they’ve both accomplished more than most aspiring comedians ever dream of. Yang, 35, is now in a reflective period, getting vulnerable with Sennott about the emotional, triumphant end to his seven years as a “Saturday Night Live” member last December. He praises Sennott — the star of acclaimed films including “Shiva Baby,” “Bodies Bodies Bodies” and “Bottoms” — for her most recent achievement: “I Love L.A.,” the HBO comedy series she created, showruns, directs and stars in. Sennott, slightly younger and greener at 30, is still learning to take in all of her success. She credits Yang for helping her and several of her peers find their voices, as the two bond over their Brooklyn memories and share what they’ve learned since then.
Rachel Sennott: Do you know what I wanna talk about immediately?
Bowen Yang: Come on.
Sennott: When we announced the Oscar nominations. That was an insane experience.
Yang: We knew before everyone else.
Sennott: Well, this is what I wanted to ask you. Did you bring your phone in?
Yang: No.
Sennott: Just to explain: We’re getting a midnight call time, and we are doing glam from 12 to 3.
Yang: And then from 3 to 4, we’re getting coached on the pronunciation of names.
Sennott: That was so hard for me.
Yang: You had a hard time with “Emilia Pérez.”
Sennott: Once it got into my head that it was hard to say, it was over. And then I said it differently every time. I was like, “Emily in Paris.” But you didn’t bring your phone in? Because we weren’t allowed to.
Yang: Whatever Janet Yang says. Whatever the Academy decrees. I love institutions more than anything in this world. I love being a supplicant to this ritual. No, I didn’t bring my phone. But you did? [Sennott shrugs and gives a sly grin. Yang squeals.]
Sennott: I didn’t even do anything. I just was like, “What if something happens where I need it, like I have to take a picture of myself or my mom texts me at 4 in the morning?” But I didn’t reveal any information to anyone.
Yang: This is the beauty of Rachel Sennott, everybody. She will break the parameters but still be a professional. Legit.
Sennott: Legit. Break the rules a little, but also know where to draw the line.
Yang: Honestly, OK, we can get real, because you and I have had a special peek into the ritual processes of awards. And we’re part of that now — fair to say? This is part of what we do in our jobs. And I feel like that’s what “I Love L.A.” is about. It’s about these things that we are doing that are supposed to evaluate if you’re good or not. If you deserve a place at the Formé dinner, or if you deserve a place with the brand sponsor. We have to talk about — oh my God — I’m a Ritz spokesperson.
Sennott: When I saw that, it literally felt so meta [because “I Love L.A.” has an episode about a Ritz Crackers ad].
Yang: Y’all knew what you were doing, here at Variety, pairing us together. Because Ritz supports LGBTQ+ storytellers.
Sennott: They do. In fiction and in real life.
Yang: Tallulah [Odessa A’zion] and I are queer Ritz kids.
Sennott: You and Tallulah are the queer faces of Ritz. When did you film that commercial?
Yang: In the fall, for the Super Bowl. “The big game” — sorry. For some reason, they don’t let you call it the Super Bowl. They’re like, “Please call it the big game.”
Sennott: Our show came out in the fall. You probably filmed it before. I’m sure this happened all the time on “SNL.” Sometimes things just happen at the same time. Do you feel like you write in response to the world?
Mary Ellen Matthews for Variety
Yang: It depends. I used to be more reactive, because it felt like that was the expectation of the job. But I had the luxury later on to just write what I wanted to write. And it was hard to be optimistic about the world by the time I was finishing up there. It was nice to process things with people, because things were so bleak and you had people who were really good at doing that. Colin Jost has been writing the cold open since he was in diapers, so he has this preternatural way of presenting things to the world in a way that was digestible and yet reflective.
Sennott: It’s crazy — when I first met you, when I was doing stand-up, the internet felt like a place to escape to. It was like a playground, and you could create this version of yourself. And now, real life is the escape, and the internet feels … It’s hard to tell what’s real. It’s just so much information.
When I was in college, I would be like, “I’m going to take pictures and post on Instagram tonight.” And I would do a whole night of just posing in bras and underwear and making little outfits. And that would be my whole night.
Yang: It felt good. It felt powerful. It felt creative.
Sennott: And fun. And now it’s flip-flopped. But we all were coming up in the scene as live performers, but also online.
Yang: We were trying to come up as live performers, and we encountered institutional barriers. Like, “This comedy theater won’t put up my show. I guess I gotta go find something else. Let’s go to Brooklyn and do shows there.” Twitter was the same thing. I was doing lip-sync videos to long “Erin Brockovich” monologues — before TikTok, before it became this conventional thing. Like, “Oh, yes, let’s do the 70th take of this stupid scene.”
Sennott: You’re alone in your house, like, “I have to nail it.”
Yang: I really think that “I Love L.A.” gave me, as someone who doesn’t totally understand influencer culture as much as I would like to, a genuine, authentic peek at it. But it’s, like, elevated. And nothing thrilled me more than to see, at the end of the finale, “Directed by Rachel Sennott.” I was like, “Let’s go.”
Sennott: I actually wanted to ask you: Did you feel like you were starting a scene in New York? Because when you booked me on your show, I was like, “Oh my God, this is a community that I’ve been dying to be a part of.” Meanwhile, I was trying to get into Comedy Cellar, and they were like, “You gotta work here as a waitress and blow two of the guys,” and I was like, “I don’t know if this is for me.”
Yang: I certainly look back on it now like, “Oh, if I could tell those people what wonderful things would happen to them. If Ayo Edebiri just knew what the next few years would be for her, if I could tell Cat Cohen and Pat Regan what their careers would turn out to be, if I could tell Matt Rogers what his career would turn out to be …” That would ruin something though.
Mary Ellen Matthews for Variety
Sennott: No. You couldn’t tell us. What do you miss most about that time? And what’s something where you’re like, “You couldn’t take me back”?
Yang: I miss the stakes not being really being [high].
Sennott: But we so thought they were.
Yang: We were like, “A junior exec from Comedy Central is in the audience!” And now it’s like, “Well, sure.” But of course, at the time the stakes felt so high. What I wouldn’t want back is I hated putting my own cues together. You have to talk to some guy in the back like, “OK, no. The lights have to come up on ‘cum,’ not ‘penis.’
Sennott: And then during the show, you’re like, “Cum!” [She pauses, then angrily gestures for lights to come up.]
Yang: I don’t miss that. But I feel like you’re making those micro-decisions all the time as a director.
Sennott: What was interesting about showrunning and directing was realizing how many small things you have to decide. I was making so many decisions on set that I became so unable to make a decision outside of it. My boyfriend was like, “What are you thinking for dinner?” I was like — full breakdown. So overwhelmed.
Yang: Like, “Oh, I’m making a funny show, and yet I feel so crazy miserable.”
Sennott: It is kind of insane when you’re like, “The fart’s gotta be louder.”
Yang: And you’re so serious. There’s a conversation around comedy that’s been going on for years: “How much do we agree that this is actually important?” In awards, it doesn’t have the same valuation as dramas, but it’s harder for a show like “I Love L.A.” to be optimistic about the bleak state of the world, and how we’re motivated by these shallow things. It’s harder for you to do that than it is for a drama to be cynical about it, I think.
Sennott: I was always seeing everything as serious for the characters, and wanting to find them funny — but not just make a joke of them. Putting them in different situations where you get to play with that is fun.
I would love to hear about your decision to leave “SNL,” and what made you decide to leave mid-season.
Yang: I was kind of resolute the season before, about leaving. There was a lot of uncertainty about what the show would look like after Season 50. I was like, “I think the show is in a great place without me.” I never felt like I was that central to it, to be honest.
Sennott: Disagree.
Yang: Well, I feel like there was a weird utility to me. I was like, “OK, I’ve accepted this.” I never played the dad or the straight-man teacher. I was always there as the seasoning, and I’m like, “That’s great. I’m so lucky. I can’t believe I have a steady job in comedy. I will cherish it for the rest of my life.” And I just felt like it was the right time. And then Lorne [Michaels] called me while I was at the U.S. Open eating Coqodaq chicken, and he was like, “Listen, you should come back. These are the people I’ve hired. It’s a lot of new kids, and a lot of people left. You should be there to set an example for them, at least in the first half of the season. I’m telling you, it would be very important.”
It was the first time I felt someone who made so many things possible for me being like, “I need you.” And I’m like, “I’m not going to turn that down.” I felt good about it, and I was like, “Let’s make sure to hire these writers.” Our friend Jack Bensinger is there now. It was my one chance to till the soil.
Sennott: Did you feel like you were able to give the new people the lay of the land?
Yang: I hope so. I think so. Jeremy Culhane is in the show now, and he’s very character-driven the way that I am. We wrote some stuff together. I don’t think it made it to air ever, but that’s OK. That’s part of it.
On my last day, the whole cast signed this cue card with little messages, and it all came full circle with what Lorne was saying to me. Ashley Padilla, who was having one of the best seasons anyone’s ever had, wrote — I hope it’s OK that I’m sharing this — “You taught me how to be at this show, how to behave and how to treat people, and thank you. I’ll never forget that.”
That’s the thing I’m proudest of. My last sketch — I hope the footage never makes it out, of me at table read, because I’m a fucking mess, sobbing — the thing that broke me was just saying, “The thing I love most about this place is the people. Look how hard they work.” I’m between Ariana Grande and Cher, and I look out, and it’s basically every single person who works at that show. I’d never seen that before for anyone else’s departure. I was like, “Oh, this is the most rewarding snapshot I can ever internalize in my life. I don’t think I’ll ever encounter this ever again.” Just looking out at the people who have seen me struggle and fail and succeed. The people who have put in the hours with me.
Sennott: Having Ariana Grande host, did that feel like worlds colliding, because it’s another show family? Because “Wicked” was a more involved shoot.
Yang: Yeah. And “SNL” was the thing that opened the door, and “Wicked” was incredibly difficult — just the flights.
Sennott: What did you discover about yourself flying back and forth for “Wicked”?
Yang: That I need Lexapro. And thank God — Wellbutrin was not the girl for me. It just made me even more crazy. But then there are the people like Ariana Grande and every other big host who comes through, and you’re like, “How do you do that?” And they’re always like, “I just tell myself I can.” I’m like, “That can’t be it.” But I believe them.
Sennott: We believe them.
Yang: We believe women.
Sennott: Also, I feel like Ariana is probably someone who naturally, without even realizing it, knows how to adjust to jet lag before she even has it.
Yang: She shows up to set an hour and a half early every day. But having Ariana there, and Cher —Cher got booked through Keri Powers, one of our amazing bookers at “SNL,” and she runs up to me sobbing, like, “I booked Cher for you.” I was like, “I can’t deal with that. I’m the luckiest gay guy to ever live.” And having Ari there, she was just such a good friend the entire time. Like, “Oh my God, you’re making this about me and you should be making this about you! You’re you!”
Sennott: We’re here doing Actors on Actors. This isn’t your first time doing it, for real or for fake — the “SNL” parody of Actors on Actors. What was it like doing that?
Yang: That was my last topical sketch I ever wrote. Like, “It’s the holidays. Let’s have Good King Wenceslas talk to the Little Drummer Boy.”
Sennott: [Affects a self-serious tone] The Grinch being like, “And my heart [grew] three times,” and everyone’s like, “Yes, yes.”
And we’re now doing that.
Yang: I think we’re transcending that. We’re yapping. I love to gab. I think this is “Gabbers on Gabbers.” I have a question about “I Love L.A.” Season 2. I can’t believe you’re doing all of these things. “Big Mistakes” on Netflix. Tell me about you in this time right now. I think people don’t appreciate Rachel Sennott in her writer bag enough.
Sennott: Thank you. I am in my writer bag. There is something so crazy about being in a writers’ room and then doing stuff like this on the weekends, because it feels like such different modes. When you’re in writer mode, you feel like your mind is eating itself sometimes. You wake up in the middle of the night like, “Wait a second, this has to happen.” And then you have days where you’re in flow state, and you go, “Just wait till they get a load of this.” And then you bring in the other three people, and you pitch your idea from yesterday, and as you’re on sentence three, you’re like, “This is not going to work.”
I think I learned what a writers’ room is on Season 1, because all my writing experience had been either solo or with one other writing partner. Everyone would pitch stuff, and in my head I would be like, “OK, so all of those things have to happen.” I would be so afraid to let go of something that I was exerting extra mental energy that I didn’t need to [and getting] a tension headache at the end of the day, working backwards from “Well, I really want to end the episode with her in a pool.” I just wanted that idea, and we can get there, but also try a version where she’s in the pool in the middle of the episode. Or the beginning. Or there’s no pool. Or maybe the pool episode happens in Season 2. Releasing my grip helped a lot.
Yang: A lot of other shows about showbiz aren’t this honest about that mentality towards it. I really want people to understand that you’ve done something special. I don’t totally buy the comparisons to other HBO shows about friends of the past, because there’s a statement here in “I Love L.A.” that was not quite as concise in these other shows. You’re saying something about the way the world works, and I really hope you own that.
Sennott: I feel so, so blessed to have known you since I first started in comedy.
Yang: Ditto.
Sennott: A lot of times people change, and you have been constant and steady in the way that you are welcoming, lovely, funny, talented. On time. Early!
Yang: Either one.