Darrell Hammond Left SNL Set Thinking He’d ‘Disgraced’ Himself

Saturday Night Live alum Darrell Hammond is getting candid about his tenure on the show.

The comedian, who was a cast member on the NBC sketch show from 1995 to 2009 and famously impersonated Bill Clinton, revealed that he didn’t always share in the audience’s laughter after going home from work.

“Back when I was in SNL, it was a real up and down thing for me, because most of the time I left that show thinking that I … I’m going to say 50 percent of the time when I left that show, I thought I had disgraced myself,” Hammond said on the Monday, September 9, episode of the “Amy & T.J.” podcast, per Entertainment Weekly.

Hammond, 68, told podcast hosts Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes he recently saw a picture of him and former costar Tracy Morgan from their time on SNL, which brought back old memories. He recalled struggling with SNL’s first turnaround to produce a new live episode every week.

“The memories sort of came flooding back how, how dissatisfied I was with what it was I was doing,” he explained. “And I think because of the degree of difficulty. I mean, you go to see a Vegas tribute act, someone doing an impression. It’s brilliant, and we love them, but they’ve worked years on it. Now try doing it on Wednesday before a Saturday. Never done this before. Never done this one before.”

“You think you’re gonna have 48 hours before Saturday, you’re not,” Hammond continued. “You might have five or six because there’s a whole bunch of other things you gotta do. So taking that out there, there are times where my nerves would get so brittle. I’d say, ‘Why am I doing this? Damn.’”

Hammond held the title of SNL’s longest-serving cast member during his run, but he has now been surpassed by Kenan Thompson, who has been on the show since 2003.

Hammond returned to SNL in 2014 as the show’s full-time announcer, replacing the late Don Pardo.

“I sat in for Don when he had laryngitis several times over the years,” Hammond told USA Today at the time. “He was a lovely person. When he passed, they wanted me. It felt right for me to be the one to replace him. It’s been a very improbable life. I didn’t expect something like this, but it feels real good.”