David Alan Grier: I turned down the chance to become an SNL cast member after I hosted the show

The Daily Beast

“NBC came and they offered me a spot on SNL. This was after In Living Color," said Grier, who hosted Saturday Night Live in 1995 and 1997, in an interview with The Last Laugh podcast. "They said, will you join the cast? But for me, it was like, when you’re the host, you call all the shots. So I said, I can’t be in front of the cast and then six months later I’m behind the cast. Like, ‘Isn’t that the dude that was hosting like nine months ago?’ Also, after doing In Living Color, I wanted to do a different kind of show. So I didn’t do it, but I still go and see people on SNL and visit and Lorne (Michaels) and those guys are so gracious. I remember after my first time hosting, Lorne called me in his office and he said, ‘David, I want you to think of SNL like your second home. It’s a lot like our relationship that we had with Steve Martin or Tom Hanks. Inside my brain’s exploding. And after that, I never heard from Lorne.”