While David Spade is associated with one of the most iconic Saturday Night Live casts, he recently shared that he struggled to find his footing when he started on the show.
In the latest episode of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, Spade recalled how after he auditioned alongside Rob Schneider and future SpongeBob SquarePants voice actor Tom Kenny, he was initially hired onto the show as a writer.
However, the experience was not an easy adjustment — as many former SNL cast members have attested to in the past. Spade and O’Brien, who also served as a writer, exchanged stories about how little guidance there was when they first started on the show.
“When I look back, it was hard for me to get a foothold,” Spade said.
What’s more, working with big personalities like Schneider, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, and Dana Carvey, gave Spade a bit of a “nice guy finishing last” feeling.
“I mean, obviously, Sandler caught fire pretty quick, and he’s got so many moves, all these characters. Everything was happening so fast. I was like, ‘Holy s—.’ He really came in loaded,” Spade said. “And Dana, obviously, is so good on the show, and Farley right from the get go. So I just didn’t have that. I was sort of just a comedian that could write some funny stuff, but it took a while.”
Spade recalled a memorable interaction with longtime SNL writer Robert Smigel, during which Smigel noted that Schneider was “tough, but he was valuable. Worth having around.”
He continued, “And I was like, ”I want to be valuable.’ That’s when it hit me. You want someone in a position like Smigel was, ‘We need you around.'”
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Now, though, Spade loves being “lumped in” with Sandler, Farley, Chris Rock, and the rest of the cast and writers from his tenure.
“That was just a big chunk of people that you could look to anyone and go, ‘Oh, I can learn something from this guy. I can learn how to write, or I can learn how to perform or look at the table read.’ It took a while to seep in, and then I got better at it,” he said.
Spade clearly found his footing, parlaying his SNL stint into a successful movie career including the hit movie Tommy Boy co-starring Farley.
To hear David Spade’s full interview on Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, click below.
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