Bill Murray Defends SNL amid Critiques of ‘Lousy’ Cast, Says He’s Eyeing a Hosting Slot During the 50th Season

Bill Murray will always be a fan of Saturday Night Live.

During an appearance on Jason and Travis Kelce’s New Heights podcast, Murray, 64, reminisced on his experiences on the famous sketch comedy show. Addressing criticism that it isn’t as funny as it used to be, the actor said he disagrees.

“They’re actually doing really great [sketches] now,” he said. “People always give me a hard time about, ‘Oh, god. The original show was so great, and it’s lousy now.’ I’m like, ‘No it’s not.’ The show that’s on now, they do stuff that’s just as good as anybody ever did, all the time.”

“And the damn producer has gotten so good,” he added about creator Lorne Michaels. “He’s gotten so damn good at it. He’s just ruthless.”

The Ghostbusters star said the show’s success was largely due to Michaels’ push for getting “the best in the business” to help bring it together.

“This is old news, but when Lorne got that show together, he demanded from NBC that they give him the best sound man, the best sound mixer, the best technical director, the best lighting guy, the best prop man,” he said.

Murray, who was a cast member on SNL from 1977 to 1980, also opened up about the role cast members play in the final version of each skit, crediting the “improvisational players” for their skills. 

“The ones that could do that just seemed to be able to work together better, especially because you’d write the show on a weekly basis — you only had a couple days to write it,” he said. “So those actors that had that kind of training could solve the puzzle of the sketch on the air almost. You could go like, ‘Hey, wait, what if…’ and you just sort of go there in the last hour or 2 just to make it right.”

“You could rewrite just because you were aware,” he continued. 

As for his future on the NBC series, Murray revealed he would “certainly” return to host for a sixth time during the 50th season — much to the excitement of Travis, who hosted SNL in March 2023.

“I told them I’d like to host one this year,” he shared. “I’d like to try it one more time because that might be the last time to try it.”

“When I go back, the guys down at the desk say, ‘Do you have a photo ID, sir?’” he joked. “And I gotta go, ‘Would you mind dialing this number and seeing if someone would come down and get me?’ We used to breeze through that place. We owned that building once upon a time and I can’t get through security!”

Saturday Night Live airs Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC.