Saturday Night Live is now in its 50th year, and the show is commemorating the occasion in a wide variety of ways. One form of commemoration has come from New York Magazine, which published a series of conversations with many current and former members of the show. It was in that roundtable that former cast member Pete Davidson mentioned how much he got paid while he was on the show.
Davidson brought the topic up after he was asked what he did with his first paycheck. “Do you guys know what they pay us?” he said. “It’s like three grand an episode. I think I got dinner.”
Jason Sudeikis said something similar, saying that his SNL salary was not enough to justify any major purchases. “I mean, you don’t make enough money to make big purchases, so I think New York rent was probably the biggest purchase I made after writing my first year on ‘SNL.’” Suedeikis was hired as a writer on the show in 2003 and was then a cast member from 2005 to 2013.
Other former cast members included in the video were James Austin Johnson, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Sarah Silverman, Sarah Sherman, Cheri Oteri, Seth Meyers, Rachel Dratch, and Bowen Yang.
“I bought a pair of shoes that were out of my budget,” Louis-Dreyfus said in her answer. “I’m going to tell you, they were $75.”
“A couch. I have gotten it reupholstered three or four times,” Oteri added. “I remember a designer coming over in tears, and he goes, ‘OK, those arms are too high. We have to get … We’re going to get rid of that couch.’ I said, ‘Oh no. No, you’re not. Not today, Satan. No, the couch is staying. You’re going.’”
