‘SNL’ Icon Reveals Why He’s So ‘Resistant’ to Going Back

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Though he’s hosted SNL twice since his departure, in 2014 and 2018, Hader told Puck’s Matt Belloni that he struggles with the idea of returning to Studio 8H. He’s been open ...

Bill Hader has revealed why he’s always been hesitant to return to Saturday Night Live.

The comedian was an SNL cast member from 2005 to 2013 and gained notoriety for characters like the flamboyant nightlife correspondent Stefon and for his impressions of Dateline’s Keith Morrison. Hader went on to create and star in the hit dark comedy series Barry, for which he won two Emmy Awards.

Though he’s hosted SNL twice since his departure, in 2014 and 2018, Hader told Puck’s Matt Belloni that he struggles with the idea of returning to Studio 8H. He’s been open about having stage fright-induced panic attacks during his eight years on the show, and he once suffered migraine so painful he lost his vision before heading onstage.

Hader was one of a very small handful of prominent SNL alums who declined to appear in the SNL50 special in 2025. He told Belloni that his absence was due to both a scheduling conflict with his daughter and his house burning down in the Palisades wildfires. However, he also said he’d been waffling over the decision before that.

“To be fair, before the house burned down, I was kind of going, ‘I don’t know,’” Hader said on The Town with Matt Belloni podcast. “My daughter had something going on, and I am always resistant to go back. I’ve always been that way. I don’t know what it is. And it changes. You might catch me in a moment where I’m fine.”

When Belloni asked him whether it was his anxiety or “a desire to move on” that held him back, Hader said, “It’s a bit of both.” He also said he’s aware that people want a reprisal of his characters.

“I talk to my therapist about it all the time,” Hader said. “She’s like, ‘I know the house burned down, and I know you guys are living in a hotel, but, Stefon!’”

He received an invitation from his former castmate Andy Samberg to appear in an SNL50 digital short about how “every single person who ever worked at SNL had anxiety.” But Hader turned that down, too.

When Samberg asked, “I was like, ‘I don’t know if I want to do…

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