Why Jim Breuer Quit SNL

I didn't even want SNL. I didn't want SNL. You and I both know that was a... nobody came out of there going, that's the greatest gig. It's very rarely people came out of there. They come out of there like they were in a fight. Absolutely. Like they just got out of a fucking bar fight. Exactly. Fucking. That's how Phil Hartman was. When I first started working with Phil Hartman in 94, he had just left SNL and he... it took a while for him to be comfortable around us. Yeah. The news radio people, the actors were super friendly. Yes. Everybody liked to get hammered. That was like the big thing. We would get fucking blasted drunk. Yeah. But we were all like really... like in terms of like actors, genuinely supportive. Like Dave Foley was the most supportive guy ever. Like he was always writing jokes for you. He was always like rewriting scenes for you. Like, Jim, why don't you come in and say this instead? He would write like really great lines. But Phil was like... he was in a competition at first. He thought like everybody was going to be competent. Once he relaxed, Phil liked to smoke weed. And once he relaxed, he's like, you know, going over there was like... everybody was like doggy dog and everybody's at each other's throats. It's doggy dog. And there's no rhyme or reason. There's no rhyme or reason. It's just like politics. In other words, I can't help with Congress what bill they're going to pass. Even they know... Even they know this is going to work. Nope. It's the same exact thing. Because you're fighting to get your bits on, right? You're fighting to get your pieces on. You're fighting to get your little sketches on. Yeah. And the worst part is you know something's going to work and you have someone come to you... Towards the end, it made me such a dark human being because I'm the, hey man, let's all... let's all be team. And when I worked with hats, I said let's look at this roster. Holy crap. Let's see who goes in the Boston Comedy Club. Let's just buy a script and put everyone in it and let them play to their strength. Wow, you know, this one. I'm like, I wish I had the business smarts to go back and do that because you're... It would have been so much fun. Maybe it would have been a disaster. Maybe I would have ended up getting leather pants. I got my fucking white lion leather pants. But it makes you so... You know, I don't want to rehash bad memories. You never got bitter, but you understood that bitterness is an option. Correct. And I start smoking an intense amount of pot. Just to numb myself. I remember when you told me you quit and you're like, dude, I'm hearing voices. I think the government's following me. You went so far. I went far. I went Jim quit. But then I talked to you, oh, he might have went into Never Never Land. He went into the land of no return. Well... When you start thinking that the government is watching you. Nonstop. Nonstop. They're on me because they know I think by myself. It's like the scene in Goodfellas. Goddammit. Fucking hella... I fucking love that scene. But I will say this. Yeah, I have... Have you returned to the fold? I haven't returned the way I have in the past. Oh, but a little bit. But I have... I have... You will never see me. It's very private. You're a private weed smoker? Yeah. How does that work? In other words, I don't do it with people anymore because it keeps the paranoia away because I don't trust anyone. Oh, okay. I don't trust anyone. I still don't... And I haven't smoked, smoked. I like... I went out to Colorado into five little milligrams. Fives are nice. Those little edibles? Oh my God. Five's nice. Yes, just have that. Gentle. Yeah, and then have like a martini. I'm sad. Yeah, yeah, martini. Extra dirty? Not too dirty. I like it dirty. I like it. I like it not crazy dirty, but a little dirty. A little dirty. I like that olive juice. It's delicious. I do too. So, here's what happened. My wife... This is why my wife's a powerhouse. When you find someone that don't give a shit about the industry and they only care about you, it's very hard as an artist that's chasing a star, because you're always chasing the star and you're always chasing the mansion, she would go, I'll never forget. She's like, why don't you just quit? Like seriously, are you stupid? You don't quit. Sine 8 Live? What the hell is... And she's like, look at you. You come home, you're miserable. They control everything. They steal your ideas. This one stole... I saw my own two eyes, how they treated you in this particular... How do they steal your ideas? Here we go. I'll give you... You sure you don't want to get high first? No. Let's go take a pee break. Let's take a pee break. And again, I've released all this. I got a strong moral backbone. I'm good. So no, I don't have any bad feelings. What happened was, and I'm not going to put out... I don't want to hash names and all that, but what would happen is something like this. You're writing a sketch. And then one of the head writers would come in in the doorway and go, hey, I see you're writing a sketch about blah, blah, blah, because we have the main server and we check everyone's sketches. I just want to let you know I'm writing the same thing. He goes, you can continue yours, but I'm in the room with Lauren. I'm just... Whoa. Oh, yeah. So this is that... So they would go onto the server. They would see the sketches that you're writing. And then... Then there was times where a cast member would come in and look at my board and go, oh, what does that mean? Like, oh, that's a sketch. And I know so-and-so's come in. And I know the ratings are going to be high that week, so I'm waiting to bring my A stuff for that. Everyone's going to come out with their fangs out when this one's on. So I'm going to save that sketch for when they're on. And then this person would ask me, oh, my God, what exactly? I said, well, I'm going to take it out of its element. I got back there. I was like, Pesci. I'm like, Pesci's going to read to children about Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and explain why his nose is red. And the big joke is, because he's a rat and I compare it to a whole neighborhood. He's a rat. Why his nose is red when you go. And so he had a beat in certain kids. The next week, the whole room is set and you're sitting there and then this person, you know, Lauren goes, next sketch is Al Pacino with Scarface reading to schoolchildren Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. And you go, you and you look, you see their eyes are down. You know what's going on. You know what happened. You can't say anything. Well, when you say something, which I eventually did, dude, I think I may be and I want to challenge all SNL cast and writers. I may be the last one that threatened violence. I was in I was in a room with one of the guys and I literally said, I will knock your fucking teeth down your fucking throat. You motherfucker. If you don't want to fucking be here, get the fuck out. You don't shit on my shit because you don't want to fucking. Oh, dude. And I was and I told him, I'm not getting the fuck, I'm not getting his fucking teeth down his throat. I'm not, I'm not from the writing world. So that's where that place brought me. And so, and that particular instance was, you know, I'm getting all over it. It's got to be coming from the top down because the when when I got alone with Philip, Phil and I became close and, you know, we would hang out together, especially in his his dress room. He had a nice dress room, had it all set up, had a guitar, looking at his aviation books and shit. And and he would we would talk about his time there. And he's like, it just made me that's just bitter and angry. Yes. Yeah. But it seems like it's always been that way, that it's been from the top down. And this particular year, were you on 95 to 98? So you were on right after Phil left. Yeah, because I was with Phil in 94. And so when that person did that, I then went up to them and I waited. And I was like, you motherfucker. He goes, I didn't know I didn't take it. Now this one also is getting more air time because they're in with this specific head writer. And then the head writer comes to me. Hey, man, leave him alone. I go, hey, man, stop him from stealing. Well, you know, I don't care what he does. Just leave him alone during my sketches. Like why you do so it's like you're in high school. And so yeah, it makes you. And then I remember doing something where I played a drunk guy. And I didn't know exactly how to do it, but I always wanted to be another Foster Brooks. So long story short, I want to do another Foster Brooks type thing. So I did the character. I'm not a great writer. I'm not a good writer at all. But like, I'll come up with the character and try to eat. And if we could put it in somewhere, great. And I remember the writer coming up saying, yeah, Lauren doesn't like drunks because, you know, the past and John and blah, blah, blah. Oh, okay. And then two weeks later, John Belushi, I guess that's what he meant. And then two weeks later, it's the drunk character. It just it's little things that mind screw you like that. So by the time the big finale was towards the end, you know, someone told me, you know what Sandler did. Sandler went through this. Everyone went through this. The meetings go through this. What you got to do is get on the update and you got to get in the do everything you can to go on the update and everything you can to opening monologue because the head writers can't mess with you. He goes, that's that's not really that it's so crazy that that's something you have to think about. So then that's why I started doing it. If you notice in 98, I started getting more monologues. And then even there, they were like, we got this. And then it was a final monologue. It was Matthew Broderick. And it was when Matthew Broderick was on and he couldn't get through some of the sketches I was doing with him. He started laughing. And so when we went to he really wanted to do this monologue with me and this one, these these particular head writers were like, no, we're not doing it. Although Matthew was like, I want to do Jim's. I want to do Jim and Tracy's. And there was two, three sketches we had together and he laughed during the dress. Like he couldn't keep a straight face. And then I remember the head this particular writer had a problem with I never probably still like whatever you had a hard on for me or whatever. I can't I don't I don't understand ego. You got to ego is what is and he said, yeah, it's too bad he laughed because now we don't know if it works. So that's going to be cut in this cut. And you listen, we filmed the monologue. It worked, but we're going to go my monologue during the air show. I was like, you know what, man, I'm going to talk to Lauren. He goes, no, you know, I said, no, I'm talking to Lauren. Now I'm not afraid to talk to Lauren anymore because that's another thing. It's like, you know, I talked to the president. Don't talk to the president. They put this so that he would say, no, you're not going to talk to Lauren. 100 percent. We'll talk to him. No, we'll both go talk to him. And then that's I knew right from that minute I was done. I knew I was done. And then that summer, this guy named Gary Considine, he ran a tonight show and he said, Jim, what happened to I said, what's the matter? He goes, so and so and so and so are are really saying you're out. And I went, really? I go, well, tell you what, I don't want to be there anymore. My wife's like, just please quit. She says, you said in your life, if any job, no matter how much money it paid, makes you a miserable human being and changes the person you are, you weren't going to work there. She's like, look at you. You angry all the time. You smoke pot all the time to numb yourself. You're not Jim anymore. Where's the goofy uplifting Jim? And I wanted to talk. I wanted to know like you're so stupid, but. Shush, stupid. But she was so smart. She was so smart and it was the greatest. And I give Lauren a lot of credit because Lauren said to me, Jim, you're too nice for this business. And he said, which I'll never forget, it was a couple of things Lauren said. And I never blamed Lauren. I always really admired Lauren. I said, oh, he goes, and if you ever want to do something, I'm your producer or producer for you, which I never took that opportunity up. But I'll never forget when he said that to me. So I was very thankful that he was understanding and let me go. 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