Saturday Night Live alum Kristen Wiig reveals she had 'breakdown' on show after hitting creative wall

Comedienne Kristen Wiig had a 'breakdown' on Saturday Night Live after she hit a creative wall on the show. 

Wiig, 52, joined the variety series in 2005 and spent seven years cracking up audience members until her departure in 2012. 

But she left a mark on the show, with her time on the series garnering her four Emmy nominations along with numerous invitations to return as a guest. 

As effortless as Wiig made it seem on camera, even she struggled to keep up with the show's demands for fresh, new sketches every week.   

Wiig got real about just how difficult it was to continuously come up with new characters during an appearance on Bowen Yang and Matt Roger's podcast, Las Culturistas.  

'I auditioned twice and I remember when they had me come back for the second one, I was like, "I like did everything. I did everything. I literally did every character that I have." And three seasons in, having a breakdown, "I've done every voice. I have nothing,"' she said.

Bowen, who recently departed Saturday Night Live after six years, admitted to feeling similarly during his second season. 

Wiig said working with other people helped her overcome the creative block. 

'That's how you feel,' she said. 'And then that's that hump you get over with also the help of other people being like, "Can you play blah blah blah?" And you're like, ‘Well, we’ll see.’ And then you end up trying or doing it. It doesn't always work. And then you just like find new things.'

Wiig, who initially developed characters by finding their voice, then leaned into another method to create them. 

'And then you find other ways to find characters. Like it became not just vocal, right? It became like physical.'

'The "Don't Make Me Sing." That came from just standing like that,' she said with her hands on her waist. 'Let's just do something that someone stands like this,’ because I was like, "I'm out of things to do."

Bowen then brought up Wiig's character Rebecca LaRue, praising her for quickly turning around a disappointing dress rehearsal performance into one that ended up working on air.  

'I would say at dress, I was shocked, and I'm just saying this - I don't think it really played. And then, on air, I don't know what you guys did,' he said. 

'It's probably because it didn't play. I was like, "I'm gonna go for it,"' she said. 

'But you figured it out! Within 45 minutes to an hour! That's incredible,' Bowen said.

'I don't remember that,' Wiig said. 

'It's my top three characters that you've done on the entire show,' Rogers said. 

After her seven-season tenure ended in 2012, Wiig has gone on to star in such movies as Ghostbusters (2016), Downsizing (2017) and Wonder Woman 1984 (2020).

In 2020, she married comedian Avi Rothman after four years of dating.

That same year, they welcomed her twins, Shiloh and Luna, via surrogate.