Jones joined the NBC show in 2014 as a writer and was promoted to regular cast member during season 40.

Leslie Jones says it was ‘frustrating’ being typecast on SNL as ‘the angry Black woman’

Jones joined the NBC show in 2014 as a writer and was promoted to regular cast member during season 40.

By Kathleen Perricone

June 24, 2026 12:06 a.m. ET

Leave a Comment

Leslie Jones in a 'Fox and Friends' sketch on 'SNL' in 2015. Credit:

Dana Edelson/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

- Leslie Jones talks about being typecast on Saturday Night Live during her five seasons on the NBC sketch comedy show.

- "It was kind of frustrating that they would always make me the girl that was angry and beating up people," she said on *The Sam Sanders Show*.

- Jones says her time on *SNL* was "bittersweet" because it was fun, "but I don't miss the mental part of it."

Leslie Jones got big laughs on *Saturday Night Live*, but the comedian didn't always find her characters to be so funny.

Jones' five seasons on the NBC sketch comedy series were "bittersweet" due to the typecasting she faced, she said in a new interview on KCRW podcast *The Sam Sanders Show*.

In general, she said, *SNL* tends to "make you a character of yourself." But for Jones, it felt stereotypical.

"It was kind of frustrating that they would always make me the girl that was angry and beating up people or in love with a white boy," she recalled to Sanders. "They just always would make me angry or I'm fighting somebody."

For several seasons, she went along with the joke, even if she wasn't okay with it.

"I wanted to be on the show," Jones told Sanders, "and at the time I didn’t think that [typecasting] was what was happening ‘till it kept happening. And then, like, every time I would get a sketch, I was like, 'Okay, who am I beating up this week?'"

Asked if she thought *SNL* was "a good place" for Black comics, Jones would only say, "I think that it is the machine that it is."

Leslie Jones shares 'SNL' moment that had everyone crying with laughter: 'Even Lorne is dying'

Leslie Jones looks back on major 'SNL' bomb that got her yelled at by stage manager: 'I freaked out'

Jones joined the show during season 39, after *SNL* faced criticism for the lack of diversity among its staff. One of the three Black women hired in 2014, she started out in the writers' room. But a joke the six-foot comic made on *Weekend Update* about how she would have been "the No. 1 slave draft pick" sparked controversy — and promotion to regular cast member on season 40.

Jones, the oldest person to join the show at age of 47, went on to receive two Emmy Award nominations before she left in 2019.

"I loved being there," she told Sanders. "It was great, it was fun, but I don't miss the mental part of it."

Leslie Jones in an 'SNL50' skit with fellow alums Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan, and Eddie Murphy in 2025.

Chris Haston/NBC via Getty

Jones was one of the many alums who returned to Studio H8 in 2025 for the *SNL50* anniversary special. In a "Black Jeopardy" sketch hosted by Keenan Thompson, she competed as "Shanice" against "Darius" (Tracy Morgan) and Eddie Murphy impersonating the real Tracy Morgan.

But the highlight of the night was meeting *The Last of Us* star Pedro Pascal — who she mistakenly kept calling by the wrong name.

***Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our ******EW Dispatch newsletter******.***

"Let me tell you, [I] called him Pablo until he told me his name is Pedro," Jones confessed on Vulture's *Good One* podcast. "So, I was like, 'Pablo, Pablo.' And he was like, 'Pedro.' And I was like, 'Pablo.' He's like, 'Pedro.' And I was like, 'Who the f--- is Pedro?' And he was like, 'That's my name.'"

"I was like, 'Oh, okay. I'll call you Pedro. Even though Pablo's better,'" she recalled, with a laugh. "He's so cute, too."

- Saturday Night Live

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Saturday”