NEW YORK — Kenan Thompson is a sketch-comedy savant.
He has seen how the tiniest diversion — uttering an errant word, glancing in the wrong direction, taking a half-second too long to rip off tearaway clothes — can create a disruption.
"He's a master in that studio," says Saturday Night Live executive producer Lorne Michaels. "He knows the best way to do just about everything."
That includes realizing how distracting it would be for the audience to know there's a performer with a broken arm. So when the SNL star got into a bike accident on his way to work four years ago, his first thought was: "'Oh my God, I have to go to the hospital, but I don't want it to be a story.'"
"The writers, they work so hard, they spend all night, and then the only thing people would be mentioning would be like, 'Did you see Kenan's broken arm?' That's whack," Thompson says. "You never know how long they've been incubating an idea that they got on the show that week."
He went to an urgent care clinic, slept sitting up and, before Wednesday's table read — during which performers run through roughly 40 sketches — Thompson called three places to find a doctor who could cast his arm discreetly and quickly.
Three days later, SNL was hosted by Donald Trump, probably the biggest distraction in the universe. But Thompson took no chances in creating a minor one, even for a moment. He strategically propped his clothed, fractured arm on his waist, delivered his lines and no one noticed. "Even just the smallest distraction throws off the potential of the experience of the joke," Thompson says. "You kind of don't have permission to not be perfect."
Thompson, 41, is hyper-aware of camera positions, timing and the ripple effect his actions have on people just trying to do their jobs. That serious professionalism, multiple colleagues say, is the other side to what television audiences see at home — the breeziness of a natural performer who can summon humor anywhere. It's a talent that puts him everywhere: as the straight man, as the bad guy, as the steady anchor in an iffy sketch centered on a rookie player. But his presence is like oxygen, not the sun. His power is essential, yet invisible, stimulating, not scorching.
"I would point to Kenan Thompson as the performer that I would watch and hope to attain that kind of confidence and ease and fun when he was performing," says SNL alumnus Bill Hader, who struggled with severe nervousness during his time on the show. "He was like the safety net."
Thompson, who will start his 17th season on the series in late September, occupies a rarefied place in popular culture. He's the longest-tenured cast member on a famously challenging show to endure, where comedy icons are molded and tend to leave. And although he has several other projects in the works, including a new NBC comedy due in 2020, he has no desire to walk away from SNL.
"That's the plan," Thompson says. "To never have to leave that show."
When Thompson was 5, his mother enrolled him in acting classes at the urging of her friend, who saw talent in his childish play. His first role — Toto in a church production of The Wiz — had no lines, but "he absolutely stole the show," she says.
He'd eventually go on to audition for 100 roles before ever booking a commercial gig.
Thompson eventually was hired to review movies on a kids' news show, which led to his role in D2: The Mighty Ducks and then Nickelodeon's All That.
The show, conceived as an SNL for children, debuted in 1994 and would endure as a cultural touchstone for '80s and '90s babies. For the next six years, Thompson juggled several jobs, including All That and, along with castmate Kel Mitchell, the spinoff series Kenan & Kel and the Good Burger movie.
Off-camera, Thompson moves and talks with quiet ease, his words deliberate. When he needs to perform, he slips into a different frequency without notice, like a sleight-of-hand magic trick. At the table reads, "you see this dude rock 25 sketches, and you're like, 'Oh man, he constantly finds it,' " says fellow SNL cast member Chris Redd.
It took several years for Thompson, who arrived at SNL in 2003, to find his footing. Then fan-favorite sketches like "What Up With That?" allowed his comedic, singing and directing chops to take center stage. In the fake BET talk show, Thompson's character playfully interrupts his famous guests with an increasingly elaborate theme song. "I had the best seat in the house," says Hader, who played a silent Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham in the recurring sketch. "I would just sit and watch him sing and dance and be hilarious and switch it up."
Thompson's approach to sketch comedy, he says, is to be just as entertained by the jokes as the audience watching at home. "Part of that is me not wanting to feel like I'm at work every single time I'm performing because that'll stress you out," he says. "And that panic can just take you out of a natural, good performance."
A lot of us can't remember a time before Thompson was on our televisions. He was Pierre Escargot on All That before he was "Black Jeopardy" host Darnell Hayes; our comedic sensibilities matured alongside his comedic abilities.
While gray speckles in his beard betray his youthful countenance, Thompson's face has largely remained the same. So when he takes a walk through Washington Square Park on a recent, cloudy, 101-degree New York day, he naturally gets recognized by a spectrum of people, including a young mother who asks for a picture with her son.
Thompson cites his family as the reason he was able to live most of his life in the insane world of celebrity while not succumbing to its pitfalls.
It was only a matter of time, Thompson reasons. Just like his decades-long career, "if you build up that steam, it's gotta have a release."
Style on 09/17/2019