Go & be a big Wiig on film
Unsolicited memo to Kristen Wiig: It’s fine. Really. Go.
Wiig has been making coy noises for the last week or two about rumors that she’s leaving “Saturday Night Live” to pursue other things, like painting in Paris or becoming an even bigger movie star than she has already become with “Bridesmaids.”
We all know those noises. We know the kind of body language she was employing Monday on WNYC’S “Here’s the Thing With Alec Baldwin.” They mean she’s already made up her mind, but she just can’t say so.
As her agent pointed out to Us magazine, decisions like this are traditionally announced at the end of the season.
Fine. There’s a place for protocol. But if all these rumors and allusions are just a way to soften up “SNL” fans for Wiig’s departure, they aren’t necessary.
Wiig herself nailed it by telling Baldwin she loves working on the show and she loves all her wonderful pals there, but still, she will leave “when it’s time to go.”
And hey, whattya know, will ya look at that watch! It’s time!
Leaving “SNL” for the movies, or a prime-time show on TV, is a path so well-beaten that at this point, it’s more like a canyon.
Unless you’re Lorne Michaels, or Don Pardo, “SNL” isn’t a career. It’s a place you stop and stay for a while and if you’re lucky or good, you get famous and move on to another place.
“SNL” is the most famous and productive launching pad this side of Cape Canaveral. It’s a showcase from which movies and prime-time TV have been plucking talent since the first season, when Chevy Chase quit to go into the movies.
Assuming that’s at least part of Wiig’s plan, she’ll be following in footsteps left by everyone from Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray and John Belushi through Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscopo, Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.
That doesn’t mean everyone who left “SNL” became a star. It just means “SNL” leaves a golden thumbprint on any resume. How many other TV shows from 1975 have alumni like Garrett Morris and Jane Curtin in regular roles on prime-time shows (“2 Broke Girls” and “Body of Proof”) in 2012?
The timing for Wiig, meanwhile, couldn’t be better.
“Bridesmaids,” which she co-wrote, was honored and acclaimed and made almost $300 million.
She’s also in the Judd Apatow family, and since he’s always running about 15 projects and he loves to keep working with people he likes, it’s pretty certain her phone will keep ringing.
As for “SNL,” will it suffer without Gilly and the Target Lady and Aunt Linda and Wiig’s Taylor Swift impressions?
Short-term, yeah, sure. People who tune in for Wiig characters, or her “Weekend Update” bits, will miss them.
But that’s mitigated by two other truths.
One, while Wiig has more versatility than a lot of past “SNL” performers, any sketch comic is going to be doing reruns after a while. The same vocal mannerisms or expressions begin creeping into more than one character. Through no fault of hers, things just aren’t as fresh in 2012 as they were in 2007.
That leads to two, which is that “SNL” actually benefits from its tradition of unbroken turnover.
The Lord, or Lorne Michaels for that matter, never intended for performers to become institutions on the show. That’s one of the main reasons it has lasted almost four decades — because it keeps thing fresh whether they need freshening at that particular moment or not.
By chance or design, Michaels works on the principle that it’s better for someone to leave a year early than a year late.
Does this make “SNL” erratic? Sure. Does it mean there are fallow periods where the talent just isn’t top-line? Sure.
But cumulatively, over the long term, it has kept “SNL” stronger by forcing it to keep reinventing itself. It gives each new cycle of viewers their own stars and favorites.
So go, Kristen. Enjoy. And once in a while, send home a tweet.