Ariana DeBose says “there’s no better training” for SNL than performing on Broadway.
The West Side Story star — who hosted the NBC sketch comedy show in January that features regulars Kenan Thompson, Pete Davidson, Bowen Yang and others — found the costume changes much less tricky than when she worked in the musicals Bring it On and Hamilton.
Speaking after being named as a nominee for the EE BAFTA Rising Star Award, the 30-year-old actress exclusively told BANG Showbiz: “There’s no better training for something like a live show, like ‘Saturday Night Live’ than theatre.”
She continued: “If you can do theatre and Broadway quick changes, like Broadway quick changes are six to four seconds long. And these lovely, lovely gals, were like, ‘Cool thing, you’ve got a two-minute quick-change,’ and I said, ‘That is not quick.’”
In addition, the Golden Globe winner found her live theatre background helpful with handling and correcting mistakes.
She said: “Also being on stage, and you know, potentially making a mistake and having to correct it in real-time on a Broadway stage, you’re doing that on a live show. It is the greatest training I’ve ever had because otherwise there’s no way to prepare for a show like that.”
Continue reading on the next page.
