Leslie Jones Knows Her Worth—and Refuses To Sit On Anyone’s Shelf
Leslie Jones sits down with W. Kamau Bell on Who’s With Me? and gives him exactly what anybody inviting Leslie Jones onto a podcast should expect: flirting before the official welcome, wildly specific Saturday Night Live memories and some genuinely sharp career advice.
The clearest lesson arrives when Bell asks how Jones moved from an SNL writer to a cast member. Leslie rejects the idea that she had to fight her way into the role.
“I know I’m funny,” she says. “I know that’s my talent. I had already went through the desperation thing, because desperation is the first thing someone with talent needs to get rid of.”
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Leslie Jones Is Booked, Busy And Roasting Rentals
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“You Are Talented. You’re Not Desperate.”
Jones says desperation makes artists accept anything and misuse the very thing that makes them valuable. Her alternative is far less glamorous and much smarter.
“Think in a different way,” she says. “If I’m not paying rent, get a job. And I had so many jobs. You don’t get rich until very much into your career. So get a good job, pay your taxes, pay your rent, keep health insurance. Don’t be dumb. Do it smart.”
That mindset shaped how she entered SNL. “I am a freelancer,” Leslie remembers thinking. “You are signing for my talent for a set amount of time.” She did not arrive expecting the institution to create her. “I came in to use their platform.”
When the show offered more Weekend Update appearances without making her a full cast member, Jones recognized the waiting game immediately. “I’m not going to sit on y’all’s shelf because y’all don’t want to let me go unless somebody else gets me.”
She Let SNL Know Other People Wanted Her
Jones began preparing a graceful exit while other television opportunities circled. Her message to the show was appreciative but firm: the experience had been a highlight, but she could not wait for somebody else to recognize her goals.
The interest from outside the building apparently helped make the decision very clear. Jones recalls Lorne Michaels telling her, “You’re not going to go win the Super Bowl somewhere else,” before offering her a cast position.
Leslie’s reply was pure Leslie: “You know I’m about to show my ass, right?”
She also negotiated from the understanding that she was doing two jobs. “You’re paying me to be a writer and a cast member. I’m not these kids.” More importantly, she never viewed her place on the show as a one-sided favor. “It wasn’t just me being excited to be there. It was me knowing that they need to be excited that I’m there.”
The SNL Workweek Was “100 Hours Physical, 100 Hours Mental”
Jones says fans still tell her they miss her on SNL, but she knew remaining there forever would close off everything else she wanted to do.
“If I don’t leave now, I won’t be able to leave,” she remembers deciding. “I need to leave now because I want to do so much more.”
She describes the weekly production cycle as “100 hours of physical and 100 hours of mental.” Sunday was technically the day off, but cast members were better off not texting one another while everybody processed what had been cut. By Monday, the entire machine started again.
Her advice to anyone inside that system is to keep writing. A sketch may die at the table, get rewritten or return another week. “You really have to have optimism,” she says. One rejection cannot become permission to stop putting material in the room.
Now She Is Roasting Vacation Rentals For HGTV
Jones ends the interview by promoting Roast My Rental, her new HGTV series with renovation expert Jasmine Roth. “We roast the vacation rentals and then we renovate them,” she says. “You would not realize how delusional people are about their rentals.”
The 11-episode series premieres Friday, July 24 at 10 p.m. ET/PT, with Leslie giving America’s most questionable short-term rentals a reality check before Roth and her team attempt a 72-hour transformation.
Before leaving, Leslie also directs listeners toward Brown Bag Lady, which feeds unhoused people in Los Angeles, and Planned Parenthood. She credits Planned Parenthood as her primary medical care before she could afford insurance—and reminds the men listening that the organization is for them too.
Watch Leslie Jones On “Who’s With Me?”
Watch Leslie Jones and W. Kamau Bell discuss her SNL audition, knowing her worth, surviving the show’s punishing schedule, leaving at the right time and everything she has coming next.
Source: Who’s With Me? and HGTV.
