SNL's Kenan Thompson on Tough Accents, New Sketches, and His Dream Guest Host

You do a great Steve Harvey too. Did you develop that when you worked on his show?

Yeah, I did it on the show once before and I don't know -- when you spend that much time with a person with that big of a personality, it's not that hard to fashion your interpretation of them. We do it all the time in the office to each other. Will [Forte] has a really mimick-y type of a thing in his [delivery] and it's easy for us to grab. We'll do it back to each other in the office and say "Who's this?" So with Steve Harvey, that was almost too easy. I was just in the writers' room and they had the TV on and he was on Millionaire. There you have it.

Are there any other impressions that you've been working on that you haven't done on the show yet?

I always just want to do non-typical voices for some reason. Like a British dude for some reason or an Irish, Scottish or a Jewish dude. I can do all of those voices but the character has to be grounded in a sketch that makes sense.

Is there one bit in particular that you've been working on and really hoping will get on the air?

Yeah, there's this quirky little voice that I'm trying to put on a character. He's just this weird, strange dude who might serve food or he might run a funeral home, I'm not quite sure. Kind of like a Clarence Williams III type of a character. You have no idea who that is, do you?

What was he in?

He was Luke on the Mod Squad, with the crazy afro! Just Google him and listen to his voice. He's awesome. He was in Sugar Hill with Wesley Snipes. He was in Purple Rain! He's Prince's dad in Purple Rain.

OK, I know Clarence. So what are you doing in the sketches as him?

I think he is just a strange dude that owns a restaurant and also runs a funeral home [out of the same building], so it's kind of strange for people to eat there.

That is insane. Do you think we'll see it next week?

I don't know. Probably not. We've already tried it a couple times so we'll probably have to change it conceptually.

Right. And how did the "What Up With That?" sketch come about?

"What Up With That" came about just because I told my buddy Bryan that I wanted to do a sketch where I was singing. And it kind of just became this thing where the talk show host is singing and never lets the guest talk.

Do you have one dream guest that you'd love to see host the show?

Man, Eddie Murphy would be great. Or another crazy big movie star like Harrison Ford or Will Smith.

Who has been your favorite host this year?

[Charles] Barkley was funny. Everyone was funny. I'd probably have to have the list in front of me to give you the best answer though. I already forget who we've had this season.

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