David Schwimmer: I Made a ‘Big Mistake’ When I Hosted ‘SNL’

David Schwimmer made a “big mistake” when he hosted Saturday Night Live in 1995, he revealed on Late Night With Stephen Colbert.

“It wasn’t until years later” that he found out what he’d done to rub SNL writers the wrong way, Schwimmer told Colbert on Monday night, but “There was one big mistake” he made that caused them to turn on him. “When I walked into the writers room, the entire writers room looked at me as if I had just slept with their mom,” he said.

“It was 1995, just a year after the show aired,” Schwimmer recalled, noting that he was “the first” in the Friends cast to be invited to host the late night show, so “it was a huge honor.” But as an industry newbie at the time, Schwimmer was unaware of what was expected of him as he geared up to host the show.

“Friends, at that time, was shooting on Tuesday nights and we were shooting until sometimes one in the morning, and so I had to fly from L.A. to New York on Wednesday to get [to 30 Rock],” he told Colbert. “I really didn’t get to arrive at SNL until Thursday, two days before the Saturday show.”

Schwimmer said that he knew something was wrong as soon as he arrived, but still didn’t know what. They were not happy to see me and I had no idea.” The tension was uncomfortable enough that Schwimmer said he “got through the next two days but I was kinda traumatized.”

“Years later,” the Goosebumps star found out that it was his tardiness to the show that had likely caused the response he received. “I was talking to someone else who had hosted the show and they said, ‘No no you’re supposed to show up on a Monday,’” Schwimmer said. “No one told me and for years, I had no idea why.”

Three decades later, there doesn’t seem to be any bad blood, as SNL invited Schwimmer back for its 50th anniversary special on February 16. But Schwimmer told Colbert he still feels a bit skeptical that everything’s all good, despite the invite.

“I’m thinking, ‘Well maybe they forgot? That they don’t like me?’” he said, “Or it’s just some intern that’s tasked with emailing everyone who’s ever hosted.”