Maya Rudolph And Jimmy Fallon Say They “Lost It” During Will Ferrell’s Last ‘SNL’ Read-Through In 2002: “We Were All Just Crying”

Maya Rudolph and Jimmy Fallon took a trip down memory lane on Tuesday night’s (March 26) episode of The Tonight Show. While reflecting on their tenures on Saturday Night Live, the two former cast members ultimately name-dropped fellow SNL alum Will Ferrell, who they said would even take on characters behind the camera.

“Will would stay in character all week, and you couldn’t break him,” Fallon recalled, per The Hollywood Reporter. “Just during the day, for no reason.”

Rudolph praised Ferrell, whom she explained “was so comfortable doing the weirdest bits and nobody said anything.”

“I didn’t know it wasn’t normal,” she added.

Fallon eventually asked Rudolph, “Do you remember Will’s last read-through, when you did ‘Poetry Man’ and we were all just crying?”

Rudolph proceeded to share the story, telling viewers, “At the last table read, you write stuff that you know isn’t going to make it on the show, but you just do it to send off the person that you love.”

She continued, “We did, it was like a parody of the Phoebe Snow song [‘Poetry Man’], but I made it: ‘You’re the comedy man/You make everything alright/ Yeah, yeah.’”

Fallon noted that they “all lost it,” explaining that there were “like five sketches that were just like, ‘We love you, Will.'”

“Like, that’s all they really said,” he continued. “It’s like, ‘We love you, dude. We miss you.’ When you say goodbye to a cast member, you root for them obviously, but you miss the times you have.”

Rudolph added, “We were so, so, so lucky that we had that time together. We were so lucky. And that it’s documented, because now we can look back and watch it. But like, we really had some golden times.”

Ferrell, who joined SNL in 1995 and departed the show in 2002, has since returned to Studio 8H to host the beloved sketch comedy show five times, with his most recent appearance taking place in 2019, per CNN. While Fallon — who became a cast member in 1998 and left in 2004 — has also come back to host, he recently stopped by during guest host Dakota Johnson‘s monologue in January, per Variety. Meanwhile, Rudolph has hosted twice after exiting the show in 2007, per ScreenRant.

The Tonight Show airs weeknights at 11:35/10:35c on NBC.