Brooks Wheelan appeared as a cast member on Saturday Night Live for exactly one season before revealing via Twitter that he'd been fired from the show. But that's one season longer than the comedian ever anticipated being on the show, and Wheelan has spent his time since leaving SNL touring around the U.S. and Europe as a stand-up comedian. Wheelan, who began doing stand-up as a teenager in Iowa, sees his premature departure from the show as more of an opportunity than an insult, and is looking ahead. We spoke with the comedian about what it's like to be on SNL, and what it's like to leave it behind after only a single year as a featured player.

ESQUIRE.COM: What was your life like before SNL?

BROOKS WHEELAN: My life was pretty great. I was really enjoying living in Los Angeles. I had a day job as a biomedical engineer at Cal Tech. That was how I made money. I got a degree and then when I moved to LA I didn't want to be a cliché and wait tables while I was doing comedy. So I was like, "Well, I'll just be an engineer while I do comedy." I treated that job like McDonald's. I never took it seriously and was late all of the time. So I would do that job and then do stand-up every night. The goal was to write my own TV show.

ESQ: How did the audition come about?

BW: They saw me in Montreal at [the Just For Laughs comedy festival]. That's how a lot of people get seen. There were a couple auditions. One was in Los Angeles and a lot of the guys who got hired were at that audition. It went really well. And then I came out to New York and auditioned there. That went well, too. I got hired at first only as a writer. And just before the season started I got put in the cast. I found out I was in the cast the Friday before the show.

ESQ: Was being on the show fun?

"SNL is a place where you have super high highs and really low lows. Your first year is tough. It's a place where you have more fun the longer you're on it, like any type of job. You get more comfortable."

BW: When it worked, I loved it. When I got to do Weekend Update, that was a great feeling. But when you're not on the show that is a huge bummer. It's a place where you have super high highs and really low lows. And your first year is tough. It's a place where you have more fun the longer you're on it, like any type of job. You get more comfortable.

ESQ: What was the best thing you think you wrote for the show?

BW: I loved doing Weekend Update as myself. I also really liked this sketch called "Critter Control" where me and Edward Norton went into the wall and were murdered by possums. That was absurd and the type of stuff I really laugh at, really weird things like that. The fact that that got to be on TV was crazy to me.

ESQ: Was there a particular celebrity you were excited to meet?

BW: The bands. That's what I was really stoked about, all the bands. Arcade Fire and Kings of Leon and Black Keys and The National. I would always try to write sketches that included the bands. That way I had talking points to go talk to them about. Like, "I wrote this sketch and you guys are in it, but it didn't get picked." That was the way I'd get to talk to them. In retrospect it was maybe not the smartest move on my part. Maybe I should have been writing for the hosts instead of the bands.

ESQ: Did you feel like you got a fair shot at showing what you could do on the show?

BW: That's a hard question. I respect the show and I definitely wish I didn't leave so early. But as time goes on, I'm more okay with leaving the show. At first I was like, "Oh, darn it!" But now I'm like, "It's okay, man. I wasn't getting on a lot anyway." This way I can go and use my time to do stand-up, which is what I love the most. That's not a great answer, but there's not really a great answer, I don't think.

ESQ: Do you think there's something you could have done differently in order to not get fired?

"I worked my ass off there. I have zero regrets."

BW: There's not really anything that sticks out that I would have done differently. I worked harder there than I have at anything in my entire life. There would be nights where I would want to go home because I was tired, but then thought, "No, you never want to look back and think 'I could have tried harder.'" And I honestly feel like I couldn't have tried much harder. I wrote a ton of sketches there, man. Maybe they weren't amazing, but they were as good as I could do. I worked my ass off there. I have zero regrets.

ESQ: Why did you decide to tweet that you were fired from SNL when you found out?

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Had a blast and loved every second of it. I'm totally honored to be able to make this next joke... FIRED FROM NEW YORK IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT! — Brooks Wheelan (@brookswheelan) July 14, 2014

BW: I felt like that joke was my way of saying, "This isn't going to stop me from being funny." The style of comedy I do is very personal. I make fun of my own life, and this was something that I definitely wanted to address in a funny way. If you make fun of something, it takes the power away from that thing. Plus, people take this stuff so seriously, but it's not like someone died or anything. It's a comedy show.

ESQ: Had you ever been fired from anything before?

BW: I was fired from a biomedical engineering job when I was 24. I said some stuff making fun of my job and they got real pissed. That actually sucked way worse than being let go from SNL because I was fired for being immature and I was embarrassed. I'm definitely not embarrassed to be let go by SNL. It's not like I made anyone at SNL mad—they're still my friends. However, I would never go near that biomedical engineering job. They deserve to not like me. I was a terrible employee. I'd see how long I could go into each day without starting my computer. Stuff like that.

ESQ: Once you knew you'd been fired, did you have a sense of what you wanted to do next?

BW: Totally, yeah. I just want to become a great stand-up comedian. That was always number one. The show let me become a headliner. So now I can go on the road and work on an hour [set] and people will come see it because of SNL. That's the best part of having been on the show. I can do comedy and people will come watch it and see what I think I'm best at. I want to release an hour special in the next year or so.

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ESQ: How would you describe your style of stand-up to someone who is only familiar with you from SNL?

BW: Any of the Weekend Updates I did are exactly how I do stand-up, where it's just me talking about how I view my own life and how I'm usually wrong. It's me screwing up this life I have but being self-aware, like "Oh, that was a bad decision."

ESQ: Beyond stand-up, are you hoping to get back on TV in some way?

BW: Absolutely. I also am a writer. I'm working on TV shows. The goal before I ever was on SNL was to create a TV show I got to do with my friends, where we would be on the show that we wrote and it would be a super-positive environment where everyone was excited to be there. Creating stuff we really thought was funny in our own voice. So that's still the goal—to go back and make a dark comedy I can work with my friends on.

ESQ: Have you been watching the new season of SNL?

BW: No. I think I'm going to maybe steer clear for a little bit. I'm going to stop talking about it after our interview, I think. I just wanted people to know that I'm focused on stand-up. I just did Conan and that was fking the best. It was really cool to do that. Comedy has allowed me to do a crazy amount of things. If I stayed where I am right now, I would have nothing to complain about.

Emily Zemler Emily Zemler is a freelance writer based in London.

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