Amy Adams Declined to Sing a ‘Very Dirty’ Song on ‘SNL’ in Order to Protect ‘Enchanted’ Fans; She Told the Lonely Island: ‘It Will Be Scarring For Them’

By Zack Sharf

According To The variety Andy Samberg praised Amy Adams during a recent episode of the “The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers” podcast (via Entertainment Weekly) for rejecting the comedy group’s pitch for her to star in a raunchy “Saturday Night Live” digital short. Adams was hosting “SNL” in 2008, a year after winning raves for her leading turn in Disney’s “Enchanted.” Samberg remembered the actor being loyal to her Disney fans, so much so that she had to protect them from The Lonely Island’s “very dirty” sketch pitch.

“I’m not gonna go into great detail about it, but it was a song that would have been a duet with me and Amy Adams, and it was very dirty,” Samberg said of the lost sketch. “It was basically like we were both really old and we were having a picnic, old people couple, and one of us gets stung by a scorpion. And then I’m dying or something and the one lament on my deathbed is that we didn’t explore things more sexually in our life, and it’s this huge up anthem about that.”

Samberg and his Lonely Island members Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer had the raunchy song already written and produced. They played Adams some of the track to gauge her interest, but she immediately shot them down. She was like, ‘That’s really funny. I can’t do that,’” Samberg said. “‘Little girls are so obsessed with ‘Enchanted’ right now. They will find this, and it will be scarring for them. I just can’t mix that right now.’” 

The comedy group and Adams pivoted instead to “Hero Song,” a digital short about a superhero who beats the hell out of a criminal after he robs Adams. The sketch made it to air, and Samberg said it was the right call after he witnessed how much kids adore Adams while filming the short.

“Within five minutes, a mother and her little girl walked up and the look on the little girl’s face upon seeing Amy Adams, I was like, ‘Oh, she was so right,’” Samberg remembered. “And it was very instructive for me. It’s not something I even ever thought about in our line of work, you know what I mean? Like, she actually has an obligation and a responsibility to those kids, and she took it really seriously. And I remember being really impressed by that.”

Listen to the full “The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers” podcast episode in the post below.