“The next thing I know — smelling salts. And I’m waking up.”

Kevin Nealon fainted while preparing to play Jay Leno on SNL: ‘I started to get panicky’

"The next thing I know — smelling salts. And I'm waking up."

By Shania Russell

Shania Russell

Shania Russell is a news writer at *, *with five years of experience. Her work has previously appeared in SlashFilm and Paste Magazine.

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October 30, 2025 10:33 a.m. ET

Jay Leno on The Tonight Show in 1994; Kevin Nealon on 'Saturday Night Live' in 1993. Credit:

Wendy Perl/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty; Al Levine/NBCUniversal via Getty

Kevin Nealon walked away from *Saturday Night Live* with an Emmy nomination, a record as the longest-tenured cast member, and a serious case of claustrophobia.

Nealon, whose nine-year record on the show has since been surpassed, claims his fear of enclosed spaces dates back to an *SNL *sketch that saw him impersonate late-night host Jay Leno. He detailed the incident to Ted Danson on the latest episode of his *Where Everybody Knows Your Name* podcast, explaining that it all began in the hair and makeup department.

"They needed to make a prosthetic chin for me," Nealon began, explaining that doing so required a plaster mold of his face. "I'd never had it done before, and they cover you with plastic, so it doesn't drip on you. And they cover up your ears, your mouth is closed, straws in the nose, and they start putting plaster all over you, and it starts to harden."

Nealon said he didn't expect to have a problem with the process — but once the plaster was on, his feelings changed.

"It starts to get warm," he recalled. "It's hardening and you're thinking, 'Oh my god, all that's open is my nostrils! If they close those up, I'll suffocate.' And I started to get panicky."

Kevin Nealon and Jay Leno on 'The Tonight Show' in 2012.

Paul Drinkwater/NBCUniversal via Getty

He continued, "I remember I'm about to pass out and I go, 'Take it off, take it off' and then the next thing I know — smelling salts. And I'm waking up."

Danson, who's been in the comedy business for his fair share of years, noted that he's had his own run-in with the plaster life mask. While his experience wasn't "as intense," he could relate to the sudden fear. "It is very scary," the *Cheers* star agreed. "And you think you can do it and it'll be alright but it's terrifying."

Despite passing out, Nealon said he ended up returning to the hair and makeup chair for round two. After all, he wasn't about to give up a shot to parody Jay Leno: "I wanted to get it done," he said simply. "And I almost passed out again."

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He eventually made it through the mask process but soon noticed that his relationship to dark, enclosed spaces had changed. Two weeks later, the comedian was in a subway car in New York City when his train halted — and he immediately spiraled.

"I started getting that same feeling again and it snowballed from that," Nealon said. "I started getting it more and more, I became almost agoraphobic. I thought it was over for me."

The actor worried he would be unable to fly out for gigs and even found himself panicking over the thought of being stuck in traffic. But eventually, over the next few years, he worked through the feeling and came out the other side. "It doesn't bother me anymore," he shared.

But just a year after his own plaster pass out, he discovered that actor and two-time *SNL* host Jeff Daniels lived through an even scarier plaster experience.

"Here is the nightmare of all nightmares," Nealon began. "It's a Friday night and the headwriter comes up to me and goes, 'Did you hear what's happening with Jeff Daniels right now? They can't get the plaster mask off his face."

Daniels himself lamented the incident during a 2016 visit to Jimmy Fallon's* Tonight Show*, sharing that what was meant to be a 15-minute process ultimately lasted six hours because someone used the wrong material on his face.

"They used plaster, like you would put — oh, I don’t know — on your wall,” Daniels joked. The mixture was especially stuck to the hair from his eyebrows, eyelashes and three-day-old stubble, making its removal a long and painful process that involved Lorne Michaels calling in a plastic surgeon pal.

In his own telling of the tale, which he didn't witness firsthand, Nealon pointed out that it was a risky situation: "If [Daniels] panics and throws up, he'll drown, 'cause there's nowhere for it to come out," he said. Luckily, the surgeon was able to come in and slowly remove the plaster — after cutting Daniels's eyebrows, eyelashes, and beard, while administering novocaine to his face.

Nealon said when he ran into "red-faced" Daniels the next day, he pretended that he hadn't already heard the story.

Watch Nealon recount his claustrophobia origin story above.**

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