{"id":260985,"date":"2026-09-02T06:00:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T06:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/02\/kenan-thompson-reveals-why-he-almost-quit-acting-after-very-first-film-role\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T06:00:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T06:00:14","slug":"kenan-thompson-reveals-why-he-almost-quit-acting-after-very-first-film-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/02\/kenan-thompson-reveals-why-he-almost-quit-acting-after-very-first-film-role\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenan Thompson reveals why he almost &#8216;quit&#8217; acting after very first film role"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"byline\">\n<p>        <time itemprop=\"datePublished\" content=\"2026-09-02\" datetime=\"1788328814\" pubdate=\"\">2 September 2026<\/time>\n    <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.femalefirst.co.uk\/kenan-thompson\/\" class=\"exposure-link \" data-linktrack=\"LinkTracker,articleExposure,kenan-thompson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kenan Thompson<\/a> almost &#8220;quit&#8221; acting after his first ever film role.<\/p>\n<p>                            <\/p>\n<p class=\"image-caption landscape\">Kenan Thompson was convinced to keep acting by his mother<\/p>\n<p>The 48-year-old star appeared in hockey movie sequel D2: The Mighty Ducks in March 1994, just one month before his debut in Nickelodeon sketch show All That, but he has revealed how he nearly walked away after a particularly difficult day preparing for the project.<\/p>\n<p>Appearing on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.femalefirst.co.uk\/amy-poehler\/\" class=\"exposure-link \" data-linktrack=\"LinkTracker,articleExposure,amy-poehler\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Amy Poehler<\/a>&#8216;s Good Hang podcast, he said: &#8220;Sure, I put it on my resume under special skills that I could roller skate, but you know, I never in a million years considered hockey.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wanted to learn, but after that first day of hockey camp, which was on my birthday, my 15th birthday, I wanted to quit it all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>                      \t\t\t<!-- Dailymotion player (contact: Kutay.vardar@dailymotion.com) --><\/p>\n<p>Kenan, who went onto star in the likes of Kenan and Kel, Good Burger and Saturday Night Live, is gratefully his mother stopped him from quitting.<\/p>\n<p>\nHe added: &#8220;I was like, \u2018I don\u2019t want to be an actor. I don\u2019t want to if this is what it\u2019s about&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cThank God my mom didn\u2019t let me quit. She was like, \u2018No, go back tomorrow.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\nKenan did learn how to ice skate over the next couple of months, and even returned to hockey camp for 1996 sequel D3: The Mighty Ducks.<\/p>\n<p>\nPodcast host Amy Poehler, who joined SNL with Kenan in 2003, praised his skating skills, describing him as one of the best among her friends.<\/p>\n<p>\nHe quipped: &#8220;I pride myself with that, because it\u2019s not like a big known thing amongst the Black community to just ice skate like that.<\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;There\u2019s only certain people that do it. There\u2019s only a few people in the NHL or whatever kind of thing&#8230; to get good at it is wild.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>\nMeanwhile, Amy recalled how Kenan often showed off his talent as part of SNL&#8217;s festive send-off at the end of the Christmas episode, when the cast would appeared underneath the iconic Rockefeller Christmas tree to wave to the audience.<\/p>\n<p>\nShe explained: &#8220;We would be on the ice rink at Rockefeller Center, just us, at one o\u2019clock in the morning.<\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;And I go down there and I see Kenan, and Kenan is\u2026 you are skating forward, skating backwards, skating sideways, doing a thing, shooting the moon, doing 45 million tricks.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cAnd I was like, \u2018Duh! Mighty Ducks!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><!-- Pagination --><\/p>\n<p><!-- playbuzz --><br \/>\n<!-- end playbuzz--><\/p>\n<p><!-- \n\n<div data-cn-project=\"femalefirst\">\n    \n<\/div>\n\n --><\/p>\n<p><!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><br \/>\n<!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><\/p>\n<p>    <!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><br \/>\n    <!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.femalefirst.co.uk\/celebrity\/kenan-thompson-reveals-almost-quit-acting-after-first-film-role-1449951.html?f=rss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2 September 2026 Kenan Thompson almost &#8220;quit&#8221; acting after his first ever film role. Kenan Thompson was convinced to keep acting by his mother The 48-year-old star appeared in hockey movie sequel D2: The Mighty Ducks in March 1994, just one month before his debut in Nickelodeon sketch show All That, but he has revealed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":260986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[8296,4478],"class_list":{"0":"post-260985","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-make-up","8":"tag-amy-poehler","9":"tag-kenan-thompson"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}