Devon Walker Brings Lone Star State Laughs to SNL and Moontower Just for Laughs - Walker, Texas Comic

In Octo­ber 2016 long­time Austin res­i­dent and new com­ic Devon Walk­er was a guest on my pod­cast, Com­e­dy Wham. Sev­en years lat­er, ahead of his return for Moon­tow­er Just for Laughs Austin, I’m still struck by how age­less and wise Walk­er was at that first meet­ing, brim­ming with poise and charm even as he was just start­ing to run open mics in the (then) small Austin com­e­dy scene. He was part ambi­tious com­ic and part chill friend you hang out with talk­ing about George Strait and the Spurs.

Fast-for­ward to Sep­tem­ber 2022, and the open­ing cred­its of NBC’s Sat­ur­day Night Live. Walk­er sports a charm­ing grin while hold­ing a set of red bal­loons as long­time announc­er (and for­mer cast mem­ber) Dar­ryl Ham­mond bel­lows his name as one of this sea­son’s new fea­tured play­ers. Walk­er is a tall, impos­ing force, but those bal­loons per­fect­ly cap­ture his play­ful per­son­al­i­ty. Like most of the oth­er new fea­tured play­ers, Walk­er is a stand-up com­ic who’s been thrown into the week­ly fire to learn how to write, pitch, rehearse, and per­form sketch­es. Now mil­lions of view­ers are pay­ing atten­tion to him and ask­ing, ​“Who is this kid?”

Born in Wash­ing­ton state and raised Pflugerville, Walked shared that ​“as a young kid, I always want­ed atten­tion.” The class clown, he’d always been told he was fun­ny, and while earn­ing a mas­ter’s degree in orga­ni­za­tion­al devel­op­ment, he turned to com­e­dy and nev­er looked back.

Walk­er’s com­e­dy career began in 2014 with an open mic per­for­mance at the orig­i­nal Cap City Com­e­dy Club where, in a bit of kismet, he met future SNL cast­mate Andrew Dis­mukes. Walk­er took a break to focus on a new rela­tion­ship but returned to the stage in 2015 after the rela­tion­ship end­ed. Of his return to the open mic rig­ma­role, Walk­er says his moti­va­tion was, ​“Let me see if I can be bet­ter.” The tastemak­ers of Austin com­e­dy quick­ly took notice. In 2016, he made his first-ever fes­ti­val appear­ance, at Moon­tow­er, and appeared on Piran­ha, a show cre­at­ed and host­ed by Matt Bear­den where comics deliv­er their sets and a pan­el of celebri­ty judges buys their best jokes. Walk­er’s appear­ance was unique. The judges flipped the script and gave Walk­er mon­ey to keep his mate­r­i­al, telling him no one could tell the jokes the way Walk­er did. Com­pet­ing as a final­ist in the 2017 and 2018 Cap City Com­e­dy Club Fun­ni­est Per­son in Austin con­tests, the proof was there. He was get­ting so much bet­ter and itch­ing to get bet­ter in a big­ger com­e­dy mar­ket. After his 2017 appear­ance on Com­e­dy Cen­tral’s Up Next, L.A. and New York took notice, and he gave him­self a year to decide which coast would claim him.

Walk­er talks a lot about ​“full cir­cle” moments, and one came on May 5, 2018. Don­ald Glover was slat­ed to host and per­form as the musi­cal guest on SNL. Dis­mukes was a new writer on the show, and Walk­er asked his open mic friend if he could get tick­ets. Between see­ing the show and tak­ing in NYC, his fate was sealed as the Big Apple’s newest res­i­dent, quick­ly land­ing writ­ing jobs at Net­flix’s Big Mouth and FreeFor­m’s Every­thing’s Trash and keep­ing busy dur­ing the pan­dem­ic by cre­at­ing dig­i­tal shorts for Com­e­dy Cen­tral. Walk­er’s demeanor is so laid-back, you don’t sense the high­ly ambi­tious side of him. He gives cred­it to his father for achiev­ing the Amer­i­can dream through hard work and the desire to give his chil­dren a bet­ter life. And now, in under 10 years since his first open mic, he’s a fea­tured play­er on the longest-run­ning TV show in history.

But first he had to get past the audi­tion process: per­form­ing on the main stage with cre­ator and pro­duc­er Lorne Michaels sit­ting in a dark cor­ner. Walk­er was told, ​“No one’s going to laugh, but don’t let that trip you up.” After step­ping on stage, per­form­ing to emp­ty seats, he was shocked and relieved to hear laugh­ter. Walk­er kept the care­ful­ly guard­ed secret that he’d been cast as a fea­tured play­er on the 48^th sea­son while the rest of Amer­i­ca (minus Walk­er’s mom – she knew) wait­ed until August for the announce­ment. The 47^th sea­son cast went through a large exo­dus, and Walk­er is part of this rebuild­ing year and the show’s most diverse cast to date.

While Michaels has nev­er divulged his mag­ic for­mu­la for tal­ent spot­ting, it appears to have evolved since the show’s 1975 ori­gin. Not only is there a strong Black pres­ence (Ego Nwodim, Punkie John­son, and now Walk­er), there’s Asian rep­re­sen­ta­tion with Bowen Yang, His­pan­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tion with Mar­cel­lo Her­nan­dez, and the show’s first-ever non­bi­na­ry cast mem­ber in Mol­ly Kear­ney. The cast looks more and more like the Amer­i­ca that it skew­ers every week.

Walk­er shared that among favorite sketch­es he co-wrote was ​“Hot Girl Hos­pi­tal” with host Megan Thee Stal­lion and ​“Bap­tist Church” with host Michael B. Jor­dan. He loved being cast in ​“HIV Com­mer­cial” with host Aubrey Plaza, because he was front and cen­ter, and ​“Kenan & Kel­ly” with host Keke Palmer, because he per­formed an impres­sion in the faux Kenan & Kel sketch. That was a dream come true for him.

When I talked to Walk­er in 2016 he shared a phi­los­o­phy of ​“where you’re at is nev­er where you want to be.” If we could pre­dict the future, Walk­er would grad­u­ate to full cast mem­ber for SNL​’s 50^th sea­son, a remark­able mile­stone. And, like his orig­i­nal com­e­dy heroes – Chevy Chase, Chris Rock, Tra­cy Mor­gan, and Will Fer­rell – he’ll become a house­hold name. Oh, and he’d like it known that he’s avail­able to be a court­side fix­ture for San Anto­nio Spurs games. After all, not all dreams are comedy-related.

The 32-year-old feels like an old man when it comes to today’s Austin com­e­dy scene, say­ing, ​“It was bet­ter back in my day,” but he read­i­ly admits peo­ple always think fond­ly of their ear­ly days in com­e­dy. Austin may no longer be home, but when asked if he con­sid­ered him­self a New York­er or a Tex­an, with­out hes­i­ta­tion, Walk­er reached over to show me a neck­lace pen­dant in the shape of Texas. ​“I’ll be a Tex­an ​’til I die.”

Fol­low Devon

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Devon can be seen and heard:

• 2023 Moon­tow­er Just for Laughs Com­e­dy Festival 
  • April 19
    • Stars in Bars, Antone’s, 7pm
    • Hit List, Park­er Jazz Club, 7pm
    • Wild­flow­ers, Parish, 9:30pm
  • April 20
    • New York’s Finest, Antone’s, 7pm
  • April 21
    • New York’s Finest, Antone’s, 9pm
  • April 22
    • Stars in Bars, Park­er Jazz Club, 7pm
    • Scum­ber­par­ty, Cap City Com­e­dy Club, 10pm
• Sat­ur­day Night Live, Sea­son 43 — Fea­ture player
• Com­e­dy Cen­tral Orig­i­nal (Shorts) — Strug­gling Rap Artist (ft. Devon Walk­er) — Mis­guid­ed Meditations
• Orig­i­nal 2‑part pod­cast with Com­e­dy Wham
  • Devon Walk­er: No Retreat, No Surrender