Kenan Thompson almost walked away from acting after filming D2: The Mighty Ducks. The 48-year-old actor said he considered giving up after struggling through the intense hockey camp for the 1994 family sports comedy-drama.
Kenan Thompson recalls struggling with hockey during his debut in D2: The Mighty Ducks nearly made him quit acting
Thompson, who played Russ Tyler in the beloved hockey film franchise, shared the details with Amy Poehler on the September 1 episode of her Good Hang podcast. The actor said, “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. I 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.”
But Thompson’s mother, Elizabeth Ann Thompson, refused to let him give up. The Emmy winner described, “I was like, ‘I don’t want to be an actor. I don’t want to if this is what it’s about.’ Thank God my mom didn’t let me quit. Kept going back and back.” Thompson spent eight weeks learning to ice skate and eventually mastered the basics. He continued developing his hockey skills by attending another camp before filming the 1996 sequel, D3: The Mighty Ducks.
Poehler backed Thompson’s skating skills, saying he’s “one of my friends [who] skate the best.” To which the actor said, “I pride myself on that, because it’s not like a well-known thing amongst the Black community to just ice skate like that.”
Poehler recalled that Thompson often showed off his skating skills after Saturday Night Live’s Christmas episodes at Rockefeller Center. The two worked together on SNL from 2003 until her departure in 2008. Thompson, who found fame as a star of All That in the 1990s, has since set the record for the show’s longest-running cast member.
