I want to be host of ‘SNL.’ I want to work with Steven Spielberg, Leonardo DiCaprio, J.J. Abrams, Emma Stone and Tim Burton, Sean Penn, Cameron Crowe. I want to work with Adam Sandler – he is so funny – and Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.
Seeing the energy of ‘SNL’ made me want to be a part of it. If that was a job, I thought, that was the job I wanted. That was my plan. Comedy.
We did reach a wider audience with ‘SNL,’ but it’s hard to know what attracts people to your band in the long run.
‘SNL’ was a dream come true for me. It was a fantastic year. I don’t have any regrets.
‘SNL’ doesn’t have a traditional writer’s room. On Monday, there’s the pitch meeting with the guest, and I played that like it was stand-up.
I plan to join the ‘SNL’ band as a maraca player and stand behind saxophonist Lenny Pickett. That way they will at least cut to me before commercial breaks. I’ll be sure to look right into camera.
If you watch ‘SNL,’ any time there’s this thing with everyone singing, I’m, like, the one person who just has a straight line of dialogue because I can’t sing to save my life.
I love comedy, but I was just obsessed with ‘SNL’ growing up.
I’m a female in comedy, so of course I want there to be more women on ‘SNL’, and women of color.
I feel like ‘SNL’ is this kind of fixed, refractive prism. And whatever comes through it is just whatever – is just the absurdity of what’s going on in the world or what people are saying or what’s not being said.
It was weird that most people knew me as someone let go from ‘SNL.’ I had the best time there, and in retrospect, it was the perfect amount of time. The only thing that matters is what you do with yourself in that moment after. If you decide, ‘I’m the girl who was fired from ‘SNL,’ you’re just that.
I tell people all the time, as I was going through my process of being a comedian or being an actor and a writer at ‘SNL,’ I tell people that everything you do is all a piece of your puzzle to determine where you’re going to end up at.
I learned at ‘SNL’ that it’s a bummer to bum people out.
I’m kind of the crisis communications person at ‘SNL.’ If there are fires to put out, they try and find me.
When I started as an assistant at ‘SNL,’ I got my eyes on Kristen Wiig and was able to bring her for an audition for Lorne Michaels and the other producers. Turns out, Kristen Wiig can give you some street cred early on.
I worked in Trenton, and then I got sidetracked into comedy and then onto ‘SNL.’ And then into being a live performer – what I do now; virtually that’s what I am: I’m a live entertainer.
I used to watch ‘SNL’ when I was babysitting, after I put the kids to bed. It was the Gilda Radner and Bill Murray era. I loved it.
It’s so funny: at ‘SNL,’ Bill Hader always kind of treated me like his little sister and would kind of, like, lovingly bully me.
‘SNL’ has changed my career because it gave it a platform to be seen. And I really feel like the Weekend Update desk is where I am given the opportunity to shine on that show.
I was very much aiming to go into movies eventually, like a lot of ‘SNL’ people. But, soon after I arrived, all these really good actors started, like Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, Jason Sudeikis and Andy Samberg, and I thought, ‘If I were casting a movie, I would put all of them in it over me.’
I can’t relax. I’m not happy unless I’m working on stuff. ‘SNL’ is always a huge workload, as enjoyable as it is.
I would say it wasn’t until my fourth season on ‘SNL’ where people or my agent was saying, ‘You’re an actor.’ I never thought of it that way.
If I could work with Eddie Murphy on ‘SNL,’ I think I could quit comedy forever. For me and my generation, he’s God.
Getting ‘SNL’ was pretty amazing, so just to be able to have an eight-year career there and be really happy with everything I did, it was pretty big.
To be totally honest? I don’t know if I’ll keep doing more impressions. People told me I had a facility for it, and I was like, ‘Okay, I’m the impression guy.’ So you imagine the cast at ‘SNL’ is an A-Team, and you’ve got the explosives guy, and I’m the impression guy.
I have to give the SNL crew props – it cannot have been easy to work with me.
My dad would write these sketches for me while I was at ‘SNL.’
I came from the Groundlings Theatre in L.A., and there, you’re guaranteed to at least try something out in front of an audience. At ‘SNL,’ only the best stuff gets picked, and it’s taught me a very defined language of comedy. You learn the structure of a joke, which is not something I was very good at beforehand.
Being on ‘SNL’ gives you a unique experience that almost no one else has. It’s like Harvard for the comic actor.
It’s definitely like being in some weird sorority. I’m friends with a lot of actresses, but my ‘SNL’ friends are my closest.
At ‘SNL,’ I wrote political stuff, but I never felt the show should have an axe to grind. But when I left in ’95, I could let my own beliefs out.
I think there are people that don’t think ‘SNL’ should make movies because sketches don’t translate. Sometimes they don’t, but sometimes they do.
I think the process of ‘SNL’ is still pretty formal. You make an audition tape, your agent sends it in, they watch people’s tapes, and then they invite people to perform at a comedy club in Los Angeles or New York. But I don’t know how much actual scouting they do online.
My parents introduced me to ‘SNL,’ Monty Python, and Richard Pryor probably way earlier than they had any right to.
What’s more important to ‘SNL’: comedy or buzz? To the writers, players and guest hosts, it’s probably the former; to Lorne Michaels and the suits at NBC, it’s ultimately probably the latter.
Comedy did a lot of things for me. I mean, ‘SNL’? Not too bad. Not too shabby with this comedy thing. I have really worked on my comedy and really upped it some notches.
I hope to be on ‘SNL’ as long as they’ll let me.
I’m very happy here at ‘SNL.’ I’ve never been in a hurry to leave because it’s such a special place. It’s never the same when you leave and come back.
‘SNL’ after-parties are sort of like a time to celebrate your successes and drown your sorrows, depending on how the show went for you.
When I was at ‘SNL,’ I would constantly get in arguments, ‘Why aren’t we more political? We’re not going after Bush.’ Then look what happened – that Sarah Palin season, they were on fire. It was about something.
I was Obi-Wan multiple years in a row. Alec Guinness’ Obi-Wan. I was a Dalmatian once because I loved ‘101 Dalmatians,’ and I think I was a Care Bear once and maybe a Spartan cheerleader from the ‘SNL’ skit. I’m terrible with Halloween, because I come up with these elaborate costumes and never follow through.
Both conservatives and liberals watch ‘Parks and Recreation,’ and they each think the show is for them, which is really cool. ‘SNL’ was totally different. It was exciting because everyone was paying attention. Political humor works when people know what you’re talking about.
My specialty at ‘SNL’ was doing triage. There was always a great need for someone to say, ‘Make this funnier. Give me an ending for this. What’s a better big laugh for this towards the end? What’s a better physical joke in this?’ And I just really, over time, honed that specific thing so well.
I was the kid who at 12 years old went to NBC studio tours, and I would just answer all these trivia questions on the tour that the pages would ask about ‘SNL’. I was that kid.
I’m lucky enough to have two different platforms to perform on – I do stand-up comedy, and I have ‘SNL.’ That’s where I make my most controversial statements because I can explain myself and I’m in control of the microphone, as opposed to Twitter, where it’s in the hands of the reader.
Obviously, SNL has a lot of viewers, but the potential for a movie is through the roof.
SNL is a home. You’ve got all of your brothers and sisters there, and it’s a great time.
You start at SNL when you’re young and hungry, but I don’t want my pro years to be my SNL years.
The good thing about ‘SNL’ is that it’s the same people every week that you’re working with, and we’ve all become so close and tight because we’ve worked together so long and so closely together.
SNL’ and ‘Half-Baked’ came and certainly brought me a bigger audience. But I lost the perspective of being a real good comedian.
In the year and a half I was on SNL, I never saw anybody ad lib anything. For a very good reason – the director cut according to the script. So, if you ad libbed, you’d be off mike and off camera.
Something really intense happened to me during the ‘SNL’ performance. It felt like the person I was made to be faced the person I’m becoming. It was the first time I felt like I was able to make any sense of ownership of my work.
When I write on ‘SNL,’ I’ve found I’m most productive while collaborating and joking with friends and not being firmly attached to any one idea.
I’ve never shown up to the set of ‘SNL’ or ‘Girls’ without having a million options for me to try on. They don’t bat an eye at my body or how to dress me because they dress all kinds of bodies as costumers.
I’m not the first person to say this, but communication at ‘SNL’ – I don’t want to say it’s not good, but unless you ask questions, you will not know what’s going on.
I was a religious ‘SNL’ watcher all through middle school. I was obsessed with Molly Shannon, Ana Gasteyer, Cheri Oteri – they were on right when I found the show. Then I started watching the older episodes, and it just totally blew my mind that my dream show already existed.
