Girl Walks Into a Bar (7 page)

Maybe you had a great show on Saturday and you introduced a new character that was a big hit. Maybe you weren’t in the show at all. You have Sunday to bask in your glow or to lick your wounds, because come Monday, the whole process starts all over again, and you better have some new ideas. Oh, and just so you know, the host this week is Christopher Walken, and he’s already doing his “Continental” character, and since it’s an election year, there’s going to be a seven-minute debate sketch, and for some reason, Jay-Z is playing an extra three songs. This all leaves one and a half slots for any new scenes to be picked for the week. Happy Writing! Your unofficial guide is finished! Now fly! Fly, my little comedy star, and I’ll see you at the after-party! I’m gonna do a ton of calamari, so if I don’t say hi, that’s why—I’m gonna be totally f’d up on calamari. Luv n’ Kisses, Rachel

The most fun
part of
Saturday Night Live
for me was just that—Saturday night and the live show itself. Sometimes people would say, “It’s not really live, is it?” YES! It is! It says so right in the title! When you are sitting at home, watching it all on TV, the actor playing the old lady in the scene right before the commercial break who is now an elf when we come back had to transform in those two minutes. If you ever get to see the show live in the audience, then you see that each actor has their own hair, makeup, and wardrobe people, and everyone’s running around to get to the next scene. Meanwhile, the sets are being moved around frantically. It’s a fascinating operation. And no, I can’t get you tickets.

My least favorite night of the week at
SNL
was probably writing night. As I said, everyone stays there all night long, I mean until the sun comes up, and you hope you have an idea that week. As an actor on the show, you have to come up with your own stuff because you can’t wait around and hope that a writer will just hand you a fully formed character. That did happen to me a few times, most notably with a creature I played who had an arm coming out of its head. That creature, who—little-known fact—is named Qterplx, was from the mind of writer Scott Wainio and made its first appearance as the illegitimate child of Angelina Jolie and her brother after they shared that kiss at the Oscars. Other than that, for the most part, I thought up my own characters, as was true for the other actors as well.

The
SNL
writing process is a completely different method from Second City’s. At Second City, you would have a funny idea, share it with your cast mates, and then improvise in front
of the audience. The scenes were videotaped so you could go back and watch and see what lines really killed and what parts needed to go. For me, improvising always came more naturally, and I could come up with stuff I never would have thought of writing
SNL
-style while staring at a computer screen. I certainly wasn’t able to just show up at the
SNL
office, sit at my desk, and think, “Hmm. Let me think up a character that will really resonate with people! It will also resonate enough with Lorne to be picked for the show. Oh, and the host will also love it and want to pick it for the show. And how about a catchphrase that all of America will love to say? This character will recur again and again and again and become a beloved part of
SNL
history! And I’m going to think this up while I’m staring at a blank computer screen and oh-god-I-better-think-of-something-because-I-haven’t-been-in-the-show-for-the-past-three-weeks-except-to-play-a-waiter-and-holy-shit-I-have-no-talent-everyone-else-knows-what-they’re-doing-AGHHHHH!” Annnd cue peals of laughter coming from the office next door, where people are writing what surely must be the funniest scene ever in the history of comedy. That’s what writing night often felt like on a regular basis.

You always knew you were in deep trouble on writing night when you started looking around the room for inspiration. “Hmm. How about a scene about a lamp!? Or what about a plant!?” You were officially toast.

For me, if I was lucky, an idea would pop into my head at a random time and I would save it for the next show. For exam-ple, I was once at a party where we were playing the game Celebrity and one of the guests was getting really testy because
there was someone on his team who really sucked. So I saved the idea and then the writer Emily Spivey and I wrote a scene based on that, where Eric McCormack was my partner and I got so mad I ended up trashing the whole room and running through the wall Looney Tunes—style. Sometimes a simple joke you are doing with a friend gives you an idea on which to base a whole scene. When Seth Meyers and I were sitting next to each other at read-through, I was using old showbiz terms to joke around about whether a scene would work. I was saying in an old-man Hollywood voice, “Does this scene got legs?
Does it got legs?!
” Seth started saying, “Have you met my agent, Abe Scheinwald?” And we ended up writing it as a scene in which I played old-man Hollywood producer Abe Scheinwald. The best way for me to think up scenes was organically like that.

There were also the characters we actors tried to put up
again and again and just never got on. At this point, I’d like to pour one out for the brothas who never made it, specifically a child star by the name of David Mack Wilson. (I definitely had a thing about wanting to play a child star!) David Mack Wilson is a joke among me and my fellow cast members because, damnit, I tried to get this character on the air again and again, to no avail. He was an obnoxious kid who would go on and on about all his gigs, saying, “Maybe you recognize me from my macaroni ’n’ cheese commercial! OK! OK! I’ll say it! ‘IT’S THE CHEESIEST!’” He’d drive the host crazy with his showbiz tales, saying, “Hey! Ever worked with Hanks? Great guy! How ’bout Hanks and De Niro!? Can you say DREAM PROJECT?!” Anyway, I thought this kid was my next big character but could never get him on. Eventually, he had a walk-on in one episode but didn’t turn into the franchise I had imagined. As we would say at
SNL
, David Mack Wilson died of Comedy AIDS. OK, I know that sounds bad, but Comedy AIDS was the disease that claimed the characters who never made it on the air. Hey, I’m just the messenger here.

In many ways,
SNL
is still the greatest job you could ever imagine having as a comedian—just the history, the amazement we all had to be part of this iconic show, the very thought of the comedians who had paved the way there before us, the excitement of the live show, never knowing who might be dropping in that week to do a bit. (Mick Jagger? Martin Short? The Dalai Lama?) The thrill of watching the musical guests rehearse in a semi-empty studio on Thursday afternoons at my own private Bruce Springsteen or U2 concert was surreal.
Even if I had only one line in the show that week, I still had the coolest job in the world.

Here I am back in the day with my
SNL
ladies!

I had some
successful recurring characters over the years—the Boston teens Sully and Denise, and one of my personal faves, the Lovers with Will Ferrell—but in my fifth year there, I did the scene that got me the most recognition (cue important-sounding James Lipton voice): I’m talking about Debbie Downer.

KENAN THOMPSON:
Good morning! Welcome to the Mickey’s Breakfast Jamboree! My name is Billiam, and I’ll be serving you today…. Let me tell you Mickey’s specials today. We’ve got steak and eggs, served with some home fries and Mickey waffles…

JIMMY FALLON:
Ooh! I love me some steak and eggs!

ME:
Ever since they found mad cow disease in the U.S., I’m not taking any chances. It can live in your body for years before it ravages your brain.

TROMBONE:
WAAAAH WAAAAAAH!

CUE THEME SONG:
You’re enjoying your day, everything’s going your way, then along comes Debbie Downer…

Oh, to have a hit character on
SNL
: the inexact science, the alignment of the planets to be just so, every cog in the wheel having to spin precisely right so that the germ of an idea in your brain can be crafted well enough to make it through the elaborate process to become reality and be seen by millions, which propels you into the status of cultural icon for the rest of history … or at least for that week.

The first time we put Debbie Downer on the show, I had a giggle fit that I couldn’t control, and the whole cast ended up breaking so hard we could never quite recover…

HORATIO SANZ:
I’m gonna ride that haunted elevator thingy. It drops you straight down! …

HOST (LINDSAY LOHAN):
I want to go to every country in Epcot and greet them in their own native language: Hola! Konnichiwa! Hi!

ME:
Did you guys hear about that train explosion in North Korea?

All pause and look at me, annoyed.

ME:
The media is so sensitive there
…(oops that wasn’t the right word)
so secretive…

I try to stifle a giggle over my flub.

ME, FIGHTING A LAUGH:
That they may never know how many people perished.

TROMBONE:
WAAAAH WAAAAAAH!

Aaaand I break. Accidentally start laughing while camera is in close-up on my face. We all start laughing, never quite regaining control. Audience goes nuts.

People often ask me
if Debbie Downer is based on a real person. Well, not really. Although after her creation, I started to notice my mom shares some of her tendencies. I told my mom I was thinking of going to the Dominican Republic for vacation, and she said, “Well, don’t wander into Haiti.” Oh, believe me, I have repeated the phrase “Don’t wander into Haiti” many a time in my family when someone is giving unnecessary safety advice.

In truth, Debbie Downer actually has a rather mystical and personal origin story. The character came about because I took a trip by myself.