Ana Gasteyer

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Speaker 1 Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Good Hang.
This is our holiday episode. It's our Christmas episode, and we have an incredible guest today who's going to celebrate Christmas with us.

Speaker 1 And you should know, we are off next week, and then we are right back. So don't be scared.
We just have one week down to give everybody a genuine break. And then we're back in the new year.

Speaker 1 But we are with Anna Gastire today. And Anna Gastire,

Speaker 1 writer, singer, Broadway star, sketch comedian, does so many things well. And

Speaker 2 a

Speaker 1 sweet, dear friend who went through the same SNL

Speaker 1 sausage factory as we all did. And we talk about that.
We talk about being on the show and how fun it was to bomb. We talk about Christmas and our favorite Christmas songs.
And we talk about Annie.

Speaker 1 Annie comes up, thank God, as does Once Upon a Mattress.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 Ana's story about being in the White House. And we also talk about her record, Sugar and Booze, a Christmas classic.
So

Speaker 1 it's a great episode. And we're starting this episode with another Titan, like a genius comedic legend,

Speaker 1 a woman who has written some of your favorite sketches at SNL. You know her from AP Bio, from the Mapleworth Murders, from Wine Country, from Girls Girls 5 Eva.
She is the one, the only.

Speaker 2 Paula Pell.

Speaker 1 Paula, I believe we're getting you in a car.

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Speaker 2 Paula.

Speaker 3 Hi.

Speaker 1 Paula, can you see me and hear me?

Speaker 3 Yes, I can see you and hear you.

Speaker 2 Oh, hold on. I need to.

Speaker 3 Can you hear me? I think I need.

Speaker 1 I hear you, but I don't see you.

Speaker 3 I think I need to hit the.

Speaker 3 I thought I hit the camera. Oh, hold on.

Speaker 3 Why isn't it working? Elaine.

Speaker 3 Try. Yeah.
Handing it to Janine to see if she can. Hi, Janine!

Speaker 1 Janine Brito, Paula's beautiful wife.

Speaker 3 I'm trying.

Speaker 1 There we go.

Speaker 3 There's my beautiful wife with the new haircut.

Speaker 2 Hi, Janine.

Speaker 1 It's Amy. Paula, it's so great that your beautiful wife is also your IT.
For a person who just got off an airplane, you look beautiful.

Speaker 3 Well, I just did a, which Tina Faye is very familiar with,

Speaker 3 in a car, a full face makeup in about... two seconds because I did that in the cabs on the way to work all the time.

Speaker 1 Yep. We are all pretty good at, I mean, most women women are at like getting throwing it on.
Yeah, throwing it on.

Speaker 3 And I've gotten really good at just the feel. Like I can almost, it's a, it's like, it's like love is blind, but it's makeup is blind.
And you just have people do a full makeover without by just feel.

Speaker 2 Well, it looks great.

Speaker 3 I'm also wearing my lesbian uniform

Speaker 3 in Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 Hmm.

Speaker 1 I love having you in Los in Los Angeles, Paula.

Speaker 3 It's so nice. It's so beautiful here.
We left so much snow.

Speaker 1 Well, you know, this episode with Anagesteyer is going to be technically our holiday episode. It's going to air before Christmas.

Speaker 2 Yay!

Speaker 1 And we are going to talk about you guys.

Speaker 3 Better Carol. You better sing a carol.

Speaker 1 I was like, I wish we could have you and Stewed. You love to carol, though.
I do.

Speaker 3 I love to carol. I love to harmonize more than anything on earth.

Speaker 3 If I could, if someone said to me, this is your job for the rest of your life is just to throw in that alto line and just walk from group to group and throw in that alto line, lay down that bass.

Speaker 3 I would do it and be the happiest human being on earth.

Speaker 1 Although I have also heard you have a very fierce soprano. You can also hit those high notes.

Speaker 3 Well, sometimes. I do think lately in my 60s, I have had experiences where I thought I was nailing it and then I listened to it back on a video.

Speaker 3 Very mortifying. Just a little sharp.
And I like to sing a certain kind of sharp for Janine that really makes her put her face down in the cereal in the morning. Cause it's just a little bit.

Speaker 3 It's just a little overshoot.

Speaker 1 Could you give us an example of it?

Speaker 3 It's just the newness of you.

Speaker 3 It's like finding it.

Speaker 2 You're just,

Speaker 3 it's like a level and you're always just finding it. And then you finally get it.

Speaker 1 Only a good, as good of a singer as you, Paula Pell, can do good, bad singing.

Speaker 3 That's such a thing in comedy. You're always like, don't try to sing sing bad.
Don't try to sing bad.

Speaker 1 It's funny. I want to talk to Anna about it.
Like, what is the difference between good singing and comedy singing?

Speaker 1 It's a very fine line.

Speaker 1 So we're talking to Anna Gastire today.

Speaker 1 What's great about Ana? Let's talk well behind her back.

Speaker 3 Anna is

Speaker 3 so many things at once, speaking of, and she's such a multi, multi-multi-hyphenate.

Speaker 3 It's like every time you turn, she's doing a new job that's something where it's like, oh my God, like just Broadway and writing and movies.

Speaker 3 And, you know, she and Rachel writing that hilarious Christmas movie. And then she's on really funny television shows as really funny characters.

Speaker 3 And then she's like playing the violin in a video she sends us to crack us up that's like incredibly skilled violin.

Speaker 3 So I just, I admire that so much in her, but I also, she came and stayed with us to write this Bobby and Marty recently for the 50th.

Speaker 3 And we sat in our pajamas at my house, at our house, and we just sat and just really broke it down. She's so good at sitting and just really asking questions.
She's a curious, present friend.

Speaker 3 She's really

Speaker 3 such pure medicine to my soul to just really talk about everything.

Speaker 1 We should talk. We've been on many trips together.
A bunch of the SNL ladies have gone together on girl trips. Maya, you, me, Drach, Tina, Anna,

Speaker 1 Spivey, and the Wine Country gang. And the wine country gang.
And we have been, we're kind of overdue for a trip.

Speaker 3 Very overdue.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we need to.

Speaker 3 We're going to all bring our grandchildren

Speaker 3 next time. It's just going to be a play date.
We'll all be there with our grandchildren. And I'll have Janine and I all have our granddogs because we cloned Barbara Streisand style.

Speaker 1 How are all the doggies doing? Can you name all the doggies' names? Well, we have

Speaker 3 Ernie, who used to have four buck teeth and now he has nothing and no chin. Ernie is a very obnoxious little chihuahua with a penis the size of his legs.
And then Gary is perfection.

Speaker 3 He's a poodle mix. He's perfect, perfect child.

Speaker 3 And then we have Dolly, who's like a shih tzu mix, who looks like she's wearing a wig and she's very tender and gives a lot of side eye.

Speaker 1 And then we have

Speaker 3 our only young dogs. We always adopt old dogs.
And now we've adopted a younger dog who makes us say about 30 fucks before 10 o'clock in the morning because she's so obnoxious.

Speaker 3 is bunny a beagle basset and she starts at about 5 30 and stares at you in the dark and you see her silhouette she She goes,

Speaker 3 and just does that until you just go, just get up and she, you get up and feed them.

Speaker 3 And then who's who am I missing? And then Tallulah is in a wheelchair, a little wheel cart. And she's an eight pound, tiny, tiny little mix.

Speaker 3 She looks kind of like a smooth-haired Pekinese a little bit. And she has.

Speaker 3 no feeling in her back half of her body and is faster than any of the dogs, even without her wheels she flies through the air just running on her front two legs and she used to despise me the first year and then i left for four months to shoot something and i came back and she loves me now

Speaker 3 okay so any question you think we should ask anna today i have i have a legit one and then I have just one quick little funny one if you want to ask her this.

Speaker 3 The funny one is her dog Gloria, speaking of dogs, eats things all the time that she's not supposed to.

Speaker 3 I just wanted to know, I think we should all be updated on what the latest thing that she devoured and then has it come out yet?

Speaker 2 Great.

Speaker 3 And when it came out, was it recognizable? Great. And then,

Speaker 3 and then my real question

Speaker 3 is,

Speaker 3 because she's such a multi-hyphenate, between writing, when she's writing, or when she's singing, or when she's doing comedy,

Speaker 3 which one of those makes her feel the most free? Just glorious,

Speaker 3 untethered euphoria? Which one gives her the biggest shoal that way?

Speaker 1 Perfect. Thank you so much.
Paula, love you. I can't wait to talk to you in length one day.
And so happy here. Love you, love you.

Speaker 2 Bye-bye.

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Speaker 2 you've got what are you wearing i have a i have my tartan i have a tartan oh it's about angle there it is tartan look natural

Speaker 1 this i wore my holiday pumps yeah because i do try i try to think about what they just

Speaker 1 season This is our Christmas episode.

Speaker 2 I know. I got excited.

Speaker 2 How many times a year do you think I can wear this sucker? Those are cute. Yeah.
Aren't they cute?

Speaker 1 Isn't it weird to to wear it in like sunny Los Angeles? Yeah, it does feel weird.

Speaker 2 And it's a sweatery texture. It's a sweatery tartan.
I don't know if you can see the texture. So it's very holiday.
Anyway,

Speaker 2 this is going to be our Christmas episode. Yes, ourselves.

Speaker 1 And I have so many things I want to talk to you about today. Okay, yeah.
Very excited that you're here.

Speaker 2 Thank you for doing it. Never enough time.
Always so much to talk about.

Speaker 1 Never enough time. I know.
And

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 it's very exciting that you are the Christmas episode because I do associate you with Christmas in many ways. You have a Christmas album.
You go on tour at Christmas. Yes.

Speaker 1 and you yourself love Christmas. Yes, I do.
What do you love about Christmas?

Speaker 2 Well, I call myself the Duchess of Christmas.

Speaker 2 Actually, a nice gay called me that, and I took it, obviously.

Speaker 2 I love the holidays. It's so weird.
It's like, but it's A, I love the holidays.

Speaker 2 B, I mean, like the resume sort of leans in that direction because my like legacy moments at SNL were, you know, Schwati Balls and the Martha Stewart Topless Christmas, which was my first like thing that succeeded there.

Speaker 2 Right. And they run every year on the Christmas episode

Speaker 2 on that special. So it comes up for people.
And then Dratch and I wrote that Christmas movie, which is a parody of the Hallmark films. Tell everybody what it is again.

Speaker 2 It's called a Cluster Funk Christmas. And it is a parody.
It's a perfect parody. It's a perfect parody.
The goal was to make the perfect parody

Speaker 2 for the ultimate Hallmark lover. Right.

Speaker 2 Of which you are. You are a movie.
I love a Hallmark movie. I love all these movies.
I love a Hallmark movie. And I love the holidays.
I love the holidays.

Speaker 1 What kind of decorations? Because

Speaker 1 we're on a text chain. We send each other like our prep yeah

Speaker 2 what decorations do you have up right now what are you looking forward to for like in the levels of what's going on right so it's all sort of contingent upon how much i'm traveling and how exhausted i am by visual clutter that year so which is fair right so um i'm actually going full tilt thunder hump on friday the boxes are out i'm gonna do new york for the first time in a really long time i haven't done it in a long long time i i've worked on christmas a lot because during the broadway shows things because you're a pro, babe.

Speaker 1 I mean, pros work on Christmas.

Speaker 2 Christmas, yeah. So you end up, a lot of my things are, which are so up your alley.
I know, like, they're sort of

Speaker 2 hacks. They're like hacks to still be festive and still enjoy it and still be present in it, but maybe have it not be sort of enslaved by it.
Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 So that, um, so I have, for example, I can go full tilt thunder hump, which I'm going to do this year. And I'm going to, you know, what does that mean?

Speaker 2 That means like the trees and the lights and the garland and the swag and the, you know, all the TikTok hacks, like with the, with the curtain rod and the, you know, garland going across it.

Speaker 2 And let's slow down. Woodland forests.
Woodland forests. Let's slow down.

Speaker 1 I just heard my, one of my favorite TikTok hacks.

Speaker 2 TikTok hacks. Yeah, I know.

Speaker 1 And the scarland goes where?

Speaker 2 So you get yourself some like Walmart or, you know, the tension rod. You can put it like in a doorway, like where you would hang mistletoe.

Speaker 2 And you can basically go to Trader Joe's or Costco or whatever and get your garland. And you can make a really beautiful archway

Speaker 2 if you use that tension.

Speaker 2 So you get

Speaker 2 curtains.

Speaker 1 Right. So you have to go buy that hardware.

Speaker 2 But that's like $4.

Speaker 1 And wrap it in garland.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And then put it in a drawer.

Speaker 2 And then hang it down. Put a little

Speaker 2 teacup hooks. Do you know those little teacup hooks that people, you can buy them at the Five and Dime also at Walmart? You know, the Five and Dime.

Speaker 2 And you will screw them in.

Speaker 2 Down Woolworths when you're doing your stocking staff or something.

Speaker 2 And you can put your garland down it, and you could do lights. You can pre Ikea has,

Speaker 2 or everybody now has, but I do it in IKEA run every holiday because they're real cute. Anna Gastyre is here, and she is telling us about Christmas.
I knew you would to give me a chance.

Speaker 2 And I love craft brown paper, just brown paper packages tied up in strings. That's that's

Speaker 2 brown paper. That's paper packages tied up in strings.

Speaker 2 That's how you wrap. That's how I wrap.

Speaker 1 I have a question about the brown paper. I find it a little heavy sometimes for tape.

Speaker 2 Because of the gauge. You've got to get a thinner gauge.

Speaker 1 A thinner gauge paper. Craft paper.
Okay.

Speaker 2 It's called craft paper.

Speaker 1 What are we talking? Tree.

Speaker 2 I have a feather tabletop, tabletop. I have a tinsel, like sort of medium.
And then I finally am just going to do live or bust.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean? Yeah. And the one thing I'll say about live, I usually do a real Christmas tree.
I like that we're calling it a live. Live from

Speaker 2 live from Christmas. Bring it alive.

Speaker 1 And I know there's ones where you can even have ones that they repop.

Speaker 2 In California. Yeah.
And you can't really find that on the East Coast. I've tried.

Speaker 1 Well, the thing that I always bamboozles me about a real Christmas tree, which I still do, is I think it's going to smell so good. And it never does anymore.

Speaker 2 Because they've been cut so long ago.

Speaker 1 Christmas trees used to smell better. Now they don't smell like they used to.

Speaker 2 Well, that's, you know,

Speaker 2 that's genetic modification. Oh, God.
Right there. It's so true.
And I mean, sometimes you just got to do. Well, I use the, do you ever do like aromatherapy or

Speaker 1 I'll put in a pine candle. candle.
Pine candle.

Speaker 2 You know, it's got a nice pine candle this year. Who? Trader Joe.

Speaker 2 I stopped by yesterday because, again, California Trader Joe's is already in the city. I said it's singular.
Trader Joe's. Trader Joe has invested, and it's at his

Speaker 2 eponymous shop.

Speaker 2 I love Trader Joe's. I love my Trader Joe's.
I do love Trader Joe's. But

Speaker 2 I do love Christmas, but again, I will not be overrun by it. So I love, like, this is why I made a holiday album.
I love my holiday album. It's very old-fashioned.
It's a little winky.

Speaker 2 You've seen my show. It's very like throwbacky.

Speaker 1 Your holiday album, Sugar and Booze, is

Speaker 2 so great. Thank you.

Speaker 1 And your shows that you do to support it are so fun.

Speaker 2 It's a holiday spectacular.

Speaker 1 Yes. Tell us about them.

Speaker 2 Well, I like to do, we, well, I like to perform with a horn section. So that's for starters because I have a loud voice.
And I like to wear a tartan and get dressed up.

Speaker 2 And I like, it feels very like, so

Speaker 2 my,

Speaker 2 how do I answer this succinctly?

Speaker 2 Do you have to?

Speaker 2 I don't know. I mean, it's actually, do we want to spend the whole hour on this?

Speaker 1 But I mean, this is a real, this is a good, this is a real good question, which is like, talk however you want, babe.

Speaker 2 Okay, you're right. It's called good hang.
Yeah, good hanging. Good hanging.
We don't have to get it right.

Speaker 1 You don't even have to be succinct.

Speaker 2 No, we don't. You're right.
We can cut it. Yeah, we can cut the shit out of it.
Let's cut the shit out.

Speaker 1 We can make this podcast six minutes.

Speaker 2 Can you wait in the name of this?

Speaker 2 this podcast should be called? Cut the shit.

Speaker 2 Cut the shit with Amy Poehler and France.

Speaker 1 We should do a clip show where we call it Cut the Shit and it's all the stuff that we're cut.

Speaker 2 And so

Speaker 2 kind of in

Speaker 2 the 1959, early 60s entertainers era really spoke to me because it was a time when a gal, you know, a Rosemary Clooney would probably be like the idol. Like a gal who could tell a good story,

Speaker 2 could, you know, belt to the rafters, play in front of a big band, carry a band,

Speaker 2 an evening of entertainment. So when we set out to make the holiday album, it was really to create a record that, you know, wasn't kitschy or like,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 it's not a comedy record.

Speaker 2 It's not a comedy record. It's not a campy record, but has, you know, it's me, so it's, there's fun to it.
But really, it wanted it.

Speaker 2 The goal was to have it play seamlessly with, you know, a Frank Sinatra Christmas record or, you know, a classic Christmas record while you're making cocktails and wrapping presents.

Speaker 2 It's a perfect record for that.

Speaker 2 Tree trimming.

Speaker 1 Tree trimming. It is so good.
Tree trimming a live tree.

Speaker 2 It's a tree trimming a live tree. A live tree.
Or a balsam hill.

Speaker 1 Or a balsam hill. I don't want to, you know.
It is, it's such a good record.

Speaker 1 And it, it, it is, it's just the right amount of like whimsy combined with really, really good singing and many original Christmas songs, which is hard to do to make an original Christmas song.

Speaker 1 Really hard.

Speaker 2 And I love Christmas record. I love Christmas songs, but they're really, really hard.

Speaker 1 What do you love?

Speaker 2 Well, I like a lot of the ones that are on the record. I love Sleigh Ride.
I love Man with a Bag, which I just think is a structurally...

Speaker 1 Oh, it's on your record.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's on the record.

Speaker 2 There's some bad Christmas songs that we listen to every year just because they're out there over and over again.

Speaker 1 I have to say, Deck the Hall is not my fave.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 And we wish you Merry Christmas.

Speaker 2 It's not my favourite. It's boring.
It's boring. They're boring.
There's

Speaker 2 a lot of them. I mean, even rocking around the Christmas tree is kind of a boring song.

Speaker 2 Structurally,

Speaker 2 in the kind of carol canon, I think God rest ye merry gentlemen has a really great rhythm. We actually have a new arrangement of it this year, which we're doing on stage.

Speaker 2 God rest ye, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay.

Speaker 2 Remember, Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day. Bump, bump, bump.
You can hear it, right? Yes,

Speaker 2 to save us all from Satan's power when he was gone astray oh tidings of comfort and joy comfort and joy yeah it's a good song it's a good tune but also um

Speaker 2 i so we tried to write a few songs that would fit into that and so that was i wrote the title track show grim booze with that in in mind because i wanted it to feel like an old-fashioned song when you were when you were growing up and and now what are your like christmas albums that are on rotation my parents are classical music people remember so there's a lot of messiah jams a lot of messiah jams.

Speaker 2 You know, a lot of ceremony of the carols, you know, dung da-dun-dung daddle lung, dung-daddle lung.

Speaker 1 Oh, I mean, if you do that, I remember my part from choir. If you do the dung da-long,

Speaker 2 dung-dun-lung, dung-dun-dun-ung, dun-dun-dlung, dung-dun-dlung, dung-dun-dung.

Speaker 2 I was the alto, and that was my part.

Speaker 2 Ding dong,

Speaker 2 ding-dong.

Speaker 2 come

Speaker 2 ding.

Speaker 1 Here come the bells, so many bells. Here come the bells, here come the bells.
Here come the bells.

Speaker 2 Can you rock a desk cam? Oh, yeah, rock a desk cam.

Speaker 1 What's the hallelujah? You want that?

Speaker 2 Oh, come all you faithful is what I was just doing. Oh, that's the okay.
Start singing, oh, come, and I'll do the desk cam.

Speaker 2 Oh, come

Speaker 2 all ye fam. You can go up a little higher.
Oh, come.

Speaker 1 Oh, come all ye faithful,

Speaker 2 joyful and joyful.

Speaker 2 Oh, come, let us adore him. Okay.
Sorry, do come. Come, let's do that.
Okay, come, let us adore him.

Speaker 2 Oh, come, let us adore

Speaker 2 him. Oh, come, let us adore him.

Speaker 2 Oh, come, let us adore him in Christ

Speaker 2 the Lord.

Speaker 2 Ah! Aced it! You remember it! It's all in there!

Speaker 2 It's like your movie in Inside Out. Those music things are all

Speaker 2 in your brain.

Speaker 2 I know. They're all in there.
They're in the deep gray mouth. And they are so nostalgic.
They're so beautiful. They're so melancholy.

Speaker 2 They're so sad.

Speaker 1 See, okay, so I find Christmas sad.

Speaker 2 Yes, I know.

Speaker 2 I know.

Speaker 2 And by the way, I find it sad.

Speaker 1 I find it sad, And I get, now I've gotten into, now I get into the sadness of Christmas like a cozy blanket. I used to fight it, fight it, because sad is not my favorite state.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 1 It's often not where I want to, like, like I'm uncomfortable sometimes in sadness, but Christmas allows

Speaker 2 me to get, well, some people are just like a little bit more,

Speaker 1 they can just tolerate it.

Speaker 2 They know it comes and goes a bit.

Speaker 1 You know, like, it's like sadness and anger. I'd much rather be angry than sad.

Speaker 2 Same. And mostly am.

Speaker 2 Totally.

Speaker 1 Totally.

Speaker 1 So I get into the sadness of Christmas. Like I'm like, ooh, I'm just like looking like, you know, when you're in your music video and you look in the

Speaker 2 window to New York. I love the book.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's your jam.

Speaker 2 I'm like,

Speaker 2 dude, Grandpa.

Speaker 1 But let's talk about your classical. music parents and your

Speaker 1 little Anna's beginning into music because I'm very interested in that very like that early time.

Speaker 2 So, thank you. So I played the violin

Speaker 2 very seriously.

Speaker 2 It's so lonely.

Speaker 2 It's the funniest thing. And by the way, I'm grateful.

Speaker 2 I'm very grateful for obviously the sacrifice that, I mean, you know, we spend all this time resenting them and then you realize the things that they've done as you get older and they get older and it's kind of a relief.

Speaker 2 But I mean, the schlepping alone, like just the amount of times to like. pract, you know, to lessons.

Speaker 1 Why did you choose the violin? Do you remember? Or was it chosen for you?

Speaker 2 I think it was probably chosen for me. I had an aunt that played, and I like, I love her.
So I think I thought it was cool.

Speaker 2 And the violin I still play to this day was my aunt's violin that my grandfather was given in the depression in lieu of a payment for legal services at some point. Very cool.

Speaker 2 So it's like a 150-year-old violin, but it's not like fancy. It's not like a...
It's not a strativarius. It's not a strad.

Speaker 2 But I have had it like looked at because it's kind of interesting. And there's an instrument, and I still play that instrument to this day.
And I took it to Fiddle Camp with me last summer.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, Ana went to Fiddle Camp.

Speaker 2 I did. It's a real conversation starter.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And by that time, on an airplane,

Speaker 2 everybody flees the area.

Speaker 2 Yes. Anyway, I played violin as a little kid.
I started and I played until I was about 17.

Speaker 2 And I was good and lazy. I was a Gryffindor,

Speaker 2 which set up a lifetime of talented laziness and

Speaker 2 sort of landing on your feet. So I could fake it for a long, long time.
And then there becomes a breakage point

Speaker 2 in classical music.

Speaker 1 It feels that way with music and athletics, those two things, especially, where you are like loving it and you're good at it.

Speaker 1 And then there's a moment where it's like, okay, now you have to decide, am I going to the next level? Am I playing in college? Am I going to join an orchestra?

Speaker 2 First of all, it's so solitary.

Speaker 2 And it is, it's two things. It's deeply solitary.
And it is, I have, I am a perfectionist, and it is torture for perfectionists because even though I was lazy, I was a perfectionist.

Speaker 2 So it's a weird, I mean that, I mean that I'm not lazy. I'm going to read.
Yeah,

Speaker 2 let's cut the shit. Yeah, let's cut the shit.
Let's cut the shit. Let's cut the shit.
We'll be right back.

Speaker 2 No, I let's reframe what I mean. What I want to reframe what I mean is that I wasn't passionate about violin.
So I didn't want to lock myself in a room

Speaker 2 because truly, like athletics, like you said, it's suddenly it is eight hours a day, six hours a day, like going to school, like, you know, it's not going to school late or leaving early in the afternoon to practice, practice, practice, practice till your hands fall off.

Speaker 2 And it's lonely. It's really lonely.
Yeah. And unbelievably sad.
It is a sad instrument.

Speaker 1 Violin is the saddest instrument ever. And that's, I, I do kind of love that about it.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's beautiful.

Speaker 1 I'm realizing now that Christmas and violins are both the way I get into my sad state. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I love that. Well, I, that's funny because I'm writing a song called Sad Sad Violin at Christmas.
Really? Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, you just made me come up the title, but that is, I've been thinking about a sad violin because it's sad. It's a lonely, wistful, melancholic instrument.

Speaker 2 And I, there's something incredibly powerful about it, obviously. But

Speaker 2 so then what I, in seventh grade, don't laugh. I had my first star turn.
I was legally blind also as a kid. So I, I mean, I still am legally blind.

Speaker 2 So I also had an eye patch a lot of my childhood and I had a violin. So just put all that together.
Yeah, hot stuff. Put it through the comedy Play-Doh machine.

Speaker 2 That's why.

Speaker 1 And were we wearing the patch during the day? We were rocking the patch.

Speaker 2 Not at all. We were rocking the patch.
So

Speaker 2 around,

Speaker 2 I went to camp for the violin, but around seventh grade, I got cast, wait for it, as Helen Keller and the Miracle Worker.

Speaker 2 So I was able to pull a lot of my story into the part.

Speaker 2 And that's when I was like,

Speaker 2 I mean, by the way.

Speaker 1 And you put that on your Tinder profile, yes?

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yes, I do.
Yes, I do. And my grinder.
Yeah, and your grinder. Tinder and grinder.
You're on both. And you're very unsuccessful and grinder.

Speaker 2 Very unsuccessful and grinder. So far.

Speaker 2 You're right. Not after today.
Fingers crossed.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 hilariously, Helen Keller and the Miracle Worker was like, my aha.

Speaker 2 I think this is really fun.

Speaker 1 Right. You were, you got to perform.

Speaker 2 I got to perform.

Speaker 1 And you found passion there.

Speaker 2 Yes. And so then, and then it became clear I could sing.
And I said, so I did all the parts and everything in high school. I'm sure you did too.
But

Speaker 1 as a kid, though, you know, because

Speaker 1 you're an exuberant, kind of up-regulated kid. Like, you're, you're an, you're, you're more extroverted than what, than the patch and violin would make me think.
But were you an introverted kid?

Speaker 1 What kind of kid were you?

Speaker 2 I don't think of myself as an outgoing kid at all. Got it.
Or even as an outgoing person, to be honest, or upregulated or exuberant. On stage, I am.

Speaker 1 Interesting.

Speaker 2 And with you, maybe I am. Interesting.
But I, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't know.

Speaker 2 You are nobody. You feel how you feel about yourself.
I mean, I was, I, everyone in my high school was super, super funny. Yes.
And I was always friends with funny people. Yes.

Speaker 2 But I always like the SNL and people like, you're the class clown. Like, I was

Speaker 2 a person. I was not the class clown.
I was the person in the back row who snickered.

Speaker 1 and made jokes. You've told this on many podcasts and things, but I still think it's just fascinating that you were among many people that were your friends during that time.

Speaker 1 You were friends with Amy Carter.

Speaker 2 Crazy.

Speaker 1 Amy Carter, the daughter of President Jimmy Carter,

Speaker 1 who for people who are not our age, Jimmy Carter was a president.

Speaker 1 And the best ex-president we've ever had. Yeah.

Speaker 2 For sure.

Speaker 1 And Amy was so exciting as

Speaker 1 the presidential kid. She was like our Sasha and Malia.
Yes. Because he had young kids, Chip and Amy.
And was that?

Speaker 2 Yeah. And she was much younger.
And she was younger siblings.

Speaker 1 I mean, my name was Amy.

Speaker 2 So I'm like blown away.

Speaker 1 I know. And she was just like this girl in the White House.

Speaker 2 It was very exciting. And she was normal.
Well, probably for you too. I imagine I know you are a reader now.
You were probably a

Speaker 2 childhood reader. I was too.
She was a violinist. I mean, boom.
And she was a violinist. Yeah.
We were in an after-school GT program together and became friends.

Speaker 2 I mean, it was just an instant, like, whatever, books, books, books, glasses, and violins. Am I right?

Speaker 2 Come on, guys. Come on, let's party.
Let's party. And everybody would get invited to these

Speaker 2 group events at the White House,

Speaker 2 many of which were in the beautiful East Ballroom, which has now been leveled by

Speaker 1 or made more beautiful, depending on your life.

Speaker 2 Great point. Great point.

Speaker 1 It's going to be gorgeous, Ana. You know what?

Speaker 2 I stand corrected.

Speaker 1 Let's wait and see how it comes.

Speaker 2 I stand corrected.

Speaker 1 I have a feeling it's going to be gorgeous.

Speaker 2 And I just saw the Christmas decor, and you're right. And it's gorgeous.
It's warm as always. It's always so warm.
Oh, so warm.

Speaker 2 I wonder if it smells like French onion soup

Speaker 2 or wassle

Speaker 2 when you walk in. Gorgeous.
Okay.

Speaker 1 So, but you're going, you go

Speaker 2 into like

Speaker 2 multiple parties and things. And one of my early memories, this was such an extra double brain blow of like early synaptic development.

Speaker 2 The cast, the original Broadway cast of Annie was performing at the White House Christmas party.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 2 Exactly. Like the whole, it it was too many things.

Speaker 2 It was too many things. I don't think I knew that.
Like four feet away from us.

Speaker 2 It was like her little friends from her, you know, gift and talented program and her friends from school and various White House people's children.

Speaker 2 And then like Andrea McArdle and actual Sandy right over there. And buckets.
Hard knock life in it.

Speaker 2 Buckets. And then I did Annie at the Hollywood Bowl like five or six years ago.
What? And

Speaker 2 it was during, it was right after Wine Country. I think you were probably buried in.
And who are you Miss Annie in? Natch?

Speaker 2 Who else?

Speaker 1 What a party.

Speaker 2 I was Annie. I was Annie.

Speaker 2 I thought,

Speaker 2 why not?

Speaker 1 Well, there is that other part, the, we've got it, you know, the Jan Ranking part.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, God. Lily.

Speaker 1 I know, but the,

Speaker 2 I'm, my mind is.

Speaker 2 So mind-blowing-wise, when I did Annie at the Bowl, the same animal, there's one animal trainer on Broadway who does all of all animal training from Broadway.

Speaker 1 We've probably done, played her or him on SNL.

Speaker 2 He's the most delightful person. His name is Bill Berloney.

Speaker 2 And he does, he adopted the original Sandy from Animal Control and he trained her for the Good Speed production and then like traveled with every anti-production ever.

Speaker 2 And then now has become like sort of the Broadway, he does all Broadway animals, but he's a wonderful person and he and he's a big advocate for animal

Speaker 2 rights and whatever.

Speaker 1 He's not the type that we had at SNL that would be like, I got to get going to van if you need it. You know, like they'd be like, you got to hit it with a stick to have him let you go.

Speaker 1 I mean, can a llama do that?

Speaker 2 I don't know, but you know, she just got a 17 out of van in her, so I don't know if it's gonna happen today.

Speaker 2 Dude, we need to do that.

Speaker 1 This torque is gonna bite you if you hold it the wrong way. But that's the right way.
Hell if I know

Speaker 2 there was a donkey sketch. Were you there for the donkey sketch?

Speaker 1 No, it wasn't. No, I wasn't there yet.

Speaker 2 But it was, you know, like these donkeys going down those floors. Like, it's just the worst.
Oh, my god. And then they doped them.
And then, like, by live, they're like,

Speaker 2 stop moving. It was nightmare.
Nightmare. Anyway, Bill Berloney has these beautifully trained show dogs.
All things show. Like, it's funny.

Speaker 2 Even, even like Shobi's children, who I'm afraid of, and we all should be, are wonderful on Broadway because, again, it's all work ethic on Broadway. Everything is routine and work ethic.

Speaker 2 And so a lot of the sort of like crazy, there's a different kind of crazy, but it's different. It's more like a proper OCD crazy, which I'm comfortable with.

Speaker 1 So, but just getting back, you're in the White House, Annie's performing.

Speaker 2 So, Bill Berloney had a picture. That's what I was, that's why I brought Bill Berloni up because he had a picture from the 1977 White House Christmas party with me.

Speaker 2 All these people, it's mind-blowing. You're in the picture, it's insane.
The original do you have a copy of it? No,

Speaker 2 but he shouldn't have it. He didn't even take it with your phone.
No, I shouldn't have brought it up now that I think about it.

Speaker 2 I also got a picture once with Paul McCartney and then lost my phone and don't have it.

Speaker 2 Oh, well.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 the Amy Carter,

Speaker 2 here's the Amy Carter story.

Speaker 2 Okay, that's the most my, so all of it gets munched together into this kind of crazy, like there was a movie theater in the White House, and you would go and be like, please join us, you know, and the president for a viewing of Pete's Dragon with Helen Reddy, you know, like, yeah, things like that.

Speaker 2 That would be like, cause nobody, we didn't have VHS or anything back then. It was like olden times.
Yep.

Speaker 2 It sure was. And then that's the crazy, crazy story: is that I went to the Camp David for the Camp David Accords with the Carters, and we played the violin, which was crazy.
And for

Speaker 2 the very first United States-Middle East treaty.

Speaker 2 So you played violin for Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter. Wow.
And me and Amy. And it was all in just one room.
And

Speaker 2 we played Suzuki violin. Do you remember what you played?

Speaker 2 She, um,

Speaker 2 I I mean, it was literally like, yeah, lately row or something, you know, minuet and G or, I don't know, something.

Speaker 1 Oh, that must have been so tender.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 Maybe,

Speaker 2 as I've said before, maybe that worked. It worked a little harder to make Middle East peace.
Yep. Didn't get it on the right road.
It didn't work.

Speaker 1 It didn't work.

Speaker 1 And then you, am I right that you watched Star Wars there too?

Speaker 2 Yeah, we watched it with the Sadats.

Speaker 1 True story.

Speaker 1 Star Wars with the Sadats. Yep.
And then you also watched SNL in the White House.

Speaker 2 That is the most interesting of all of the stories because so President Carter was the president. You rarely saw him.

Speaker 2 There were,

Speaker 2 you know, a little bit, but we were there a lot, though. Kids were at the house a lot, you know, her various friends.
So

Speaker 2 I have a very, very, that's my first memory of Saturday Night Live because we went to get a snack in the middle of the night.

Speaker 2 And it felt like the middle of the night. It was probably 11.45.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And we went to, and we walked by and the president, who we hadn't seen very much, was sitting in a chair with a I remember he had like a snack and a beer and Aykroyd was playing him on TV live on Saturday night.

Speaker 2 And he was laughing hysterically at the impression of him. And to me, that was the most powerful,

Speaker 2 whatever you call that, early building block or core memory of putting in place the power of parody and the power of comedy and the importance of being able to laugh at yourself you know all of those things which obviously we're in a really different time around but um

Speaker 2 super super super impactful

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Speaker 1 And so you get to Northwestern. We talk, you're a voice major.
What makes you go from Northwestern after you graduate to LA?

Speaker 2 A very bossy gay. Great.
I mean, yeah, follow, follow,

Speaker 2 get online.

Speaker 1 Wherever you tell me to go.

Speaker 2 My friend Peter was like, you're going to.

Speaker 2 So I knew.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 the other, I went to go see The Second City, and there were two women in that cast, and they both played girlfriends at the time. And I remember being like, I want to see the girls do something fun.

Speaker 2 And then I came out here to LA and I went to a groundling show, and it was like literally

Speaker 2 Coolidge. Jennifer Coolidge.
Jennifer Coolidge, Kathy Griffin, Lisa Kudreau, this girl Heather Morgan. I mean, there were so many crazy, funny women wearing like wigs and glasses.

Speaker 2 And I, you know, I was in the improv scene in Chicago and like those, or, you know, at Northwestern, it was the same as whatever is, which is just a bunch of smart, quick wits guys that were like, I remember the like

Speaker 2 main big improv guy was, you know, star guy was like, you're more character. That's what he said to me.
You do more like characters.

Speaker 2 And I knew that that was an insult, like that they thought of that as an insult. And then I came out here and I saw all these like wigs and glasses.
I was like, that seems really fun.

Speaker 1 And who did you meet in your early years at Ground?

Speaker 2 We had an insanely talented group. It was, so I was right behind Will and Sherry.

Speaker 1 Will Farrell, Sherry O'Terry?

Speaker 2 Yeah. And Will is who suggested me for SNL.

Speaker 2 And I had in my group, I had

Speaker 2 Stephen Craig, Chris Parnell, Scott Waineo, a lot of writers that came from our era as well. And then right behind me was Maya Forte, Will Forte, my Rudolph.

Speaker 2 Like, yeah, I mean, it was, you know, and then I befriended a bigger collective of, you know, Tim Bagley and Mike Hitchcock. And

Speaker 2 then Sterling.

Speaker 1 We always love to talk about SNL audition stories on this show.

Speaker 2 I know. We like to.

Speaker 1 I know. We don't have to.
But it is, it is interesting, like, you know, with the 50th anniversary and like us looking back and all of it.

Speaker 1 Do you feel any differently about that, like the story that you tell yourself about your audition? Like, do you feel badly about your audition?

Speaker 2 You know what? I didn't even ever feel bad about it. I'll tell you why.

Speaker 2 Because there have been a couple of times in my life, and Wicked was one of them, and Saturday Night Live was another.

Speaker 2 And they were both incredibly challenging jobs and difficult workplaces in their own ways, both just in terms of physical demand and artistic demand, and just complicated

Speaker 2 creative workplaces, as you know.

Speaker 2 Both times, SNL being one of them, I left no stone unturned because I felt, and I really believe this to this day, if you, so sort of to totally double back on the lazy thing, like if you give everything your all, if you give something your all,

Speaker 2 you don't have regret. And if you don't have regret, you can face any consequence.

Speaker 2 For me, so I knew that if I did the best audition I could, I would feel fine if I didn't get the job

Speaker 2 because I wouldn't have left something on the table, you know? And so Will Farrell had told me famously that they don't laugh. And we always, people whisper that to one another in advance.

Speaker 2 Did you know that?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I knew that they, there's, it would be absolutely silent, which it was. Which it was.

Speaker 2 Yeah, me too. And I told Parnell.
And so Charlie and my now husband and I were engaged at the time I got the job.

Speaker 2 And he, I would, I wrote my, I wrote the whole thing out as a monologue and I would just run it relentlessly. And he would sit like Mount Rushmore.

Speaker 1 Oh, and practice not laughing?

Speaker 2 Repeatedly, because it was all stuff I had been doing at the ground links. So I needed to know what it felt like.

Speaker 2 The cadence is so different if you have a character that you're used to landing in a certain way.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's actually a really good point. I think a lot of people don't know a lot of stand-ups and

Speaker 1 sketch performers when they come and audition, they're doing stuff that has succeeded somewhere else. And there's a rhythm to it and laughs that you're used to.

Speaker 2 Correct. Yeah.
Exactly right. So I just rehearsed it in front of him and I knew it, you know, six different directions well.

Speaker 1 What characters and or people did you do in your audition? Do you remember?

Speaker 2 Yes. I did the NPR lady

Speaker 2 who I ended up doing on the show. And I did kind of a ridiculous pantyhose wearing woman.
And I did, who did not end up on the show, in a shocking twist.

Speaker 1 She ended up on Cut the Shit. She was on Cut the Shit.
Did you do any impressions?

Speaker 2 Well, so somebody, of course, was like, they're going to ask you in the 11th hour to do impressions. But I didn't do impressions.
And right.

Speaker 2 But I kind of knew that it might come because I'd heard that the people that were involved were never particularly organized around the

Speaker 2 advanced prep, shall we say? Yeah. So I just had it up my sleeve.
So I went and I knew that I liked Martha Stewart.

Speaker 2 I thought she was funny and interesting, even though the Groundlinks doesn't really do impression-based comedy. And so I wrote.

Speaker 2 an introduction as Martha Stewart and I got a Martha Stewart wig.

Speaker 2 And this was so funny to me. I did Cokie Roberts.
Oh, yeah. I remember her?

Speaker 2 Nobody, it was like an NPR reference. That's literally.
But she was on ABC News, and so I did Cokey Roberts. But Lauren is good friends with Cokey.

Speaker 2 I like Coke Reynolds.

Speaker 1 I had dinner with her last night, and it's very, it sounds just like Cokey liked the Cokey.

Speaker 2 Coke impression talked to Cokie. I talked to Cokey.

Speaker 2 Cokey thought it was a meaningful. Coke thought it was a little mean.

Speaker 1 Martha, your Martha impression is so good. Thank you.
What do you do vocally to get into Martha? How do we do a Martha?

Speaker 2 So much of Martha,

Speaker 2 it still is.

Speaker 2 She's so rehearsed in front of the camera. You'll never have her do this.

Speaker 1 Martha Stewart does stuff with Miss Piggy, and she's a little thrown by Miss Piggy. Yes.
Because Piggy, Miss Piggy is improvising. And Martha doesn't love to improvise.

Speaker 2 No, and I've had a few situations with her. In fact, where I've had to dress up as her and be with her.
Yeah. Which is.

Speaker 1 that's a very unique thing about SNL. I had that with Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton, where you are dressed exactly like them standing next to them.

Speaker 2 So I have had a few events with Martha. And recently I did the Drew Barrymore show.
Oh, right. I showed up as her.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it's just the worst. And you're just sitting there fully dressed like a person.

Speaker 1 Well, that's why, listen, this is why I love our people. This is why I love sketch comedy.
Sketch comedy is embarrassing.

Speaker 2 So embarrassing. Stand-up is cool.

Speaker 1 Yes. You get it.
You go outside, you wear a leather jacket, you smoke a cigarette, you put it out, you go and do your set. Yep.

Speaker 1 Sketch, you have a friggin wig and you're schlep in a box with a weird bow tie. Yeah.
And you got, and it never ends. And it never ends.

Speaker 2 And don't think that I'm not still doing that. Like there are days where I'm like, I still have a wig area in my house.
Yep.

Speaker 2 I one time got pulled over for speeding and had a wig in my glove compartment.

Speaker 1 That could be

Speaker 2 considered dangerous. It could be.
It could be.

Speaker 1 Do you remember what the wig was?

Speaker 2 Was it a no, it was like during Growling's days, in fairness, but just to have one around. It's just the schlepping,

Speaker 2 the amount of props.

Speaker 1 It's so uncool. And that's why I love people who do it because they're, to me, the coolest people, because they sit in the embarrassment and the commitment of it.
You have to be really committed.

Speaker 2 Which is why the bombing is the funniest thing in the whole world, which is why Will Farrell sitting into a bomb is one of my favorite things I've ever seen in the world. It is.

Speaker 1 At SNL, we used to watch old sketches that bombed and just like love it in a way. It's what the kids would call cringe, but it's even post-cringe.
It's like beyond cringe.

Speaker 1 It's almost like a delicious. Yeah.

Speaker 2 What would you call it? It's not a serotonin boost.

Speaker 1 It's like a,

Speaker 1 I don't know, it's the closest you feel to

Speaker 2 like a community therapy experience really is what it is.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's like a primal scream. Yeah.

Speaker 2 For sketch performers.

Speaker 1 What are some fun sketches that you used to watch that you loved watching that bombed?

Speaker 2 Or so we did a zoo crew sketch once, which is like a DJs.

Speaker 2 Morning DJs. And we wrote, I mean, it was the loudest sketch ever.
I mean, it was just literally like,

Speaker 2 like every single thing was just like, everybody, like,

Speaker 2 go get him, Rock. Like, non-stop.
Everybody, it was me and Parnell and

Speaker 2 somebody and the host, I can't remember, and Will. And it was this basic premise, really loud zoo crew.
And then

Speaker 2 the weather chopper goes down, like crashes. Okay.
Really basic. And then everyone's like, we lost Weather Chopper 5.

Speaker 2 Like just, anyway, people at the table were screaming with laughter. So funny.
And then we set it up at home base.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 a dramatic play, a Tony winning, Pulitzer Prize-winning, dramatic play about a Zucre. I mean, deathly.

Speaker 2 silent like a wall like the audience and age looked like a painting and the whole time you're you're like screaming and there it was all the wall of sound did you get giggles and I mean yes because it was so embarrassing and it was also just hilarious because it was like the whole time you're like they don't think this is funny they listen to morning zoos right there's nothing this is what it sounds like if you like driving to work and listening to that then that's just kind of a pleasant thing for you right um

Speaker 1 that was embarrassing do you remember that stuff that we called shit can alley yeah so there's there's all these little areas at snl like where you get to perform home base is like right in the middle and it's kind of a prime spot it's where update is.

Speaker 1 And then there's some areas that like where sketches go to die.

Speaker 2 Right, because you have the audience and you have the balcony. And so the main three sets, you know, where the

Speaker 2 musical guest plays and whatever, you usually are going to play things okay. There's one that's like way in the back that has no immediate audience in front of it.

Speaker 2 And really, sketches go there to die. I mean, nothing ever comes out of it.

Speaker 1 It's also a real vote of no confidence when

Speaker 1 your sketch is put there. You're like, I see, I see.

Speaker 2 This isn't going to make the show.

Speaker 2 The sort of quietness of like, it's in shit can't Ellie. It's in shit can Ellie.

Speaker 2 We're not going to shit. I'm going to call my parents.

Speaker 1 It's not going to make it.

Speaker 1 But you had so many hits. And NPR, that NPR, that sketch remains.

Speaker 2 There was no confidence in that sketch. That sketch was supposed to bomb.
And I knew because I'd played at the Groundlings that the quietness of it, that was the comedy of it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 it's so, so funny. And I should circle back just quickly to Martha.
When we're doing Martha, what are we doing with our lips and how do we talk?

Speaker 2 Well, one of the things she does,

Speaker 2 so many of what the things that she says and does are

Speaker 2 things that she has learned

Speaker 2 to do on camera.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 she is

Speaker 2 very aware

Speaker 2 of how the camera is going to look.

Speaker 1 It's a very,

Speaker 1 barely moving mouth.

Speaker 2 Almost nothing moves.

Speaker 1 Why should it?

Speaker 2 And nor should it.

Speaker 1 We're going to make a Christmas meal and barely

Speaker 1 nothing is going to move.

Speaker 2 I am obsessed with her.

Speaker 1 Me too. I'm obsessed with her.

Speaker 1 I mean, Martha is. Martha, I

Speaker 2 she said, I'm not going to buy you another show because I'm too scared.

Speaker 1 But please listen and know that you're something else.

Speaker 2 She also says, I love her rules, Amy. Her rules are so comforting.
Her rules are so comforting when you talk to her. Her rules? Her rules.
She's just got, she's like,

Speaker 2 I don't take alcohol alone. I don't take drinks if I'm alone.
That's what she told me. I don't take.

Speaker 2 Do you remember when she briefly took over The Apprentice? And it was, we were both, we're so obsessed with this.

Speaker 2 She would end the Zoom at the end, but she was always handwriting a termination note.

Speaker 2 Next little touch of class.

Speaker 2 You're fired.

Speaker 2 I so enjoyed

Speaker 2 your contributions to The Apprentice.

Speaker 1 But I'm here to tell you.

Speaker 2 I sent her flowers. I sent her flowers on one of her birthdays.
Many of the years. Anyway.

Speaker 1 Cut it.

Speaker 2 Can we ship?

Speaker 1 We'll cut the ship. Cut the ship.
I want to talk about Bobby and Marty for a second.

Speaker 2 The best and the culps

Speaker 1 because

Speaker 1 those two characters that you and Will did, I think are a perfect example of like kind of combining all of your talents.

Speaker 1 And before we get into them, what is the difference between good singing, like singing, and then comedy singing?

Speaker 1 And is there one, I guess?

Speaker 2 Well, it is interesting. It's an interesting question.
I definitely think the training informs what's fun about the characters, meaning she's, you know, they're quintessential choir teachers.

Speaker 2 So her technique is very important to her. So I probably lean more into that, that quality of the, of the, of the voice.
And I've met people over the years that are like music people. I hit notes.

Speaker 2 as her that I would be very worried about trying to hit as me.

Speaker 2 And I know this is true because my friend Seth Rudetsky, who has the Sirius XM Radio Broadway show, who I met because he wrote for the Rosie O'Donnell show at the same time as I was in 8G.

Speaker 1 A lot of people don't know when we were doing SNL, Rosie was in her studio right next door.

Speaker 2 So we met in the NBC gym and he was like of a certain part of my life. Like I instantly recognized him as a person who understood what that music part of me that I didn't even talk about was.

Speaker 2 And he he said, he was like, oh, I love how consistently you go from a B flat to a C. Like, again, I wouldn't have thought about it.

Speaker 2 And I wouldn't have even thought that Bobby sings that high, but she does all the time, which is kind of wild.

Speaker 2 Like, if you wanted to tell me, ask me to hit a C, I would get like my butthole would tighten up and i probably wouldn't be able to do it so there's something really fun about that and i think there's for me i can't speak for other people like i would never there's a freedom around it and a chance taking that i will play in character any day of the week till very recently i wouldn't have done it as a vocalist so cool does that make sense absolutely and that is what you guys do as those characters also i just love bobby and marty's look Their looks are excellent.

Speaker 2 Their looks are fantastic. And we knew early on.
Oh, so they were disparaged by some of the men, by the cool guys.

Speaker 2 People thought it was a medley bit and thought it was dumb and hacky.

Speaker 2 But we had so much fun rating their passive aggression as characters. Like

Speaker 2 the dynamic of the two of them, the people giving them the finger all the time and just the inherent bummer of having those people perform at your drama or whatever. Like

Speaker 2 we always loved, we always, that's what was so joyful about it. And the music was fine.
Like the music was a super fun component of it, but it wasn't the point ever.

Speaker 2 The point was, why are these people performing at my, you know, sobriety birthday?

Speaker 2 You know, it was always like finding the premise. So that's what made it so fun.
I have to say, honestly, like at the 50th, which was so

Speaker 2 special because

Speaker 2 that was always my favorite thing to do at SNL. It was the most fun writing it with Will and with Paula.

Speaker 2 We would, we were infamous, infamous is the term, because we would, as you know, not start writing until four o'clock in the morning. Yeah.
And we would finish at 10 a.m.

Speaker 2 And it was always like a laugh fest that

Speaker 2 so heavily featured procrastination. It was extraordinary.

Speaker 1 And well, it's it's very, very funny that you say that because we do a thing on the show where we talk about, we, we talk to people who know our guest.

Speaker 1 We talk well behind their back and we get a question to ask them. And so I spoke to Paula Pell.

Speaker 1 Uh-oh. And for people that didn't see the SNL 50th music special, which was amazing, you, there was like sketches in between acts and a lot of musical sketches.

Speaker 1 And Bobby and Marty came out and crushed. That was not an easy audience.
It was an audience of truly every single person was either performing or a performer or like it was a cynical audience. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You guys

Speaker 1 crushed. What was that feeling to do that that night?

Speaker 2 It was so fun,

Speaker 2 for lack of a better word. Like it was so

Speaker 2 for

Speaker 2 there was something, you know, as you go back to these reunions and you bring all of your kind of history and baggage and whatever with you.

Speaker 2 Again, kind of speaking to your point of the fact that this is all just so embarrassing, because first of all, like it's Radio City Music Hall. It's 6,000 seats.
I mean, it's a huge, epic space. Yeah.

Speaker 2 We followed Lauren Hill.

Speaker 1 Sure.

Speaker 1 That's who you want to follow.

Speaker 2 So you have to understand that in the wings,

Speaker 2 there are like thousands of cool music people. I mean, like,

Speaker 2 my dressing room was next to Jack White and his band, and I'm dressed as Bobby Mohan Culp, okay? I've got the giant glasses and my like striped dress, and Will's got his bald paint and his, you know,

Speaker 2 we were rehearsing in the keyboard. So already we're like the losers in the wings.

Speaker 1 Do you know what I mean? I mean, the winners for me, but

Speaker 2 it was fantastic.

Speaker 1 I mean, actually, you're like, you've got the violin and you've got the eye patch.

Speaker 2 100 and so we're already just like what is happening what is happening why are we here and who invited us you know and then we just started to giggle because we we it was so cute because we

Speaker 2 doing the sketch and doing that because we just it was very easy to imagine how excited bobby and marty would have been the people would have been to be at radio city and what was it like back

Speaker 2 what was it like back you see jack white who else are you seeing him i mean mayhem like posse and people with like you know, music people. So they got like

Speaker 2 big, cool hair and glasses and fur, like Lorne Hill's a fur coat and an afro. And like everybody's got like floral pants that come up to here.
And there's posse and, you know, weed everywhere.

Speaker 2 You know, Chris Martin's in the corner, like cool people, actual cool people who just looked right past us. Like

Speaker 2 they did not know that we used to be on Saturday Night Live. They were just like, who brought Granny and Gramps? Like just

Speaker 2 right past us.

Speaker 1 That actually probably was fun.

Speaker 2 It was so fun. That's fun.
And then going, and then we like, you know, going out there and all that stuff just suddenly works.

Speaker 1 You're right. Now that I'm remembering, Lauren Hill had had a surprise, incredible performance.

Speaker 2 Insane. And then

Speaker 2 there's like smoke and like, and then it was like,

Speaker 2 and test, test, test. And you guys cry.

Speaker 1 And that's what I mean.

Speaker 2 I knew it was streaming.

Speaker 2 And I also knew, I mean, it was really funny because we were like, they just, and all of their stuff was about how they'd come to New York for an ophthalmology appointment you know did say we're just lucky to slip in and just everything about it was so fun and so we're sitting there and uh yeah and i did have the feeling i was like this is streaming because one thing about snl for me again i don't know if you've ever had this but it's a little bit of an a student girl you know nerd girl thing i was always my greatest regret about this show, not that you would go back in time, is that I couldn't, I never like settled into it and enjoyed it because I was always so aware of the time and of running, somebody, running down the clock, somebody else's sketch is going to get cut.

Speaker 2 Like I was always, and when we were there, it was such a, you know, like explosive surfeit of talent that there were always three sketches a night that might not make it.

Speaker 2 You know, so I always felt like I had to like keep it moving, keep it moving. So I was suddenly very aware that it was streaming and that I was not going to be rushed.

Speaker 2 And I was like, I'm going to be Bobby Mel. The funniest thing in the world to me is this woman and this man, these, these choir teachers getting people to settle.

Speaker 2 Because there's just nothing funnier. So that's what high school teachers

Speaker 1 just kept telling people to settle.

Speaker 2 I need you to settle.

Speaker 2 I need quiet in the back. Hand goes up, mouth goes shut.
Hand goes up, mouth goes shut. Just this idea.
I was like, I'm going to keep going until they settle. I'm not going to worry about it.

Speaker 2 And if I had been at 8H, we never would have done that. Right.

Speaker 1 Very good.

Speaker 2 But we just, we took a full probably 45 seconds to you know get people to pipe it. David Spade piped down.

Speaker 1 That's right. You guys called him out.

Speaker 2 I don't want to hear it, Pierce Brosnan.

Speaker 2 So stupid.

Speaker 1 Okay, we have so much more to talk about.

Speaker 2 I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 1 Paula had two great questions.

Speaker 2 Uh-oh.

Speaker 1 One was

Speaker 1 a funny one, which was, your dog, Gloria, loves to eat things. Yes.

Speaker 1 And you often keep us updated as to what she eats. What has she eaten lately? And has it come out already? And was it intact when it came out?

Speaker 2 It never comes out. I don't know where it goes.

Speaker 2 It's upsetting. Like, you're like, it was a full hairbrush.
Where did it go? Where did it go? And honestly, because she's also like many dogs, like, it's the more personal, the better.

Speaker 2 You know, so it's a retainer or a pair of underwear. She would eat my IUD if she could pull it out.
She could get in there. Yeah, sorry, but it's true.
Dogs are gross.

Speaker 2 It is gross. Bras,

Speaker 2 all that kind of thing. Most recently, to answer the question, it was a massive thing of cheese.
I mean, it was a a Manchego. It was a Costco Manchego wedge.

Speaker 2 You know, those are big ones for a party.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 Charlie sent it to me. I was out here, and he sent, he'd taken out the cheese, was going to have himself a little snack.
Came back. The cheese was gone.
He felt crazy.

Speaker 2 That's always part of the story that he's walking around like, I swear to God, I brought the cheese out. Where's the cheese?

Speaker 2 And then hours later, there was like this much left, which also I find upsetting because it means that she has eaten to the point of physical discomfort, which for a dog is a long time.

Speaker 2 I just, I want to know what happens in her dog brain. Or maybe there's some kind of

Speaker 1 evolutionary thing where they show you just a little to be like,

Speaker 1 just to be like, and I, and just, just to remind us, nice, yeah, just a tiny bit of like a trophy. Like, and here's what I did.
She's such an asshole. Um, okay.
And then Paula's

Speaker 1 real question was, and it's kind of what the theme of our interview today, which is basically like, um,

Speaker 1 it's such a sweet Paula question, which is, um, you know, between writing and singing and acting,

Speaker 1 which one makes you feel the most free?

Speaker 1 It's an interesting word.

Speaker 2 That's a great question.

Speaker 2 I think that inherently I'm the most natural singer. I mean, I think that's like my first gift, meaning like that it's just sort of beyond me.
And as I've gotten older and more into it, like

Speaker 2 even in the last couple of years,

Speaker 2 I feel more comfortable just accepting that it's something that came from somewhere besides me. And I got lucky to have a career that kind of nurtured the muscles of it all, literally.

Speaker 2 Writing is the most in the flow, I probably feel, but I hate writing and I hate having to write. I love having written.

Speaker 1 Yes, having had written is the best feeling in the world.

Speaker 2 I feel like you're a more confident writer than I am. Oh, God, no.
No, that's not true. You're very good about it.

Speaker 1 I've got to

Speaker 2 go.

Speaker 1 No, I've got to.

Speaker 2 Your Uber's here?

Speaker 1 I'm so sorry. My Uber's here.
First of all, you are a member of the Wickedverse. Yeah.
You opened Wicked in Chicago.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I was the, you know, fourth overall alphabet.
So fifth, you know, so now when you go like

Speaker 2 last year, two years ago was the 20th. And

Speaker 2 again, I have people in my wicked life. They're like, I'm not going back.
It was torture. Cause it is trauma bonding.
It's a really hard job. It's a really, really, really, really hard job.

Speaker 2 It's a hard role to play. It is a physically demanding hard, and it is incredibly hard to sing.
So I'm actually in retrospect. I was so, I'm going to actually take a minute to tell a story.

Speaker 2 Yes, please. If that's okay.
Of course.

Speaker 2 Because I actually think it's so lifeless and important.

Speaker 2 I

Speaker 2 am so hard on myself. And again, I realized this about myself recently.
I'm not competitive. I'm a perfectionist.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 I actually hate competition, but I want to be really good at things. So it's a weird mix.
But when you do a Broadway show, everybody comes at the end because it's all your friends or whatever.

Speaker 2 People want to see you before it closes or you leave or whatever. And,

Speaker 2 you know, whatever. Here's Adina Menzel, the most incredible vocalist, originated this incredibly demanding vocal score.
Yeah. You're when you take over in a role, you're thrown into their tracks.

Speaker 2 So there's a lot of things that were designed around Adina's instrument that other people have a harder time with. Her phrasing, her lung capacity, things like that.
So I was sort of

Speaker 2 mercilessly hard on myself. And I also just didn't have the Broadway credits that other people did.
So I felt like I was proving myself.

Speaker 2 And especially then on Broadway, I think people felt like, who's this TV bitch who just thought she could show up and sing Alphaba? You know, there was not like a,

Speaker 2 I didn't feel like warmly welcomed into the Broadway community. I felt like I was proving it, you know, so every day.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I, you know, that role is

Speaker 2 very, very challenging. So my last like.
Three weeks, because I did Chicago and then I came and I did the three penny opera on Broadway and then I did wicked up on Broadway.

Speaker 2 So, my last like two, three weeks, Wicked,

Speaker 2 all these people, you know, come out of the woodworks, composers I admired, people I admired, people just want to see me in the world before I left. And I was so mercilessly cruel to myself.

Speaker 2 Every day, I would come back stage and I messed up the bridge on Defying Gravity, or oh my God, I hate it way that I, you know, I didn't, I didn't like the my upper register here, there.

Speaker 2 I was screaming in this part.

Speaker 2 It was such an interesting experience because the sound engineer gave me,

Speaker 2 like, snuck me, I hope I'm not getting him fired,

Speaker 2 recordings of my last 12 shows. He had just like stuck in a thing and recorded them.
I didn't listen to them for 15 years because I was so mortified. I was like, I don't want to hear myself.

Speaker 2 And then I cracked one open one day and I started, I wanted to listen to Defying Gravity to see if I could like Frankenstein the perfect version together, whatever.

Speaker 2 And it was so

Speaker 2 chilling how similar they were.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow, Ana, that's wild.

Speaker 2 To listen to them in a row,

Speaker 2 it was like, it took my breath away because I, and I tell my kids this all the time now, because, you know, Ulysses, my son is such a, he's such a perfectionist. I'm like, the difference

Speaker 2 between 98% and 100 is imperceptible to anyone but you.

Speaker 2 And if you're hitting the general ballpark of being able to, oh, I don't know, sing alphaba, you're probably cool. Yeah.
You know, so you are not a reliable witness about yourself.

Speaker 1 Oh, never. And that's why I give 75%.

Speaker 2 I don't even get, but honestly, most of, it can apply to anything. Oh, absolutely.
And making that decision of being like, did you show up? Were you nice to people? You know, did you know your lines?

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 The way that, and, and also the way, the lovely way in which you circled back and you were able to kind of like go back back to that younger version of yourself and be like, oh my God, I can't believe how unnecessarily, relentlessly mean I was to myself.

Speaker 2 Yes. I mean, I don't know if I'm able to take it now in everyday life, but it's such an important, I don't know, it felt like such an important lesson.
And

Speaker 2 obviously, like, that's the SNL wisdom pearl. I'm like, I wish I could have enjoyed it.
Just enjoyed it. It was a great experience, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, the fact that you had physical evidence that they weren't that different.

Speaker 2 It was mind-blowing.

Speaker 1 It's something else, isn't it?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 The mind is a terrible place a real dick um it's a terrible terrible place yeah the mind is a dick uh the mind is a raging dick okay mean girls what are your memories about us doing mean girls together i remember being on the plane with you yep we do her on the plane we got in a fight i remember sitting yeah you got in a fight with the guy um and the baby with baby francis was early empowering baby baby francis was on the plane with us do you remember that your baby francis who is now in her 20s 23 yeah she was on the plane and i still got in a fight with the guy with the baby around yeah i hope so

Speaker 2 because the guy got mad mad that you were swearing in front of the baby.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right. I was, yeah.
It's a long story, but what happened was a very stress, a guy who, like a first-class guy,

Speaker 1 we were in first class too. He was like, excuse me.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to, you're being too loud in first class. And I.
My Boston came out.

Speaker 2 It was the best thing I've ever seen.

Speaker 1 Okay, but the shooting of Mean Girls, what do you remember of it?

Speaker 2 I remember hanging out with you in that hotel one night and having drinks.

Speaker 2 I remember when Tina, I have a memory of her sitting at the table on 17 and saying, I think I'm going to try to option this book.

Speaker 1 Me too. I have an image of her sitting at her computer and being like, oh, and having the book

Speaker 1 near her and just like working on it, being like, I'm writing this movie.

Speaker 2 Incredible. And I was like, good luck with that.

Speaker 1 I'm going to go write a sketch about a lady who has a snake around her neck.

Speaker 2 Have you ever heard a fart mouth?

Speaker 1 And last question is, what are you listening to, watching? Where do you go to laugh these days?

Speaker 2 I am like, I am not very, for all my quiet comedy, like I, I am like, Mel Brooks is what makes me laugh. Like, big okay, what's your favorite Mel Brooks? I mean, let's Google it.
Is it Melbourne?

Speaker 2 Should we go to the producers? Young Frankenstein,

Speaker 2 producers. I mean, when Dratch and I write together, it feels like Mel Brooks is, you know, the

Speaker 1 Dratch is has, you, yeah, Dratch is of the Melbrooks world.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so writing with her is very goofy and very fun.

Speaker 1 You know what I love, and I know it's underrated. I'll love me a Spaceballs.

Speaker 2 Oh,

Speaker 2 deeply underrated. Yeah.

Speaker 1 God, Spaceballs made me laugh.

Speaker 2 My friend Philip Taratila is doing, does this character called

Speaker 2 Official Pam Goldberg on Instagram?

Speaker 2 He plays a member of Actors Equity since 1968.

Speaker 1 I know my Uber is here, but I have to see this.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you do.

Speaker 1 Official Pam Goldberg.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Pam Goldberg here, and I'm recommending what to bring with you to tech.
So here we go. Snacks.
Don't rely on other people's snacks or anyone else bringing snacks for you.

Speaker 2 These are Crasdale peanuts.

Speaker 1 I don't think they're organic. Pam's telling us what to bring to tech.

Speaker 1 Bananagrams are short and cordial. Also, Pam has got a real severe haircut.
Real severe. And a real squinty eye.

Speaker 2 She's been a regional theater actress for a long time.

Speaker 1 But anyway, Merry Christmas.

Speaker 2 Thank you, friend. Thank you, friend.
Merry Christmas to you.

Speaker 1 Anna Gastyer, thank you so much. That was so fun.
And that... Time went by so fast.
And I love talking to you. And, you know, this is our holiday episode.

Speaker 1 And for those of you celebrating the holiday in all different ways, I just want to say thank you for giving us the gift of listening to this show. It's meant a lot to us.
And

Speaker 1 this has been an amazing year that we've launched it. So thank you.
We cannot wait to make more, which we will be doing for you.

Speaker 1 And it has been a real gift to do it.

Speaker 1 I'm going to

Speaker 1 end this episode and dive into the polar plunge by sharing my favorite Christmas movie with you. And that is a little known classic, Emmett Otter's Otter's Jug Band Christmas.

Speaker 1 I don't know a lot of people that know it, but it's,

Speaker 1 it was, um,

Speaker 1 look, I don't love puppets all the time, but this one has the Muppet Puppet family. Um, uh, Jim Henson's workshop made it, and it is the cutest, most tender, best music movie.

Speaker 1 Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas. Check it out.
It is basically the gift of the Magi.

Speaker 1 There is an incredible bunch of villains called the River Bottom Nightmare Band that is basically a snake and a weasel, and they are incredible.

Speaker 1 So do yourself a favor, and I don't even know where to find it. I think I have it on VHS.

Speaker 1 But Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah.

Speaker 1 Whatever you celebrate, thank you

Speaker 1 for listening. And we can't wait to see you in the new year.
Bye.

Speaker 1 You've been listening to Good Hang. The executive producers for this show are Bill Simmons, Jenna Weiss-Berman, and me, Amy Poehler.
The show is produced by The Ringer and Paperkite.

Speaker 1 For The Ringer, production by Jack Wilson, Kat Spilane, Kaya McMullen, and Aalaya Zanieris. For Paperkite, production by Sam Green, Joel Lovell, and Jenna Weiss-Berman.
Original music by Amy Miles.

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