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Ana Gasteyer _ Good Hang with Amy Poehler · Midnight Mystery Stories

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello, everyone.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Welcome to another episode of Good Hang. This is our
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: holiday episode. It's our Christmas episode, and we have an
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: incredible guest today who's going to celebrate Christmas with us.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: And you should know, we are off next week, and
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: then we are right back. So don't be scared. We
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: just have one week down to give everybody a genuine break,
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: and then we're back in the new year. But we
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: are with Ana Gasteyer today. And Ana Gasteyer Writer, singer,
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Broadway star, sketch comedian, does so many things well.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: And a.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Sweet, dear friend who went through the same SNL. sausage
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: factory as we all did. And we talk about that.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: We talk about being on the show and how fun
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: it was to bomb. We talk about Christmas and our
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: favorite Christmas songs. And we talk about Annie. Annie comes up,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: thank God, as does Once Upon a Mattress. Um, and, uh, and,
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: and Anna's story about being in the White House. And,
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: and we also, uh, we talk about her record, Sugar
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: and Booze, a Christmas classic. So, um, It's a great episode,
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: and we're starting this episode with another titan, like a
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: genius comedic legend, a woman who has written some of
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: your favorite sketches at SNL. You know her from AP Bio,
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: from The Mapleworth Murders, from Wine Country, from Girls 5 Eva.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: She is the one, the only Paula Pell. Paula, I
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: believe we're getting you in a car. This episode of
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Good Hang is presented by Walmart Express Delivery, getting gifts
• 1:45
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• 1:47
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• 1:52
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• 1:55
  Speaker 2: to forget something, no judgment, you can even order gifts
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: up until 5 p.m. on December 24th.
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: Santa!
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: You might want to take notes. Download the Walmart app
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: or head to walmart.com and get your gifts delivered fast.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Subject to availability, terms and fees apply.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: Paula. Hi.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Paula, can you see me and hear me?
• 2:25
  Speaker 5: Yes, I can see you and hear you. Oh, hold on.
• 2:29
  Speaker 5: I need to... Can you hear me? I think I need.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: I hear you, but I don't see you.
• 2:34
  Speaker 5: I think I need to hit the. I thought I
• 2:39
  Speaker 5: hit the camera. Oh, hold on. Why isn't it working? Elaine.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: Handing it to Janine to see if she can hear me.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: Hi, Janine.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Janine Brito, Paula's beautiful wife.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: There we go.
• 2:58
  Speaker 6: There's my beautiful wife with the new haircut.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Hi, Janine. Paula, it's so great that your beautiful wife
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: is also your IT. For a person who just got
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: off an airplane, you look beautiful.
• 3:11
  Speaker 6: Well, I just did a, which Tina Fey is very
• 3:15
  Speaker 6: familiar with, in a car, a full face makeup in
• 3:21
  Speaker 6: about two seconds because I did that in the cabs
• 3:24
  Speaker 6: on the way to work all the time.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: We are all pretty good at, I mean, most women
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: are at like getting... Throwing it on. Yeah, throwing it on.
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: I've gotten really good at just the feel.
• 3:33
  Speaker 6: Like I can almost, it's like love is blind, but
• 3:37
  Speaker 6: it's makeup is blind and you just have people do
• 3:40
  Speaker 6: a full makeover without by just feel.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Well, it looks great.
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: I'm also wearing my lesbian uniform in Los Angeles.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: I love having you in Los Angeles, Paula.
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: It's so nice. It's so beautiful here. We left so
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: much snow.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, this episode with Ana Gasteyer is going
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: to be technically our holiday episode. It's going to air
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: before Christmas.
• 4:04
  Speaker 7: Yay!
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: And we are going to talk.
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: You guys better carol. You better sing a carol.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: I was like, I wish we could have you and Stude.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: You love to carol, though.
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: I do.
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: I love to carol.
• 4:16
  Speaker 6: I love to harmonize more than anything on earth. If
• 4:20
  Speaker 6: someone said to me, this is your job for the
• 4:22
  Speaker 6: rest of your life is just to throw in that
• 4:24
  Speaker 6: alto line and just walk from group to group and
• 4:28
  Speaker 6: throw in that alto line, lay down that bass.
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: I would do it and be the happiest human being
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: on earth.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Although I have also heard you have a very fierce soprano.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: You can also hit those high notes.
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: Well, sometimes.
• 4:40
  Speaker 6: I do think lately in my 60s, I have had
• 4:44
  Speaker 6: experiences where I thought I was nailing it and then
• 4:47
  Speaker 6: I listened to it back on a video.
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: Very mortifying. Just a little sharp.
• 4:51
  Speaker 6: And I like to sing a certain kind of sharp
• 4:55
  Speaker 6: for Janine that really makes her put her face down
• 4:57
  Speaker 6: in the cereal in the morning.
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: Because it's just a little bit. It's just a little overshoot.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Could you give us an example of it?
• 5:05
  Speaker 5: It's just the nearness of you. It's like finding it.
• 5:15
  Speaker 6: It's like a level, and you're always just finding it,
• 5:18
  Speaker 6: and then you finally get it.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: Only as good of a singer as you, Paula Pell,
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: can do good, bad singing.
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: That's such a thing in comedy. You're always like, don't
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: try to sing bad. Don't try to sing bad.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: It's funny. I want to talk to Ana about it. Like,
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: what is the difference between good singing and comedy singing?
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: It's a very fine line. So we're talking to Ana
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: Gasteyer today. What's great about Ana? Let's talk well behind
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: her back.
• 5:47
  Speaker 6: Ana is so many things at once, speaking of. And
• 5:53
  Speaker 6: she's such a multi, multi, multi hyphenate. It's like every
• 5:58
  Speaker 6: time you turn, she's doing a new job that's something
• 6:02
  Speaker 6: where it's like, oh my God, like just Broadway and
• 6:06
  Speaker 6: writing and movies. And, you know, she and Rachel writing
• 6:10
  Speaker 6: that hilarious Christmas movie. And then she's on really funny
• 6:15
  Speaker 6: television shows as really funny characters. And then she's like
• 6:20
  Speaker 6: playing the violin in a video she sends us to
• 6:22
  Speaker 6: crack us up. That's like incredibly skilled violin. Um, So
• 6:28
  Speaker 6: I just, I admire that so much in her, but
• 6:31
  Speaker 6: I also, she came and stayed with us to write
• 6:35
  Speaker 6: this Bobby and Marty recently for the 50th. And we
• 6:40
  Speaker 6: sat in our pajamas at my house, at our house,
• 6:44
  Speaker 6: and we just sat and just really broke it down.
• 6:47
  Speaker 6: She's so good at sitting and just really asking questions.
• 6:51
  Speaker 6: She's a curious, present friend.
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: She's really.
• 6:56
  Speaker 6: Such pure medicine to my soul to just really talk
• 7:00
  Speaker 6: about everything.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: We should talk. We've been on many trips together. A
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: bunch of the SNL ladies have gone together on girl trips. Maya, you, me, Dratch, Tina, Anna, Spivey.
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: The Wine Country Gang.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: The Wine Country Gang. And we have been, we're kind
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: of overdue for a trip.
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: Very overdue.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we need it.
• 7:25
  Speaker 5: We're going to all bring our grandchildren next time. It's
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: just going to be a play date. We'll all be
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: there with our grandchildren.
• 7:33
  Speaker 6: And Janine and I will have our grand dogs because
• 7:36
  Speaker 6: we cloned Barbra Streisand style.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: How are all the doggies doing? Can you name all
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: the doggies' names while.
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: We have you?
• 7:43
  Speaker 6: Yes, we have Ernie who used to have four buck
• 7:45
  Speaker 6: teeth and now he has nothing and no chin. Ernie
• 7:48
  Speaker 6: is a very obnoxious little chihuahua with a penis the
• 7:52
  Speaker 6: size of his legs. And then Gary is perfection. He's
• 7:56
  Speaker 6: a poodle mix. He's perfect, perfect child. And then we
• 8:00
  Speaker 6: have Dolly, who's like a shih tzu mix, who looks
• 8:04
  Speaker 6: like she's wearing a wig and she's very tender and gives.
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: A lot of side eye. And then we have our
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: only young dogs.
• 8:11
  Speaker 6: We always adopt old dogs. And now we've adopted a
• 8:14
  Speaker 6: younger dog who makes us say about 30 fucks before
• 8:18
  Speaker 6: 10 o'clock in the morning because she's so obnoxious, is Bunny,
• 8:22
  Speaker 6: a beagle basset. and she starts at about 5.30 and
• 8:25
  Speaker 6: stares at you in the dark, and you see her silhouette.
• 8:28
  Speaker 6: She goes, and just does that until you just go,
• 8:34
  Speaker 6: just get up, and you get up and feed them.
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: And then who am I missing?
• 8:39
  Speaker 6: And then Tallulah is in a wheelchair, a little wheel cart,
• 8:43
  Speaker 6: and she's an eight-pound, tiny, tiny little mix. She looks
• 8:48
  Speaker 6: kind of like a smooth-haired Pekingese a little bit, and
• 8:51
  Speaker 6: she has.
• 8:53
  Speaker 6: No feeling in her back half of her body and
• 8:56
  Speaker 6: is faster than any of the dogs, even without her wheels.
• 8:59
  Speaker 6: She flies through the air, just running on her front
• 9:04
  Speaker 6: two legs. And she used to despise me the first year.
• 9:07
  Speaker 6: And then I left for four months to shoot something
• 9:09
  Speaker 6: and I came back and she loves me now.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Okay, so any question you think we should ask Alana today?
• 9:16
  Speaker 6: I have a legit one and then I have just
• 9:19
  Speaker 6: one quick little funny one if you want to ask
• 9:22
  Speaker 6: her this. The funny one is her dog, Gloria, speaking
• 9:26
  Speaker 6: of dogs, eats things all the time that she's not
• 9:28
  Speaker 6: supposed to. I just wanted to know, I think we
• 9:30
  Speaker 6: should all be updated on what the latest thing that
• 9:33
  Speaker 6: she devoured and then has it come out yet.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Great.
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: And when it came out, was it recognizable? Great. And
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: then my real.
• 9:44
  Speaker 6: Question is, because she's such a multi-hyphenate, between writing, when
• 9:51
  Speaker 6: she's writing, or when she's singing, or when she's doing comedy,
• 9:58
  Speaker 6: which one of those makes her feel the most free
• 10:01
  Speaker 6: just glorious untethered euphoria which one gives her the biggest
• 10:09
  Speaker 6: shoulder that way.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Perfect thank you so much Paula love you can't wait
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: to talk to you in length one day and so
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: happy here love you love you bye bye woohoo This
• 10:20
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• 11:03
  Speaker 2: See site for details. What are you wearing?
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: I have my tartan. Oh, it's a bad angle.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: There it is. Tartan shoe.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Does that look natural? I wore my holiday pumps.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because I do try. I try to think about
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: what the guest is going to— It's tartan season. This
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: is our Christmas episode.
• 11:21
  Speaker 7: I know.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: I got excited. How many times a year do you
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: think I can wear this sucker? Yeah, those are cute. Yeah,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: aren't they cute?
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Isn't it weird to wear it in sunny Los Angeles?
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it does feel weird. And it's a sweater-y texture.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: It's a sweater-y tartan. I don't know if you can
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: see the texture. So it's very holiday.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: Anyway.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: This is going to be our Christmas episode. It's our
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Christmas episode.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: And I have so many things I want to talk
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: to you about today.
• 11:43
  Speaker 7: Okay, yeah.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: Very excited that you're here. Thank you for doing it.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Never enough time. Always so much to talk about.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: Never enough time. I know. But it's very exciting that
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: you are the Christmas episode because I do associate you
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: with Christmas in many ways. You have a Christmas album.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: You go on tour at Christmas.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: And you yourself love Christmas.
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: Yes, I do.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: What do you love about Christmas?
• 12:00
  Speaker 7: Well, I call myself the Duchess of Christmas. Um, actually
• 12:03
  Speaker 7: a nice gay called me that and I took it obviously. Um,
• 12:07
  Speaker 7: I love the, it's so weird. It's like, but it's, uh, a,
• 12:09
  Speaker 7: I love the holidays be, I mean like the, the
• 12:11
  Speaker 7: resume sort of leans in that direction. Cause I, my,
• 12:15
  Speaker 7: my like legacy moments at SNL were, uh, you know,
• 12:18
  Speaker 7: sweaty balls and, um, the Martha Stewart topless Christmas, which
• 12:21
  Speaker 7: was my first like thing that succeeded there.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Right. And they run every year on the Christmas episode.
• 12:25
  Speaker 7: So on that special, so, um, it comes up for people.
• 12:29
  Speaker 7: And then Dratch and I wrote that Christmas movie, which
• 12:31
  Speaker 7: is a parody of the, Hallmark films.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Tell everybody what it is again.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: It's called A Clusterfunk Christmas, and it is a parody.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: It's a perfect parody. It's a perfect parody.
• 12:41
  Speaker 7: The goal was to make the perfect parody for the
• 12:45
  Speaker 7: ultimate Hallmark lover.
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Of which you are. You love Hallmark movies. I love
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: a Hallmark movie, and I love the holidays. I love
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: the holidays.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: So what kind of decorations, because we're on a text chain,
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: we send each other our prep.
• 12:59
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: What decorations... Do you have up right now? What are
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: you looking forward to for like in the levels of
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: what's going on?
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 13:07
  Speaker 7: So it's all sort of contingent upon how much I'm
• 13:09
  Speaker 7: traveling and how exhausted I am by visual clutter that year.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: So, which is fair, right?
• 13:14
  Speaker 7: So I'm actually going full tilt Thunder Hump on Friday.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: The boxes are out.
• 13:19
  Speaker 7: I'm going to do New York for the first time
• 13:21
  Speaker 7: in a really long time. I haven't done it in
• 13:22
  Speaker 7: a long, long time. I've worked on Christmas a lot
• 13:25
  Speaker 7: because during the Broadway shows.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Because you're a pro, babe. And pros work on Christmas.
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: Christmas. Yeah.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: So you end up.
• 13:32
  Speaker 7: A lot of my things are, which are so up
• 13:34
  Speaker 7: your alley. I know like they're sort of, um, hacks.
• 13:38
  Speaker 7: They're like hacks to still be festive and still enjoy
• 13:41
  Speaker 7: it and still be present in it, but maybe have
• 13:43
  Speaker 7: it not be sort of enslaved by it.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean?
• 13:46
  Speaker 7: So that, um, so I have, for example, I can
• 13:49
  Speaker 7: go full tilt thunder hump, which I'm going to do
• 13:51
  Speaker 7: this year.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: And I'm going to, you know, What does that mean?
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: That means like the trees.
• 13:55
  Speaker 7: And the lights and the garland and the swag and the,
• 13:58
  Speaker 7: you know, all the TikTok hacks, like with the curtain
• 14:02
  Speaker 7: rod and the, you know, garland going across it.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: No, let's slow down. Woodland forests.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Let's slow down. I just heard one of my.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Favorite TikTok hacks.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: TikTok hacks.
• 14:11
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I know.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: And the garland goes where?
• 14:13
  Speaker 7: So you get yourself some like Walmart or, you know,
• 14:17
  Speaker 7: the tension rod.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 14:18
  Speaker 7: And you can put it like in a doorway, like
• 14:20
  Speaker 7: where you would hang things. And you can basically go
• 14:24
  Speaker 7: to Trader Joe's or Costco or whatever and get your
• 14:27
  Speaker 7: garland and you can make a really beautiful archway if
• 14:32
  Speaker 7: you use that tension rod.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: So you get what you would put curtains. Right.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: So you have to go buy that hardware.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: But that's like $ 4.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: And wrap it in garland.
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: And then put it in a doorway.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: You just swag it around it and then hang it down.
• 14:43
  Speaker 7: Put a little teacup hooks. Do you know those little
• 14:47
  Speaker 7: teacup hooks that people, you can buy them at the
• 14:49
  Speaker 7: Five and Dime also at the Walmart.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: You know, the Five and Dime.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: At Woolworth's Five and Dime.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: At Woolworth's, pat.
• 14:55
  Speaker 7: Down Woolworth's when you're doing your stockings. And you can
• 14:58
  Speaker 7: put your garland down it and you can do lights.
• 15:01
  Speaker 7: You can pre, Ikea has... or everybody now has, but
• 15:04
  Speaker 7: I do it and I cure on every holiday because
• 15:06
  Speaker 7: they're real cute.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: Ana Gasteyer is here and she is telling us about Christmas.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: I knew you would give me good stuff.
• 15:11
  Speaker 7: And I love a craft brown paper, just brown paper
• 15:13
  Speaker 7: packages tied up in strings.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Brown paper packages tied up in strings.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: That's how you wrap. That's how I wrap.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: I have a question about the brown paper. I find
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: it a little heavy sometimes for tape.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Because of the gauge. You've got to get a thinner gauge.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: A thinner gauge paper.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Craft paper. It's called craft paper.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: What are we talking tree?
• 15:34
  Speaker 7: I have a feather tabletop. I have a tinsel like
• 15:38
  Speaker 7: sort of medium. And then I finally am just going
• 15:41
  Speaker 7: to do live or bust.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: And the one thing I'll say about live, I usually
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: do a real Christmas tree. I like that we're calling
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: it alive.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Live.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: It's alive.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Live from Christmas. Bring it alive.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: And I know there's ones where you can even have
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: ones that they repot.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: In California.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:57
  Speaker 7: You can't really find that on the East Coast.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: I've tried.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Well, the thing that always bamboozles me about a real
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Christmas tree, which I still do, is I think it's
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: going to smell so good, and it never does anymore.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Because they've been cut so long ago.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Christmas trees used to smell better. Now they don't smell
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: like they used to.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah. That's, you know, that's genetic modification. Oh, God.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Right there. It's so true.
• 16:22
  Speaker 7: And I mean, sometimes you just got to do, well,
• 16:23
  Speaker 7: I use the, do you ever do like aromatherapy or?
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll put in a pine candle.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, pine candle. You know who's got a nice pine
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: candle this year?
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: Who?
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Trader Joe.
• 16:34
  Speaker 7: I stopped by yesterday because again, California Trader Joe's are like.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: I like that you said it singular.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: Trader Joe.
• 16:39
  Speaker 7: Trader Joe has invested and it's at his eponymous shop.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: I love, I love my Trader Joe's.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: I do love Trader Joe's.
• 16:52
  Speaker 7: But I like, I like, I do love Christmas, but again,
• 16:54
  Speaker 7: I will not be overrun by it. Of course. I love, like,
• 16:59
  Speaker 7: this is why I made a holiday album. I love
• 17:01
  Speaker 7: my holiday album. It's very old fashioned. It's a little winky.
• 17:04
  Speaker 7: You've seen my show.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: It's very like throwbacky.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Your holiday album, Sugar and Booze, is so great.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: And your shows that you do to support it are
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: so fun.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: It's a holiday spectacular.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, tell us about them.
• 17:17
  Speaker 7: Well, I like to do, well, I like to perform
• 17:19
  Speaker 7: with a horn section. So that's for starters, because I
• 17:22
  Speaker 7: have a loud voice. And I like to wear a
• 17:23
  Speaker 7: tartan and get dressed up. And I like, it feels
• 17:27
  Speaker 7: very like, so my, how do I answer this succinctly?
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Do you have to?
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: No.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: It depends. Do we want to spend the whole hour
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: on this turd?
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: But I mean, this is a real good question, which
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: is like, talk however you.
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: Want, babe.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Okay. You're right. It's called good hang.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, good hang.
• 17:48
  Speaker 7: We're hanging.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: We don't have to get it right. We don't have
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: to get it right.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: You don't even have to be succinct.
• 17:51
  Speaker 7: No, we don't.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: You're right.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: We can cut it.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we can cut the shit out of it.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: We can cut it.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Let's cut the shit.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: We can make this podcast six minutes.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: You know what the name of this podcast should be called?
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Cut the shit.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Cut the shit.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Cut the Shit with Amy Poehler and Friends.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: We should do a clip show where we call it
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: Cut the Shit and it's all the stuff.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: That we cut. And so.
• 18:14
  Speaker 7: Kind of in the 1959, early 60s entertainers era really
• 18:18
  Speaker 7: spoke to me because it was a time when a gal,
• 18:21
  Speaker 7: you know, Rosemary Clooney would probably be like the idol.
• 18:23
  Speaker 7: A gal who could tell a good story, could, you know,
• 18:27
  Speaker 7: belt to the rafters, play in front of a big band,
• 18:30
  Speaker 7: carry a band.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: An evening of entertainment.
• 18:34
  Speaker 7: So when we set out to make the holiday album,
• 18:37
  Speaker 7: it was really to create a record that, you know,
• 18:40
  Speaker 7: wasn't kitschy or like, um, you know, it's not a comedy,
• 18:44
  Speaker 7: it's not a comedy record. It's not a campy record,
• 18:47
  Speaker 7: but it has, you know, it's me. So it's, there's
• 18:50
  Speaker 7: fun to it, but really it wanted it. The goal
• 18:52
  Speaker 7: was to have it play seamlessly with, you know, a
• 18:56
  Speaker 7: Frank Sinatra Christmas record or, you know, a classic Christmas
• 18:59
  Speaker 7: record while you're, making cocktails and wrapping presents.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: It's a perfect record for that. Tree trimming.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Tree trimming. It is so good. Tree trimming a live tree.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Is it tree trimming a live tree? A live tree.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Or a balsam hill.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Or a balsam hill.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: I don't want to, you know.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: It is, it's such a good record. And it is,
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: it's just the right amount of like whimsy combined with really,
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: really good singing and many original Christmas songs, which is
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: hard to do to make an original Christmas song.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Really hard. And I love Christmas rec. I love Christmas songs.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: But they're really, really hard.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: What Christmas songs do you love?
• 19:33
  Speaker 7: Well, I like a lot of the ones that are
• 19:34
  Speaker 7: on the record. I love Sleigh Ride. I love Man
• 19:36
  Speaker 7: with a Bag, which I just think is a structurally... Man.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: With a Bag. Oh, it's on your record. Yeah, it's
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: on the record.
• 19:41
  Speaker 7: There's some bad Christmas songs that we listen to every
• 19:44
  Speaker 7: year just because they're out there over and over again.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: I have to say.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Deck the Hall is not my fave. No. And We
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Wish You a Merry Christmas is not my fave.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: It's boring.
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: It's boring. They're boring.
• 19:56
  Speaker 7: There's a lot of them. I mean, even Rockin' Around
• 19:59
  Speaker 7: the Christmas Tree is kind of a boring song.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Structurally....
• 20:04
  Speaker 7: In the kind of carol canon, I think God Rest
• 20:06
  Speaker 7: Ye Merry Gentlemen has a really great rhythm.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: We actually have a new arrangement of it this year,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: which we're doing on stage. God rest ye merry gentlemen,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: let nothing you dismay. Remember Christ our Savior was born
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: on Christmas Day. Bum, bum, bum. You can hear it, right?
• 20:23
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: It's kind of nice.
• 20:24
  Speaker 7: To save us all from Satan's power when he was
• 20:28
  Speaker 7: gone astray.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: It's a good song. It's a good tune.
• 20:36
  Speaker 7: But also, um, I, so we tried to write a
• 20:40
  Speaker 7: few songs that would fit into that. And so that was,
• 20:41
  Speaker 7: I wrote the title track show grim booze with that
• 20:43
  Speaker 7: in mind because I wanted it to feel like an
• 20:45
  Speaker 7: old fashioned song.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: When you were, when you were growing up and now,
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: what are your like Christmas albums that are on rotation?
• 20:52
  Speaker 7: My parents are classical music people remember. So there's a
• 20:55
  Speaker 7: lot of Messiah jam, a lot of Messiah jams. Um,
• 20:59
  Speaker 7: You know, a lot of Ceremony of the Carols, you know.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, wait, if you.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Do that, I remember my part from choir. If you
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: do the dun-dun-dun, ready?
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun Ding dong, ding dong.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Here come the bells, so many bells.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Here come the bells, here come the bells, here come
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: the bells.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Can you rock a desk camp?
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Rock a desk camp.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: What's the hallelujah one?
• 21:45
  Speaker 7: That O Come All Ye Faithful is what I was
• 21:46
  Speaker 7: just doing. That's the, okay, start singing O Come and
• 21:49
  Speaker 7: I'll do the desk camp.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Oh, come all ye.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: You can go up a little higher.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant.
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: Keep going.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Do the O come, let us adore him.
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Sorry, do O come. O come, let us adore him.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: O come, let us adore him.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: O come, let us adore him. O come, let us
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: adore him. Christ the Lord.
• 22:31
  Speaker 7: Ah!
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: Aced it!
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: You remember it! It's all in there. It's like your movie,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Inside Out. Those music things are all trapped in your brain.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: They're all in there. I know.
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: They're all in there.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: They're in the deep gray matter.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: And they're so nostalgic.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: They're so beautiful.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: They're so melancholy.
• 22:47
  Speaker 7: I know.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: They're so sad. See, okay, so I find Christmas sad.
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: Yes, I know.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: I know. And by the way, a lot of people do.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: I find it sad.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Including my mother.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: And now I've gotten into, now I get into the
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: sadness of Christmas like a cozy blanket. I used to
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: fight it, fight it. Because sad is not my favorite state.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: No, no.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: It's often not where I want to, like I'm uncomfortable
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: sometimes in sadness. But Christmas allows me to get, well,
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: some people are just like a little bit more, they
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: can just tolerate it.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they know it comes and goes a bit.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: You know, like it's like sadness and anger. I'd much
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: rather be angry than sad.
• 23:24
  Speaker 7: Same.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: And mostly am.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: Totally. Totally.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: So I get into the sadness of Christmas. Like I'm like,
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: I'm just like looking like, you know, when you're in
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: your music video and you look in the window.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: I love the book.
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: That's your jam.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: But let's talk about your classical music parents and your
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: little Ana's beginning into music. Cause I'm very interested in
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: that very like, that early time.
• 23:58
  Speaker 7: So thank you so I played the violin yes very
• 24:02
  Speaker 7: seriously it's so lonely it's the funniest thing and by
• 24:07
  Speaker 7: the way I'm grateful I'm very grateful for obviously the
• 24:11
  Speaker 7: sacrifice that I mean you know we spent all this
• 24:13
  Speaker 7: time resenting them and you realize the things that they've
• 24:15
  Speaker 7: done as you get older and they get older and
• 24:16
  Speaker 7: it's kind of a relief but I mean the schlepping
• 24:19
  Speaker 7: alone like just the amount of times to like practice
• 24:22
  Speaker 7: to lessons.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Why did you choose the violin do you remember or
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: was it chosen for.
• 24:26
  Speaker 7: You I think it was probably chosen for me. I
• 24:29
  Speaker 7: had an aunt that played, and I love her, so
• 24:31
  Speaker 7: I think I thought it was cool. And the violin
• 24:34
  Speaker 7: I still play to this day was my aunt's violin
• 24:37
  Speaker 7: that my grandfather was given in the Depression in lieu
• 24:41
  Speaker 7: of a payment.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Wow. for legal services at some point.
• 24:45
  Speaker 7: So it's like 150 year old violin, but it's, it's
• 24:47
  Speaker 7: not like fancy.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: It's not like a, it's not a Stradivarius. It's not
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: a Strad.
• 24:52
  Speaker 7: Um, but I have had it like looked at because
• 24:55
  Speaker 7: it's kind of interesting as an instrument. And I still
• 24:56
  Speaker 7: play that instrument to this day. And I, um, I
• 24:58
  Speaker 7: took it to fiddle camp with me last summer.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Ana went to fiddle camp.
• 25:02
  Speaker 7: I did. It's a real conversation starter. Um, and by that, everybody,
• 25:08
  Speaker 7: everybody flees the area.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Um, my, my, Yes. Anyway, I played violin as a
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: little kid.
• 25:15
  Speaker 7: I started and I played until I was about 17.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: And I was good and lazy.
• 25:22
  Speaker 7: I was a Gryffindor, which set up a lifetime of
• 25:26
  Speaker 7: talented laziness and sort of landing on your feet.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: So I could fake it for a long, long time.
• 25:31
  Speaker 7: And then there becomes a breakage point in classical music.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: It feels that way with music and athletics. Those two
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: things especially, where you are like loving it and you're
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: good at it. And then there's a moment where it's like, okay,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: now you have to decide, am I going to the
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: next level? Am I playing in college? Am I going
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: to join an orchestra?
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: First of all, it's so solitary.
• 25:49
  Speaker 7: And it is, it's two things.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: It's deeply solitary.
• 25:53
  Speaker 7: And it is, I have, I'm, I am a perfectionist
• 25:58
  Speaker 7: and it is, um, torture for perfectionists because even though
• 26:02
  Speaker 7: I was lazy, I was a perfectionist.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: So it's a weird, I mean that, I mean that I'm,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: I'm not lazy. I'm going to read.
• 26:08
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Let's cut, let's cut the shit.
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Let's cut the shit.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: No, I want to reframe.
• 26:19
  Speaker 7: What I mean is that I wasn't passionate about violin.
• 26:24
  Speaker 7: So I didn't want to lock myself in a room
• 26:26
  Speaker 7: because truly like athletics, like you said, it's suddenly it
• 26:30
  Speaker 7: is eight hours a day, six hours a day, like
• 26:32
  Speaker 7: going to school, like, you know, it's not going to
• 26:34
  Speaker 7: school late or leaving early in the afternoon to practice, practice, practice,
• 26:36
  Speaker 7: practice till your hands fall off.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: And it's lonely. It's really lonely. And unbelievably sad. It
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: is a sad instrument.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: Violin is the saddest instrument ever. And that's, I do
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: kind of love that about it.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's beautiful.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: I'm realizing now that Christmas and violins are both the
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: way I get into my sad state. I love that.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Well, that's funny because I'm writing a song called Sad
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Violin at Christmas.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 27:00
  Speaker 7: I mean, you just made me come up with the title,
• 27:01
  Speaker 7: but that is, I've been thinking about a sad violin
• 27:04
  Speaker 7: because it's sad. It's a lonely, wistful, melancholic instrument. And
• 27:08
  Speaker 7: there's something incredibly powerful about it, obviously, but Um, so
• 27:11
  Speaker 7: then what I, in seventh grade, don't laugh. I had
• 27:16
  Speaker 7: my first star turn. I was legally blind also as
• 27:20
  Speaker 7: a kid. So I, I mean, I still am legally blind.
• 27:23
  Speaker 7: So I also had an eye patch a lot of
• 27:25
  Speaker 7: my childhood and I had a violin. So just put
• 27:27
  Speaker 7: all that together and put it through the comedy Play-Doh machine.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: That's why.
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: Hot stuff.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: And were we wearing the patch during the day?
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: We were rocking the patch.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: Not at home.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: We were rocking the patch.
• 27:37
  Speaker 7: So around, I went to camp for the violin, but
• 27:42
  Speaker 7: around seventh grade, I got cast, wait for it, as
• 27:45
  Speaker 7: Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker. So I was able
• 27:51
  Speaker 7: to pull a lot of my story into the part.
• 27:59
  Speaker 7: And that's when I was.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Like, I mean, by the way.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: And you put that on your Tinder profile, yes?
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Yes, I do. Yes, I do. And my Grindr.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and your Grindr. Tinder and Grindr.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: You're on both.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: And you're very unsuccessful on Grindr. Very unsuccessful on Grindr.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: So far.
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: You're right.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Not after today.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: Fingers crossed.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: So.
• 28:21
  Speaker 7: And hilariously, Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker was like
• 28:24
  Speaker 7: my aha of I think this is really fun.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: You got to perform. I got to perform.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: And you found passion there.
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: And so then it became Cleric at Sing.
• 28:34
  Speaker 7: So I did all the parts and everything in high school.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you did too.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: As a kid. Because you're an exuberant, kind of upregulated kid.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: You're more extroverted than what... Then the patch and violin
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: would make me think. But were you an introverted kid?
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: What kind of kid were you?
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: I don't think of myself as an outgoing kid at all.
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: Got it.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Or even as an outgoing person, to be honest, or
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: upregulated or exuberant. On stage, I am. Interesting. And with you,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: maybe I am.
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: Interesting.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: But I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. But I don't know.
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you are.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Nobody sees themselves clearly.
• 29:05
  Speaker 7: You feel how you feel about yourself. I mean, everyone
• 29:08
  Speaker 7: in my high school was super, super funny.
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: And I was always friends with funny people. Yes. But
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: I always liked SNL and people were like, you're the
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: class clown. Were you a superlative? No, I was not
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: the class clown. Did you get a superlative? I was
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: the person in the back row who snickered and made jokes.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: You've told this on many podcasts and things, but I
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: still think it's just fascinating that you were, among many
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: people that were your friends during that.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Time, you were friends with Amy Carter.
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: Crazy.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: Amy Carter, the daughter of President Jimmy Carter.
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: Correct.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: Who, for people who are not our age, Jimmy Carter
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: was a president.
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: But also....
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: The best ex-president we've ever had.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: And Amy was so exciting as the presidential kid. She
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: was like our Sasha and Malia.
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: Because he had young kids, Chip and Amy. Yeah, and
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: she was much younger than her siblings. I mean, my
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: name was Amy, so I was like blown away.
• 30:01
  Speaker 7: I know.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: And she was just like this girl in the White House.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: It was very exciting.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: And she was normal. Well, probably for you, too. I
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: know you are a reader now. You were probably a
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: childhood reader. I was, too. She was a violinist.
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: I mean, boom.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: She was a violinist.
• 30:16
  Speaker 7: Yeah, we were in an after-school GT program together and
• 30:20
  Speaker 7: became friends. I mean, it was just an instant, like, whatever, books, glasses,
• 30:25
  Speaker 7: and violins. Am I right?
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Come on, guys.
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: Come on, let's party.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Let's party.
• 30:30
  Speaker 7: And everybody would get invited to these group events at
• 30:35
  Speaker 7: the White House, many of which were in the beautiful
• 30:38
  Speaker 7: East Ballroom, which has now been leveled.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: Or made more beautiful, depending on who you talk to.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Great point.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: It's going to be gorgeous, Anna.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: You know what? I stand corrected. Let's wait and see
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: how it comes out.
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: I stand corrected.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: I have a feeling it's going to be gorgeous. And
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: I just saw the Christmas decor, and you're right.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: And it's gorgeous. It's warm as always.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: It's always so warm. So warm. So warm and inviting.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: You know what?
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: I wonder if it smells like French onion soup. Or wassail.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: When you walk in. Gorgeous. Okay.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: So, but you're going, you're going, you're going to like.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Multiple parties and things.
• 31:10
  Speaker 7: And one of my early memories, this was such an
• 31:13
  Speaker 7: extra double brain blow of like early synaptic development. The cast,
• 31:18
  Speaker 7: the original Broadway cast of Annie was performing at the
• 31:22
  Speaker 7: White House Christmas party.
• 31:22
  Speaker 6: Exactly.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly. Like the whole, it was too many things.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: It was too many things.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: I don't think I knew that.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Like four feet away from us.
• 31:34
  Speaker 7: It was like her little friends from her, you know,
• 31:35
  Speaker 7: Gift and Talented program and her friends from school and
• 31:38
  Speaker 7: various White House people's children.
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:40
  Speaker 7: And then like Andrew McArdle and actual Sandy right over there.
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: Oh my God.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: And buckets, hard knock life in it.
• 31:47
  Speaker 7: Buckets.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: And then I did Annie at the Hollywood Bowl like
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: five or six years ago.
• 31:51
  Speaker 7: What?
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: I didn't know this either. It was during, it was
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: right after Wine Country.
• 31:55
  Speaker 7: I think you were probably buried in editing.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: And who, you miss Annie again?
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: Match?
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: Who else?
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: What a, I was Annie?
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: I was Annie.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: I thought, why not?
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Well, there is that other part, the we've got to,
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: you know, whether it's the Anne Rankin part.
• 32:13
  Speaker 7: Oh, yeah.
• 32:13
  Speaker 6: Oh, God.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: Lily.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: My mind is blown.
• 32:17
  Speaker 7: So mind-blowing wise, when I did Annie at the Bowl.
• 32:20
  Speaker 7: The same animal, there's one animal trainer on Broadway who
• 32:23
  Speaker 7: does all animal training.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: And we've probably done, played her or him on SNL.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: He's the most delightful person.
• 32:29
  Speaker 7: His name is Bill Berloni and he does, he adopted
• 32:32
  Speaker 7: the original Sandy from Animal Control and he trained her
• 32:35
  Speaker 7: for the Goodspeed production and then like traveled with every
• 32:38
  Speaker 7: Annie production ever. And then now has become like sort
• 32:41
  Speaker 7: of the Broadway. He does all Broadway animals, but he's
• 32:44
  Speaker 7: a wonderful person. And he, and he's a big advocate
• 32:47
  Speaker 7: for animal rights and you know, whatever.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: He's not the type that we had at SNL that
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: would be like, I got a gecko in the van
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: if you need it.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: You know, like, you gotta hit it with a stick
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: to let him let you go. I mean, can a
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: llama do that? I don't know, but.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: She's got 17 out of van in her. So I
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: don't know if it's going to happen today.
• 33:06
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: This tortoise is going to bite you if you hold
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: it in the wrong way. What's the right way? Hell
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: if I know.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: There was a donkey sketch. Were you there for the
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: donkey sketch? No, I wasn't there yet. You know, like
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: these donkeys like going down those floors. It's just the worst.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Oh my God.
• 33:28
  Speaker 7: And then they doped them. And then like by live,
• 33:30
  Speaker 7: they're like, And it's not moving.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: It was a nightmare. Nightmare. Anyway, Bill Berloni has these
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: beautifully trained show dogs. Thank you, Bill. All things show.
• 33:41
  Speaker 7: It's funny. Even like Showbiz children, who I'm afraid of
• 33:43
  Speaker 7: and we all should be, are wonderful on Broadway because, again,
• 33:47
  Speaker 7: it's all work ethic on Broadway. Everything is routine and
• 33:50
  Speaker 7: work ethic. And so a lot of the sort of
• 33:52
  Speaker 7: like crazy, there's a different kind of crazy, but it's different.
• 33:55
  Speaker 7: It's more like a proper OCD crazy, which I'm comfortable with.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: But just getting back, you're in the White House, Annie's performing.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: So Bill Berloni had a picture.
• 34:04
  Speaker 7: That's why I brought Bill Berloni up, because he had
• 34:07
  Speaker 7: a picture from the 1977 White House Christmas party with.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Me, all these people. It's mind-blowing. You're in the picture?
• 34:13
  Speaker 7: It's insane.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Oh, do you have a copy of it?
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: No.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: But he showed it to me.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: He didn't even take it with your phone?
• 34:18
  Speaker 7: No, I shouldn't have brought it up now that I
• 34:19
  Speaker 7: think about it. I also got a picture once with
• 34:25
  Speaker 7: Paul McCartney and then lost my phone and don't have it.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Oh, well.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: So, but it exists.
• 34:34
  Speaker 7: It exists.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Here's the Amy Carter story.
• 34:36
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 34:36
  Speaker 7: That's the most, so all of it gets munched together
• 34:39
  Speaker 7: into this kind of crazy, like there was a movie
• 34:42
  Speaker 7: theater in the White House and you would go and
• 34:44
  Speaker 7: be like, please join us, you know, on the president
• 34:47
  Speaker 7: for a viewing of Pete's Dragon with Helen Reddy, you know, like, yeah,
• 34:50
  Speaker 7: things like that. That would be like, cause nobody, we
• 34:52
  Speaker 7: didn't have VHS or anything back then. It was like
• 34:54
  Speaker 7: the olden times.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Sure was.
• 34:57
  Speaker 7: And then that's the crazy, crazy story is that I
• 34:59
  Speaker 7: went to the Camp David for the Camp David Accords
• 35:02
  Speaker 7: with the Carters.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: And we played the violin, which was crazy.
• 35:06
  Speaker 7: And for the very first United States Middle East Treaty.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: So you played violin for?
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: For Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter.
• 35:16
  Speaker 7: Wow.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: And me and Amy. And it was all in just
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: one room.
• 35:19
  Speaker 7: And we played Suzuki violin after lunch.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Do you remember what you played?
• 35:25
  Speaker 7: She, um, I mean, it was literally like, yeah, lightly
• 35:30
  Speaker 7: row or something, you know, minuet and G or I
• 35:32
  Speaker 7: don't know something.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: Oh, that must've been so tender.
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 35:37
  Speaker 7: Maybe as I've said before, maybe that, maybe that was
• 35:41
  Speaker 7: a little harder.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: To make Middle East piece.
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: It didn't work.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Um, and then you, am I right that you watched
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: star Wars there too?
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: We watched it with the sedats. True story.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: Star Wars with the Sadats.
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: And then you also watched SNL in the White House.
• 36:00
  Speaker 7: That is the most interesting of all of the stories. Because,
• 36:03
  Speaker 7: so President Carter was the president. You rarely saw him.
• 36:07
  Speaker 7: There were, you know, a little bit, but we were
• 36:10
  Speaker 7: there a lot though. Kids were at that house a lot,
• 36:12
  Speaker 7: you know, her various friends. So I have a very, very,
• 36:16
  Speaker 7: that's my first memory of Saturday Night Live because we
• 36:19
  Speaker 7: went to get a snack in the middle of the night.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: And it felt like the middle of the night was
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: probably 1145.
• 36:25
  Speaker 7: Yeah. And, um, we went to, and we walked by
• 36:28
  Speaker 7: and the president who we hadn't seen very much was
• 36:30
  Speaker 7: sitting in a chair, uh, with a, I remember he
• 36:34
  Speaker 7: had like a snack and a beer and Aykroyd was
• 36:36
  Speaker 7: playing him on TV live on Saturday night.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: And he was laughing hysterically at the impression of him.
• 36:44
  Speaker 7: And to me, that was the most powerful, um, whatever
• 36:49
  Speaker 7: you call that early building block or core memory of
• 36:52
  Speaker 7: putting in place the power of parody and the power
• 36:55
  Speaker 7: of comedy and the importance of being able to laugh
• 36:58
  Speaker 7: at yourself, you know, all of those things, which obviously
• 37:00
  Speaker 7: we're in a really different time around, but, um, super, super,
• 37:04
  Speaker 7: super impactful.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: And so you get to Northwestern, we talk, you're a
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: voice major. What makes you go from Northwestern after you
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: graduate to LA?
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: A very bossy gay.
• 37:22
  Speaker 7: Great.
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: I mean, yeah.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: Follow, follow.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Get in line. Wherever you tell me to go. My
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: friend Peter was like, you're going to.
• 37:31
  Speaker 7: So I knew, I mean, the other, I went to
• 37:36
  Speaker 7: go see the second city and there were two women
• 37:40
  Speaker 7: in that cast and they both played girlfriends at the time.
• 37:42
  Speaker 7: And I remember being like, I want to see the
• 37:44
  Speaker 7: girls like do something fun. And then I came out
• 37:47
  Speaker 7: here to LA and I went to a groundling show
• 37:50
  Speaker 7: and it was like, literally uh Coolidge Jennifer Coolidge Jennifer
• 37:56
  Speaker 7: Coolidge Kathy Griffin Lisa Kudrow this girl Heather Morgan I
• 38:00
  Speaker 7: mean there were so many crazy funny women wearing like
• 38:04
  Speaker 7: wigs and glasses and I you know I was in
• 38:07
  Speaker 7: the improv scene in Chicago and like those are you
• 38:09
  Speaker 7: know at Northwestern it was same as it ever is
• 38:11
  Speaker 7: which is just a bunch of smart quick wits guys
• 38:13
  Speaker 7: that were like I remember the like main big improv
• 38:17
  Speaker 7: guy was you know star guy was like you're more
• 38:19
  Speaker 7: character that's what he said to me you do more
• 38:22
  Speaker 7: like characters and I knew that that was an insult
• 38:25
  Speaker 7: like that they thought of that as an insult and
• 38:26
  Speaker 7: then I came out here and I saw all these
• 38:28
  Speaker 7: like wigs and glasses I was like that seems really fun.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: And who did you meet in your early years.
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: At the.
• 38:35
  Speaker 7: We had an insanely talented group. So I was right
• 38:40
  Speaker 7: behind Will and Sherry. Will Ferrell, Sherry Oteri. Yeah, and
• 38:43
  Speaker 7: Will is who suggested me for SNL. And in my group,
• 38:49
  Speaker 7: I had Stephen Craig, Chris Parnell, Scott Wainio, a lot
• 38:54
  Speaker 7: of writers that came from our era as well. And
• 38:57
  Speaker 7: then right behind me was Maya Forte. will forte my
• 39:02
  Speaker 7: off like yeah i mean it was you know and
• 39:04
  Speaker 7: and and then i i befriended a bigger collective of
• 39:08
  Speaker 7: you know tim bagley and my kitchcock and.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: And then we always love to talk about snl audition
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: stories on this show i know we like to i
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: know we don't have to but it is it is
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: interesting like you know with the 50th anniversary and like
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: us looking back and all of it do you feel
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: any differently about that like the story that you tell
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: yourself about your audition like do you feel badly about
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: your audition.
• 39:31
  Speaker 7: You know what I didn't even ever feel bad about
• 39:32
  Speaker 7: it um I'll tell you why because there have been
• 39:35
  Speaker 7: a couple of times in my life and um Wicked
• 39:37
  Speaker 7: was one of them and Saturday Night Live was another
• 39:39
  Speaker 7: and they were both incredibly challenging jobs in their and
• 39:42
  Speaker 7: difficult workplaces in their own ways both just in terms
• 39:46
  Speaker 7: of physical demand and artistic demand and just complicated creative workplaces,
• 39:54
  Speaker 7: as you know. Both times, SNL being one of them,
• 39:57
  Speaker 7: I left no stone unturned because I felt, and I
• 40:02
  Speaker 7: really believe this to this day, if you, so sort
• 40:05
  Speaker 7: of to totally double back on the lazy thing, like
• 40:08
  Speaker 7: if you give everything your all, if you give something
• 40:10
  Speaker 7: your all, you don't have regret. And if you don't
• 40:15
  Speaker 7: have regret, you can face any consequence.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: For me. So I knew.
• 40:20
  Speaker 7: That if I did the best audition I could, I
• 40:23
  Speaker 7: would feel fine if I didn't get the job. Um,
• 40:26
  Speaker 7: because I, I wouldn't have left something on the table,
• 40:29
  Speaker 7: you know? And so Will Ferrell had told me famously
• 40:32
  Speaker 7: that they don't laugh. And we always, people whisper that
• 40:34
  Speaker 7: to one another in advance.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: Did you know that?
• 40:36
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: I knew that they there's, it would be absolutely silent,
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: which it was.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Which it was. Yeah. Me too.
• 40:41
  Speaker 7: And, um, I told Parnell and so Charlie and my
• 40:44
  Speaker 7: now husband and I were engaged at the time I
• 40:46
  Speaker 7: got the job and, um, I wrote the whole thing
• 40:50
  Speaker 7: out as a monologue, and I would just run it relentlessly,
• 40:52
  Speaker 7: and he would sit like Mount Rushmore.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, and practice not laughing?
• 41:00
  Speaker 7: Repeatedly, because it was all stuff I had been doing
• 41:02
  Speaker 7: at the Groundlings. So I needed to know what it
• 41:05
  Speaker 7: felt like. The cadence is so different if you have
• 41:08
  Speaker 7: a character that you're used to landing in a certain way.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's actually a really good point.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of people don't know a lot
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: of standups and sketch performers, when they come and audition,
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: they're doing stuff that has succeeded somewhere else. And there's
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: a rhythm to it and laughs that you're used to.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Correct. Yeah, exactly right.
• 41:25
  Speaker 7: So I just rehearsed it in front of him and
• 41:27
  Speaker 7: I knew it you know, six different directions well.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: What characters and or people did you do in your audition?
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: Do you remember?
• 41:34
  Speaker 7: Yes, I did the NPR lady who I ended up
• 41:37
  Speaker 7: doing on the show. And I, and I did kind
• 41:39
  Speaker 7: of a ridiculous pantyhose wearing woman.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: And I did, who did not end up on the
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: show in a shocking twist. She was, she ended up
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: on Cut the Shit. She was on Cut the Shit.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: Did you do any impressions?
• 41:49
  Speaker 7: Well, so somebody of course was like, they're going to
• 41:50
  Speaker 7: ask you in the 11th hour to do impressions, but
• 41:52
  Speaker 7: I didn't do impressions.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: And right.
• 41:54
  Speaker 7: But I kind of knew that it might come because
• 41:56
  Speaker 7: I'd heard that it The people that were involved were
• 41:59
  Speaker 7: never particularly organized around the advanced.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: Prep, shall we say?
• 42:05
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 42:05
  Speaker 7: So I just had it up my sleeve. So I
• 42:08
  Speaker 7: went and I knew that I liked Martha Stewart. I
• 42:11
  Speaker 7: thought she was funny and interesting, even though the Groundlings
• 42:14
  Speaker 7: doesn't really do impression-based comedy. And so I wrote an
• 42:18
  Speaker 7: introduction as Martha Stewart and I got a Martha Stewart wig.
• 42:22
  Speaker 7: And this was so funny to me. I did Cokie Roberts.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: I remember her.
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: But nobody.
• 42:28
  Speaker 7: It was like an NPR reference, literally. But she was
• 42:30
  Speaker 7: on ABC News, and so I did Cokie Roberts.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: But Lauren is good friends with Cokie. I had dinner
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: with her last night, and it sounds just like that.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: I think Cokie liked the impression. I talked to Cokie,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: and she liked it. Cokie thought it was a winner.
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: Cokie thought it was a little mean. Your Martha impression
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: is so good.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: What do you do vocally to get into Martha? How
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: do we do a Martha?
• 42:58
  Speaker 7: So much of Martha, it still is. She's so rehearsed
• 43:03
  Speaker 7: in front of the camera. You'll never have her do this.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: Martha Stewart does stuff with Miss Piggy and she's a
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: little thrown by Miss Piggy.
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: Because Miss Piggy is improvising and Martha doesn't love to improvise.
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: No.
• 43:16
  Speaker 7: And I've had a few situations with her. In fact-
• 43:19
  Speaker 7: Where I've had to dress up as her and be
• 43:22
  Speaker 7: with her.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Which is.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: That's a very unique thing about SNL. I had that with... Yes,
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: Hillary Clinton, I'm sure. Hillary Clinton, where you are dressed
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: exactly like them standing next to them.
• 43:30
  Speaker 7: So I have had a few events with Martha. And recently,
• 43:34
  Speaker 7: I did the Drew Barrymore show.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: Oh, right. And showed up as her.
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: And she.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: It's just the worst. And you're just sitting there fully
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: dressed like a person.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: Listen, this is why I love our people. This is
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: why I love sketch comedy. Sketch comedy is embarrassing.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: So embarrassing.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: Stand-up is cool. You go outside, you wear a leather jacket,
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: you smoke a cigarette, you put it out, you go
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: and do your set. Sketch, you have a frigging wig
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: and you're schlepping a box with a weird bow tie.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: And it never ends.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: And it never ends.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: Don't think that I'm not still doing that.
• 44:09
  Speaker 7: There are days where I'm like, I still have a
• 44:12
  Speaker 7: wig area in my house.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: I one time got pulled over for speeding and had
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: a wig in my glove compartment.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: That could be considered dangerous.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: It could be. It could be. Do you remember what
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: the wig was? No, it was during Growling's days, in fairness.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: Just to have one around. It's just the schlepping. It's
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: so uncool.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: The amount of props. It's so uncool. And that's why
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: I love people who do it because they're, to me,
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: the coolest people because they sit in the embarrassment and
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: the commitment of it. You have to be really committed.
• 44:43
  Speaker 7: Which is why the bombing is the funniest thing in
• 44:45
  Speaker 7: the whole world. Which is why Will Ferrell sitting into
• 44:48
  Speaker 7: a bomb is one of my favorite things I've ever
• 44:50
  Speaker 7: seen in the world.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: It is. At SNL, we used to watch old sketches
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: that bombed and just love it in a way. It's
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: what the kids would call cringe, but it's even post-cringe.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: It's beyond cringe. It's almost like a delicious... Yeah. What
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: would you call it? It's not a serotonin boost. It's
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: like a... I don't know.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: It's the closest you feel to... It's like a community
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: therapy experience, really, is what it is. Yeah, it's like
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: a primal scream. Yeah, for sketch performers.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: What are some fun sketches that you used to watch
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: that you loved watching that bombed?
• 45:21
  Speaker 7: So we did a zoo crew sketch once. Which is
• 45:24
  Speaker 7: like a DJ. Like morning DJs. And we wrote, I mean,
• 45:28
  Speaker 7: it was the loudest sketch ever. I mean, it was
• 45:31
  Speaker 7: just literally like.
• 45:35
  Speaker 7: Like every single thing was just like, everybody.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: Like, go get them rock. Like nonstop. Everybody. It was
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: me and.
• 45:43
  Speaker 7: Parnell and somebody and the host.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: I can't remember.
• 45:48
  Speaker 7: And we'll, and it was this basic premise, really loud
• 45:51
  Speaker 7: zoo crew. And then the, um, the, the weather chopper
• 45:54
  Speaker 7: goes down, like crashes.
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: Really basic. And then everyone's like, we've lost weather chopper five.
• 46:01
  Speaker 7: Like just anyway, but, People at the table were screaming
• 46:04
  Speaker 7: with laughter.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: So funny.
• 46:06
  Speaker 7: And then we set it up at home base. I mean,
• 46:10
  Speaker 7: a dramatic play. A Tony winning play. Pulitzer Prize winning
• 46:15
  Speaker 7: dramatic play about a zoo crew. I mean, it's deathly silent.
• 46:19
  Speaker 7: Like a wall, like the audience and age looked like
• 46:22
  Speaker 7: a painting. And the whole time you're like screaming and
• 46:26
  Speaker 7: it was the wall of sound.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: Did you get giggles? I mean, yes, because it was
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: so embarrassing.
• 46:31
  Speaker 7: And it was also just hilarious because it was like
• 46:33
  Speaker 7: the whole time you're like, they don't think this is funny.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: They listen to morning zoos.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: Like there's nothing, this is what it sounds like.
• 46:38
  Speaker 7: If you like driving to work and listening to that,
• 46:40
  Speaker 7: then that's just kind of a pleasant thing for you.
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: Right. Um.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: That was embarrassing. Do you remember the set that we
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: called Shit Can Alley?
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: So there's all these little areas at SNL where you
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: get to perform. Home base is like right in the
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: middle and it's kind of a prime spot. It's where
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: update is. And then there's some areas that like where
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: sketches go to die.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: Right, because you have the audience and you have the balcony.
• 47:00
  Speaker 7: And so the main three sets, you know, where the
• 47:04
  Speaker 7: musical guest plays and whatever, you usually are going to
• 47:06
  Speaker 7: play things okay. There's one that's like way in the
• 47:09
  Speaker 7: back that has no immediate audience in front of it.
• 47:13
  Speaker 7: And really sketches go there to die. I mean, nothing
• 47:15
  Speaker 7: ever comes out of that corner.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: And it's also a real vote of no confidence when
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: your sketch is put there. You're like, I see, I see.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: This isn't going to make the show.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: It's a sort of quietness of like, it's in shit can, Ellie.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: It's in shit can. We're not going to.
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: I'm going to call my parents. It's not going to
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: make it. But you had so many hits. And NPR,
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: that NPR, that sketch remains.
• 47:46
  Speaker 7: There was no confidence in that sketch. That sketch was
• 47:49
  Speaker 7: supposed to bomb. And I knew because I'd played at
• 47:50
  Speaker 7: the groundlings at the quietness of it. That was the
• 47:52
  Speaker 7: comedy of it.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so, so funny. And I should circle back
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: just quickly to Martha. When we're doing Martha, what are
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: we doing with our lips? And how do we talk?
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: Well, one of the things she does... so many of
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: what the things that she says and does are things
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: that she has learned to do on camera. And she
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: is very aware of how the camera is going to look.
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: On her.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: It's a very barely moving mouth.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: Almost nothing moves. Why should it? And nor should it.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: We're going to make a Christmas meal and barely nothing is.
• 48:46
  Speaker 5: Going to move.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: She's... I am obsessed with her.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: Me too. I'm obsessed with her. I mean, Martha is... Martha, I.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to invite you on the show because
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: I'm too scared. But please listen and know that you're
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: something else.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: She also says, I love her rules. Amy, her rules
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: are so comforting. Her rules are so comforting when you
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: talk to her. Her rules? Her rules.
• 49:11
  Speaker 7: She's like, I don't take alcohol alone. I don't take
• 49:16
  Speaker 7: drinks if I'm alone. That's what she told me.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: I don't take.
• 49:18
  Speaker 7: Do you remember when she briefly took over The Apprentice?
• 49:22
  Speaker 7: And we're so obsessed with this. She would zoom at
• 49:26
  Speaker 7: the end, but she was always handwriting a termination note.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: That's a little touch of class. You're fired. I so enjoyed.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: your contributions to The Apprentice.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: But I'm here to tell you.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: I sent her flowers. I sent her flowers for one
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: of her birthdays. Many of the years.
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: Anyway.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: Cut it. Cut the shit. We'll cut the shit. Cut
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: the shit.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: I want to talk about Bobby and Marty for a second.
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: The best.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: And the Culp's.
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: Because those two characters that you and Will did, I
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: think are a perfect example of kind of combining all
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: of your talents. And before we get into them, what
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: is the difference between Good singing, like singing and then
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: comedy singing.
• 50:10
  Speaker 6: Ooh.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: And is there one, I guess?
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: Well, it is interesting. It's an interesting question.
• 50:17
  Speaker 7: I definitely think the training informs what's fun about the characters,
• 50:22
  Speaker 7: meaning she's, you know, they're quintessential choir teachers.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: So her technique is very important to her.
• 50:28
  Speaker 7: So I probably lean more into that, that quality of the,
• 50:31
  Speaker 7: of the, of the voice. And I've met people over
• 50:34
  Speaker 7: the years that are like music people who, I hit
• 50:36
  Speaker 7: notes as her that I would be very worried about
• 50:41
  Speaker 7: trying to hit as me. And I know this is
• 50:44
  Speaker 7: true because my friend Seth Rudetsky, who has the Sirius
• 50:46
  Speaker 7: XM radio Broadway show, who I met because he wrote
• 50:50
  Speaker 7: for the Rosie O'Donnell show at the same time as
• 50:52
  Speaker 7: I was in 8G.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: A lot of people don't know when we were doing SNL,
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: Rosie was in her.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: Studio right next door.
• 50:58
  Speaker 7: So we met in the NBC gym and he was like,
• 51:01
  Speaker 7: of a certain part of my life. Like I instantly
• 51:03
  Speaker 7: recognized him as a person who understood what that music
• 51:07
  Speaker 7: part of me that I didn't even talk about was.
• 51:09
  Speaker 7: And he, he said, he was like, Oh, I love
• 51:12
  Speaker 7: how consistently you go from a B flat to a C.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: Like, again, I wouldn't have thought about it.
• 51:16
  Speaker 7: And I wouldn't have even thought that Bobby sings that high,
• 51:18
  Speaker 7: but she does all the time, which is kind of wild.
• 51:21
  Speaker 7: Like if you wanted to tell him, ask me to
• 51:22
  Speaker 7: hit a C, I would get like my butthole would
• 51:24
  Speaker 7: tighten up and I probably wouldn't be able to do it.
• 51:26
  Speaker 7: So there's something really fun about that. And I think there's, uh,
• 51:29
  Speaker 7: for me, I can't speak for other people. Like I
• 51:31
  Speaker 7: would never, there's a freedom around it and a chance
• 51:34
  Speaker 7: taking that I will play in character any day of
• 51:37
  Speaker 7: the week till very recently.
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't have done it as a vocalist. So cool.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. And that is what you guys do as those characters. Also,
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: I just love Bobby and Marty's look. Their looks are excellent.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: Their looks are fantastic. And we knew early on.
• 51:52
  Speaker 7: So they were disparaged by some of the men, by
• 51:55
  Speaker 7: the cool guys. People thought it was a medley bit
• 51:58
  Speaker 7: and thought it was dumb and hacky. But we had
• 52:01
  Speaker 7: so much fun rating their passive aggression as characters.
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 52:05
  Speaker 7: The dynamic of the two of them, the people giving
• 52:08
  Speaker 7: them the finger all the time, and just the inherent
• 52:12
  Speaker 7: bummer of... of having those people perform at your prom
• 52:14
  Speaker 7: or whatever. Like we always loved, we always, that's what
• 52:18
  Speaker 7: was so joyful about it. And the music was fine.
• 52:20
  Speaker 7: Like the music was a super fun component of it,
• 52:23
  Speaker 7: but it wasn't the point ever. The point was, why
• 52:27
  Speaker 7: are these people performing at my, you know, sobriety birthday?
• 52:31
  Speaker 7: You know, it was always like finding the premise. And
• 52:33
  Speaker 7: so that's what made it so fun. I have to say, honestly,
• 52:36
  Speaker 7: like at the 50th, which was so special because like,
• 52:40
  Speaker 7: that was always my favorite thing to do at SNL.
• 52:42
  Speaker 7: It was the most fun writing it with Will and
• 52:44
  Speaker 7: with Paula. We would, we were infamous, infamous is the
• 52:47
  Speaker 7: term because we would, as you know, not start writing
• 52:50
  Speaker 7: until four o'clock in the morning and we would finish
• 52:52
  Speaker 7: at 10 AM. And it was always like a laugh
• 52:56
  Speaker 7: fest that was, that's so heavily featured procrastination.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: It was extraordinary.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: And, Well, it's very, very funny that you say that
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: because we do a thing on the show where we
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: talk to people who know our guests. We talk well
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: behind their back and we get a question to ask them.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: And so I spoke to Paula Pell.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: Uh-oh.
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: And for people that didn't see the SNL 50th music special,
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: which was amazing, there was like sketches in between acts
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: and a lot of musical sketches. And Bobby and Marty
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: came out and crushed it. That was not an easy audience.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: It was an audience of truly every single person was
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: either performing or a performer or like it was a
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: cynical audience.
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: You guys crushed. What was that feeling to do that
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: that night?
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: It was so fun, for lack of a better word.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: Like it was so....
• 53:54
  Speaker 7: There was something, you know, as you go back to
• 53:56
  Speaker 7: these reunions and you bring all of your... kind of
• 53:59
  Speaker 7: history and baggage and whatever with you. Again, just kind
• 54:04
  Speaker 7: of speaking to your point of the fact that this
• 54:06
  Speaker 7: is all just so embarrassing, because first.
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: Of all, like it's Radio City Music Hall. It's 6,000 seats.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's a huge, epic space.
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: We followed Lauryn Hill.
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: That's who you want to follow.
• 54:22
  Speaker 7: So you have to understand that in the wings, there
• 54:25
  Speaker 7: are like thousands of cool music people. I mean, my
• 54:29
  Speaker 7: dressing room was next to Jack White and his band,
• 54:32
  Speaker 7: and I'm dressed as Bobby Mohan Culp, okay? I've got
• 54:35
  Speaker 7: the giant glasses and my like striped dress, and Will's
• 54:39
  Speaker 7: got his bald paint and his.
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 54:42
  Speaker 7: We were rehearsing in the keyboard. So already, we're like
• 54:45
  Speaker 7: the losers in the wings.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean?
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, the winners for me, but yes.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: It was fantastic.
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, actually, you're like, you've got the violin and
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: you've got the eye patch.
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: 100%.
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: And so we're already just like, what is happening?
• 54:57
  Speaker 7: What is happening?
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: Why are we here?
• 54:59
  Speaker 7: And who invited us? And then we just started to
• 55:02
  Speaker 7: giggle because we... It was so.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: Cute because we.
• 55:06
  Speaker 7: doing the sketch and doing the, we just, it was
• 55:09
  Speaker 7: very easy to imagine how excited Bobby and.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: Marty would have been. The people would have been to
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: be at Radio City.
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: And what was it like back then? What was it
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: like back then? Did you see Jack White? Who else
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: are you seeing?
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: Mayhem.
• 55:21
  Speaker 7: I mean, mayhem, like posses and people with like, you know,
• 55:24
  Speaker 7: music people. So They got, like, big, cool hair and
• 55:27
  Speaker 7: glasses and, like, Lauryn Hill's a fur coat and an afro. And, like,
• 55:31
  Speaker 7: everybody's got, like, floral pants that come up to here.
• 55:34
  Speaker 7: And there's posses and, you know, weed everywhere. You know,
• 55:38
  Speaker 7: Chris Martin's in the corner.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: Like, cool people.
• 55:40
  Speaker 5: Cool people.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: Actual cool people who just looked right past us. Like,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: they did not know that we used to be on
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: Saturday Night Live. They were just like, who brought Granny
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: and Gramps? Like, just... right past us.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: That actually probably was fun.
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: It was so fun.
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: That's fun.
• 55:55
  Speaker 7: And then going, and then we like, you know, going
• 55:57
  Speaker 7: out there and all that stuff just suddenly worked.
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: You're right. Now that I'm remembering, Lauryn Hill had a surprise,
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: incredible performance. Insane. And then it was.
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: There's like smoke.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: And then it was like, test, test, test.
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: And you guys cried. And that's what I mean.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: I knew it was streaming.
• 56:17
  Speaker 7: And I also knew, I mean, it was really funny
• 56:19
  Speaker 7: because we were like, they just, and all of their
• 56:21
  Speaker 7: stuff was about how they'd come to New York for
• 56:22
  Speaker 7: an ophthalmology appointment.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: You know, they were just lucky to slip in. And
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: just everything about it was so fun. And so we're
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: sitting there.
• 56:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: And I did have the feeling. I was like, this
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: is streaming.
• 56:31
  Speaker 7: Because one thing about SNL for me, again, I don't
• 56:34
  Speaker 7: know if you ever had this, but it's a little
• 56:35
  Speaker 7: bit of an A student, you know, nerd girl thing.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: I was always... My greatest regret about.
• 56:41
  Speaker 7: This show, not that you would go back in time,
• 56:43
  Speaker 7: is that I couldn't, I never like settled into it
• 56:45
  Speaker 7: and enjoyed it because I was always so aware of
• 56:47
  Speaker 7: the time and of running somebody, running down the clock,
• 56:51
  Speaker 7: somebody else's sketch is going to get cut.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: Like I was always, and when we were there, it
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: was such a.
• 56:56
  Speaker 7: You know, like explosive surfeit of, of talent that there
• 57:00
  Speaker 7: were always three sketches a night that might not make it.
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: You know?
• 57:03
  Speaker 7: So I always felt like I had to like, keep
• 57:04
  Speaker 7: it moving, keep it moving. So I was suddenly very
• 57:07
  Speaker 7: aware that it was streaming and that I was not
• 57:10
  Speaker 7: going to be rushed.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: And I was like, I'm going to be Bobby.
• 57:14
  Speaker 7: The funniest thing in the world to me is this
• 57:16
  Speaker 7: woman and this man, these, these choir teachers getting people
• 57:20
  Speaker 7: to settle. Because there's just nothing funnier than high school
• 57:23
  Speaker 7: teachers to settle.
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: So that's what they did is they just kept telling
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: people to settle.
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: I need you to settle.
• 57:29
  Speaker 7: I need quiet in the back. Hand goes up, mouth
• 57:31
  Speaker 7: goes shut. Hand goes up, mouth goes shut. I was
• 57:33
  Speaker 7: just like, I'm going to keep going until they settle.
• 57:36
  Speaker 7: I'm not going to worry about it. And if I
• 57:38
  Speaker 7: had been at 8-H, we.
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: Never would have done that. Right. Very good point.
• 57:42
  Speaker 7: But we took a full, probably 45 seconds to get
• 57:45
  Speaker 7: people to pipe it.
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: David Spade piped down.
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: You guys called him out by name.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: I don't want to hear it, Pierce Brosnan. So stupid. Okay.
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: We have so much more to talk about.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: But Paula had two great questions.
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: Uh-oh.
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: One was a funny one, which was your dog, Gloria,
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: loves to eat things.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: And you often keep us updated as to what she eats.
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: I do.
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: What has she eaten lately and has it come out already?
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: And was it intact when it came out?
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: It never comes out. I don't know where it goes.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: It's upsetting. Like you're like, it was a full hairbrush.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: Where did it go?
• 58:32
  Speaker 7: And honestly, cause she's also like many dogs, like it's
• 58:34
  Speaker 7: the more personal, the better, you know?
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: So it's a retainer or a pair of underwear. She
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: would eat my IUD if she could. Pull it out.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: She could get in there.
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, sorry.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: But it's true. Dogs are gross. It is gross.
• 58:46
  Speaker 7: Bras, all that kind of thing. Most recently, to answer
• 58:50
  Speaker 7: the question, it was a massive thing of cheese.
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, it was a Manchego.
• 58:54
  Speaker 7: It was a Costco Manchego wedge. You know those are
• 58:58
  Speaker 7: big ones for a party. And Charlie sent it to me.
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: I was out here.
• 59:03
  Speaker 7: And he'd taken out the cheese. He was going to
• 59:05
  Speaker 7: have himself a little snack.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: Came back. The cheese was gone. He felt crazy. That's
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: always part of the story. He's walking around like, I
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: swear to God, I brought the cheese out. Where's the cheese?
• 59:13
  Speaker 7: And then hours later, there was like this much left,
• 59:17
  Speaker 7: which also I find upsetting because it means that she
• 59:19
  Speaker 7: has eaten– to the point of physical discomfort, which for
• 59:22
  Speaker 7: a dog is a long time.
• 59:23
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: I just, I want to know what happens in her
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: dog brain.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: Or maybe there's some kind of evolutionary thing where they
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: show you just a little to be like, just to
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: be like, and I, and just, just to remind, just
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: a tiny bit of like a trophy of like, and
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: here's what I did.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: She's such an asshole.
• 59:41
  Speaker 5: Um, okay.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: And then Paula's, um, real question was, and it's kind
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: of what the theme of our interview today, which is
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: basically like, um, It's such a sweet Paula question, which is,
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: you know, between writing and singing and acting, which one
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: makes you feel the most free? It's an interesting word.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 7: It's a great question. I think that inherently I'm the
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 7: most natural singer. I mean, I think that's like my
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 7: first gift, meaning like that it's just sort of beyond me.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: And as I've gotten older and more into it, like
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: Even in the last couple of.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 7: Years, I feel more comfortable just accepting that it's something
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 7: that came from somewhere besides me, and I got lucky
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 7: to have a career that kind of nurtured.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: The muscles of it all, literally.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 7: Writing is the most in the flow, I probably feel,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 7: but I hate writing.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. And I hate having to write. I love having written.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: Yes, having had written is the best feeling in the world.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: I feel like you're a more confident writer than I am.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, God, no.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: No, that's not true. You're very good about it. I've
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: got to... We have to go.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: No, I've got to.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: What?
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: Your Uber's here?
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: My Uber.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: I'm so sorry.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: My Uber's here. First of all, you are a member
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: of the Wickedverse.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: You opened Wicked in Chicago.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 7: I was the, you know, fourth overall Elphaba. So, you know,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 7: so now when you go, like... last year, two years
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 7: ago was the 20th. And, um, again, I have people
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 7: in my wicked life. They're like, I'm not going back.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: It was torture. Cause it is trauma bonding. It's a
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: really hard job.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 7: It's a really, really, really, really hard job.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: It's a hard role to play.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 7: It is a physically demanding heart and it's incredibly hard
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 7: to sing. So I'm, I'm actually in retrospect, I was so,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 7: I'm going to actually take a minute to tell a story.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 6: Yes, please.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: That's okay.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: Of course.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 7: Um, because I actually think it's so lifeless and important. I,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 7: I'm so hard on myself. And again, I realized this
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 7: about myself recently. I'm not competitive. I'm a perfectionist.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: So I actually hate competition, but I want to be
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: really good at things.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 7: So it's a weird mix, but when you do a
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 7: Broadway show, everybody comes at the end because all your
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 7: friends or whatever, people want to see you before it
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 7: closes or you leave or whatever. And you know, whatever,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 7: here's a Dina Menzel, the most incredible vocalist originated this
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 7: incredibly demanding vocal score.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 7: When you take over in a role, you're thrown into
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 7: their tracks. So there's a lot of things that were
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 7: designed around Idina's instrument that other people have a harder
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 7: time with. Her phrasing, her lung capacity, things like that.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 7: So I was sort of mercilessly hard on myself. And
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 7: I also just didn't have the Broadway credits that other
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 7: people did. So I felt like I was proving myself.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 7: And especially then on Broadway, I think people felt like,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 7: who's this TV bitch who just thought she could show
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 7: up and sing Elphaba? You know, there was not like
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 7: a I didn't feel like warmly welcomed into the Broadway community.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 7: I felt like I was proving it, you know?
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: Sure. So every day.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: And I, you know, that role is very, very challenging.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: So my last like three weeks, cause I did Chicago.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 7: And then I came and I did the three penny
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 7: opera on Broadway and then I did Wicked up on Broadway.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 7: So my last like two, three weeks, Wicked, all these people,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 7: you know, come out of the woodworks, composers I admire,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 7: people I admire, people to see, want to see me
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 7: in the world before I left. And I was so
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 7: mercilessly cruel to myself. Every day I would come backstage
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 7: and I messed up the bridge on Defying Gravity or,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 7: oh my God, I hate it. I didn't like my
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 7: upper register here, there. I was screaming in this part.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 7: It was such an interesting experience because the sound engineer
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 7: gave me, like snuck me, I hope I'm not getting
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 7: him fired, recordings of my last 12 shows he had
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 7: just like stuck in a thing and recorded them I
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 7: didn't listen to them for 15 years because I was
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 7: so mortified I was like I don't want to hear
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 7: myself and then I cracked one open one day and
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 7: I started I wanted to listen to Defying Gravity to
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 7: see like if I could like Frankenstein the perfect version
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 7: together whatever and it was so.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: Chilling how similar they were Oh, wow, Anna.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: That's wild.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: To listen to them in a row, it took my
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: breath away.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 7: And I tell my kids this all the time now,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 7: because Ulysses, my son, he's such a perfectionist. I'm like,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 7: The difference between 98% and 100% is imperceptible to anyone
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 7: but you. And if you're hitting the general ballpark of
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 7: being able to, oh, I don't know, sing Elphaba, you're
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 7: probably cool. So you are not a reliable witness about yourself.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: Oh, never. And that's why I give 75%. I don't
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: even get it.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: But honestly, it can apply to anything. Oh, absolutely.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 7: And making that decision of being like, did you show up?
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: Were you nice to people? Did you know your lines? Okay, check.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: And also the way, the lovely way in which you
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: circled back and And you were able to kind of
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: like go back to that younger version of yourself and
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: be like.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 7: Oh my God, I can't believe how unnecessarily relentlessly mean
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 7: I was to myself. Yes.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if I'm able to.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 7: Take it now in everyday life, but it's such an important,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 7: I don't know. It felt like such an important lesson.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 7: And obviously like that's the SNL wisdom pearl. I'm like,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 7: I wish I could have enjoyed it. Just enjoyed it.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 7: It was a great experience, you know?
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, the fact that you had physical evidence
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: that they weren't that different.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: It was mind blowing. It was mind blowing.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: Is something else, isn't it? The mind is a terrible place.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: A real dick.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: It's a terrible, terrible place.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: The mind is a dick.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: The mind is a raging dick. Okay, mean girls. What
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: are your memories about us doing mean girls together?
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: I remember being on the plane with you.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: Yep, we were on the plane. We got in a
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: fight with a guy.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you got in a fight with a guy.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 7: And the baby, baby Francis was early empowering. Baby Francis
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 7: was on the plane with us.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: Do you remember that?
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: Your baby Francis was now in her 20s.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 7: 23, yeah.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: She was on the plane. And I still got in
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: a fight with the guy with the baby around?
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope so.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 7: Because the guy got mad that you were swearing in
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 7: front of the baby. Yeah, right. I was.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's a long story, but what happened was a very,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: a guy who, like a first class guy. We were
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: in first class too. He was like, excuse me. I'm
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: trying to, you're being too loud in first class. And I,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: my Boston came out.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: Let's just say that. It was the best thing I've
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: ever seen.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: Okay. But, but the shooting of Mean Girls, what do
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: you remember of it?
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 7: I remember hanging out with you in that hotel one
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 7: night and having drinks. I remember, I remember when Tina
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 7: was I have a memory of her sitting at the
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 7: table on 17 and saying, I think I'm going to
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 7: try to option this book.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: Me too.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: I have an image of her sitting at her computer
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: and being like, oh, and having the book near her
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: and just like working on it, being like, I'm writing
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: this movie.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: It's incredible. And I was like, good luck with that.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go write a sketch about a lady
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: who has a snake around her neck.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of fart mouth? No.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: And last question is, what are you listening to, watching?
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: Where do you go to laugh these days?
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: I am like... I am not very.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 7: For all my quiet comedy, like, I am like Mel
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 7: Brooks is what makes me laugh.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: Like, big, silly.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, what's your favorite Mel Brooks?
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: I mean.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: Let's Google it.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, Madeline Kahn and.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: Should we go to the producers?
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: Young Frankenstein, producers.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 7: I mean, when Dratch and I write together, it feels
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 7: like Mel Brooks is, you know, the.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: Dratch is.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Dratch is of the Mel Brooks world.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so writing with her is very goofy and very fun.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: You know what I love, and I know it's underrated?
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: I love Mia Spaceballs.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, deeply underrated. God, Spaceballs made me laugh.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 7: My friend Philip Tarotula does this character called Official Pam
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 7: Goldberg on Instagram. He plays a member of Actors' Equity
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 7: since 1968. I know my Uber is here, but I
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 7: have to see this. Yeah, you do.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: Official Pam Goldberg.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: Pam Goldberg here, and I'm recommending what to bring with
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: you to tech.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: So here we go.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 6: Snacks.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: Don't rely on other people's snacks or anyone else bringing
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: snacks for you.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 5: These are Crasdale peanuts.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 7: I don't think they're organic.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: Pam's telling us what to bring to tech. First, I
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: take good coffee.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 7: I like this from Fairway.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: They say in management, open coffee themselves, but life's too
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: short for Folgers.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 7: Again, I recommend Bananagrams because it's.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: Short and affordable. Don't open.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: Banana grams are short and cordial. Also, Pam has got
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: a real severe haircut.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: Real severe.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: And a real squinty eye.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: She's been a regional theater actress for a long time.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: But anyway, Merry Christmas.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: Thank you, friend. Thank you, friend. Merry Christmas to you.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: Anna Gasteyer, thank you so much. That was so fun.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: And that Time went by so fast, and I love
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: talking to you. And, you know, this is our holiday episode.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: And for those of you celebrating the holiday in all
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: different ways, I just want to say thank you for
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: um giving us the gift of listening to this show
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: it's meant a lot to us and this is the
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: this has been an amazing year that we've launched it
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: so uh thank you we cannot wait to make more
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: of which we will be doing for you um and
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: it has been a real gift to do it so
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: um I'm going to end this episode and dive into
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: the polar plunge by sharing my favorite Christmas movie with you,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: and that is a little-known classic, Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: I don't know a lot of people that know it,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: but it was, look, I don't love puppets all the time,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: but this one has the Muppet puppet family, Jim Henson's
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: workshop made it, and it is the cutest, most tender,
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: best music movie, Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas. Check it out.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: It is basically the gift of the Magi. There is
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: an incredible bunch of villains called the River Bottom Nightmare
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: Band that is basically a snake and a weasel, and
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: they are incredible. So do yourself a favor, and I
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: don't even know where to find it. I think I
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: have it on VHS.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: But.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: But Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Whatever you celebrate. Thank you
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: for listening. And we can't wait to see you in
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: the new year.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: Bye.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: You've been listening to Good Hang. The executive producers for
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: this show are Bill Simmons, Jenna Weiss-Berman, and me, Amy Poehler.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: The show is produced by The Ringer and Paper Kite.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: For The Ringer, production by Jack Wilson, Kat Spillane, Kaya McMullin,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: and Alea Zanaris. For Paper Kite... Production by Sam Green,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: Joel Lovell, and Jenna Weiss-Berman. Original music by Amy Miles.