I am a fan of 'SNL' and a big Jimmy Fallon fan, too.
I had a lot of bad jobs but the one big internship I had is I interned for 'SNL' when I was 21 years old and that was the joke. You intern there and you think man, I'm going to be with the writers and the great comedians. Then you're getting everybody sandwiches and then the doors close and then all the great creatives are doing the work.
Well, basically, when you get SNL, everyone wants to take a meeting, just in case you end up being good.
In high school, my goal was to be a writer for SNL, then I got into the acting.
'SNL' came out in the '70s. It's a different zeitgeist. It's hard to re-create it, just as it would be hard to do a black-and-white noir film now. The culture's different.
Comedy did a lot of things for me. I mean, 'SNL'? Not too bad. Not too shabby with this comedy thing. I have really worked on my comedy and really upped it some notches.
If you watch 'SNL,' any time there's this thing with everyone singing, I'm, like, the one person who just has a straight line of dialogue because I can't sing to save my life.
I never wanted to be that person who leaves 'SNL' and nothing happens.
A whole generation of people that didn't know me from 'SNL' recognize me from 'Weeds' now. People recognize me once in a while and appreciate the work. It gets a little embarrassing but it's good. If you work as an accountant, you don't have people coming up to you in the streets saying, 'Hey, great job on tax statements!'
Yeah, I just don't break. I don't. And there's only one person I know who's a better non-breaker than me, and that's Will Forte from 'SNL.' You can not make that guy break. I'll break eventually - Will Forte will never break.
I hired Tina Fey for 'SNL,' which was certainly a good match. She took off right away there.
I grew up watching Letterman, 'Seinfeld,' 'SNL,' and Monty Python movies. But nothing made me want to get into comedy more than when 'Mr. Show' started airing.
I'm a female in comedy, so of course I want there to be more women on 'SNL', and women of color.
If I watch an episode of SNL, and there's one thing that I liked, then that's a good episode.
I started 'SNL,' and I became the one who did impressions. I did that, but then I wanted to get an original character on, and that took a long time to get one on that stuck. And then I got Vinny Vedecci on - 'Oh great' - and then it took a couple more seasons to get Greg the Alien on. You have to have some patience.
Seeing the energy of 'SNL' made me want to be a part of it. If that was a job, I thought, that was the job I wanted. That was my plan. Comedy.
My specialty at 'SNL' was doing triage. There was always a great need for someone to say, 'Make this funnier. Give me an ending for this. What's a better big laugh for this towards the end? What's a better physical joke in this?' And I just really, over time, honed that specific thing so well.
El Perro del Mar sort of accompanied my time at 'SNL.' To concentrate and focus, I would play the bass to one of her songs from her third album.
'SNL' doesn't have a traditional writer's room. On Monday, there's the pitch meeting with the guest, and I played that like it was stand-up.
I plan to join the 'SNL' band as a maraca player and stand behind saxophonist Lenny Pickett. That way they will at least cut to me before commercial breaks. I'll be sure to look right into camera.
When you're doing a film, you're on a set and you have retakes and you have time to get it right. And on 'SNL' it's just go, go, go. If you can't read the cue cards or miss your mark, you're just left to sort of screw up. So there's a lot more pressure doing a live TV show.
I can apply myself to the format of 'SNL,' I can apply myself to the format of 'Conan,' but at the same time, I'm still being J. B. Smoove. I'm not changing up my style, I'm not changing up how I think, what's funny to me, my delivery, the way I carry myself.
Even when I was at 'SNL,' I didn't do impersonations. I always wanted to be the kind of person who could do them - I always thought they were the coolest thing on the show - but I didn't have any experience.
You start at SNL when you're young and hungry, but I don't want my pro years to be my SNL years.
'SNL' is the first real job I've held for more than a month and a half.
Being on 'SNL' gives you a unique experience that almost no one else has. It's like Harvard for the comic actor.
It was weird that most people knew me as someone let go from 'SNL.' I had the best time there, and in retrospect, it was the perfect amount of time. The only thing that matters is what you do with yourself in that moment after. If you decide, 'I'm the girl who was fired from 'SNL,' you're just that.
I watch 'The Bachelor'. It's one of those things where I always think if it didn't exist and it was on 'SNL,' we would think it would be a ridiculous, funny idea. But it actually exists... It's a glorious train wreck that I love to watch.
Before you get to 'SNL,' you have your own sensibility. And when you get to 'SNL,' it's the show's sensibility.
'SNL' is really hard to do when you're single and living alone. And then it's pretty tough when you're married, because you don't see your spouse.
My dad would write these sketches for me while I was at 'SNL.'
SNL is a home. You've got all of your brothers and sisters there, and it's a great time.
'SNL' is probably one of the premiere outlets that a musician can perform on that isn't obviously a music outlet.
When I write on 'SNL,' I've found I'm most productive while collaborating and joking with friends and not being firmly attached to any one idea.
I was always self-conscious about the fact that I didn't have as much comedy experience as other people at 'SNL,' and I kept thinking they were going to realize they'd made a mistake by hiring me.
I got invited to the Playboy Mansion with the Lonely Island guys after their first season on 'SNL,' and I sat in the corner drinking coffee and talking to Akiva Schaffer about what aspect ratio he was going to shoot 'Hot Rod' in. Like, that's what we talk about.