Glamour Magazine - September 2005
THE OH-SO-ELEGANT WOMEN OF SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE
(FUNNY, THEY DON'T LOOK FUNNY)


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I am a comedy snob. Not only have I never loved Lucy, I've never been particularly fond of Raymond. But when Glamour proposed the idea of interviewing the female performers of Saturday Night Live, I was interested right away. Why? As someone who's made a living writing and performing comedy for two and a half decades, I have to give the current female cast my hearty endorsement. They walk the high wire of what I like best in comedy: intelligent premises, sharp observations about human behavior and flat-out silliness. Who doesn't love the way Tina Fey busted up some hallowed ground when she was appointed first female head writer, and the fact that for the first time in the show's history, two women are anchoring Weekend Update? Don't be fooled by the fancy designer dresses they're wearing here--this group has forced the football team that is late-night comedy television to put women in the game. Read on to hear Fey and her colleagues Rachel Dratch, Maya Rudolph and Amy Poehler discuss love, sex, male versus female humor and strippers with nicotine patches.

MERRILL MARKOE: Saturday Night Live is an institution--it's been on the air for 30 years. Now that you've hit the big time, do you feel a lot more pressure to come up with great material?
TINA FEY: It's hard. It's a very blue collar, factorylike atmosphere. Friday nights we'll sit in a room with the people who decide what bits are going to air on Weekend Update and read 20 or 30 pages of jokes--at least 300 of them. By Saturday we've cut it down to 12 jokes.
RACHEL DRATCH: Everyone gets boiled down to their screaming, emotional child, so every week you have to ground yourself or all that rejection can knock you over.
MAYA RUDOLPH: If your stuff doesn't get picked, you're really bummed and it hurts. You don't know if it's because your sketch sucked, or the host didn't have anything fun to do in it, or there were just too many great pieces on the lineup. You never find out why.
MERRILL: Do you berate yourself after the show is over?
TINA: After most performances.
MAYA: I never wake up Sunday morning and say, "Wow, we really hit that one out of the park."
AMY POEHLER: When I first joined the cast, [then-cast member] Ana Gasteyer told me, "Make sure you get a good therapist.
RACHEL: I don't even watch the show now. When I first got hired I would watch it all the time, and sometimes it was much funnier in my head than it looked on TV. Or I would see myself on-screen and think, uh-oh, look at my chin! Now I just try to carry away the experience of how fun it was.
MERRILL: Any themes that keep coming up over and over in your writing?
TINA: I'm obsessed with the Playboy empire.
AMY: I like to play cocky, overconfident dum-dums. I used to play a lot of strippers on Second City tours [Poehler, Fey and Dratch all worked together in the famed Chicago comedy troupe].
TINA: In one sketch, Amy's character is giving a guy a lap dance. She has a really bad cough and is wearing all of these patches. The guy says, "What are those patches for?" and she says, "This one's nicotine, this one's birth control and this one's covering a puncture wound."
MAYA: Most of the characters I find funny don't have a complete grasp on reality. They're really kind of crazy.
MERRILL: Is there a specific formula for what works?
RACHEL: Tina, Amy and I all learned at Second City that if you come onstage as "the hot chick," you're not going to get many laughs. But if you walk in as "the dude" or "the creature" or "the President," you can really fly. The hot chick isn't the funny chick.
MERRILL: Do you think there's a different between a male sense of humor and a female sense of humor?
TINA: I think women tend to observe the minutiae of human behavior, so sketches written by women can be a lot more character-driven and texture-y. I also think women are harder on themselves about their work before they turn it in.
MERRILL: What type of woman ends up being funny for a living?
MAYA: Old, ugly and single. Kidding--but that's the stereotype. That's what people make us feel like we're supposed to be.
RACHEL: And if a hot comedienne is mildly funny or willing to do a crazy joke people are like, "She's a comic genius!"
MAYA: I was raised in a house full of guys, so I've never felt like a normal girl. I'm always shocked that I'm allowed into the ladies' room and coffee klatches.
MERRILL: What part of being female do you identify with least?
RACHEL: Having huge knockers.
MAYA: My hair has been my biggest issue all my life. Ask anyone I work with. It's thick and curly and I have to get it straightened to fit underneath the wigs, which can literally be a two-to-three-day process. Then it looks like a spider's butt from the back. When I take off the wig it's all smushed and curly.
MERRILL: Do any of you ever base sketches on family members?
TINA: My mom has literally made appearances on the show. We did this one bit where I asked her questions like, "What do you think about Jack Lemmon?" And she answered the way she would in real life: "He makes me nervous." Or "What do you think of Madonna?" And she said, "Oh, she's the pig of pigs." Afterward, she got angry letters from Madonna fans!
MAYA: I haven't done my parents on the show, but I'm often cast as an old black lady and I'll do my grandmother's voice.
RACHEL: I haven't done my mom. She's funny, though. Her ridiculous Jewish-mother warnings are getting more and more outrageous. It used to be that if I was going out somewhere she'd say, "Don't forget to wear your seat belt." Recently I told her I was taking a trip to the Dominican Republic with friends, and she said, "Well, don't wander into Haiti." She was serious!
MERRILL: Do you guys get recognized much?
RACHEL: It happens more and more each year.
MAYA: I once got stopped at a Radiohead concert. The guy said, "Hey, Tina, you're great." I don't know why he thought I was Tina. Maybe it's because I was wearing a name tag that read, "Please call me Tina Fey."
MERRILL: Rachel, are you living the life you always envisioned?
RACHEL: No! I thought I'd be married with kids and living in Massachusetts. I haven't exactly had what I'd call a successful relationship.
MERRILL: Can you tell when a guy is flirting?
RACHEL: No.
MERRILL: I never could either.
MAYA: I usually think everyone hates me.
MERRILL: Me too. Before I got into a relationship, even if a guy was lying in bed with me, I still couldn't tell if he liked me. I'd think, maybe he just needs a place to sleep.
RACHEL: It's funny, because my friends are always saying things like, "Guys have got to be intimidated by you." But it's not like we have a crowd of hot dudes waiting for us after the show.
AMY: We have gay boys.
MAYA: I was having dinner with Chris Kattan recently, and a waitress was going nuts over him. She was really flipping out. Yet I've never met any woman on Saturday Night Live who's had a guy--even a 13-year-old or a 15-year-old-- say, "Oh my God, I love you so much!"
MERRILL: Maybe it's the male ego--they don't want to set themselves up for rejection. But why are the women who approach these men willing to set themselves up, I wonder?
AMY: Maybe they figure, they're funny guys, so they'll be nice. I don't think the boys on our show are getting that much action, though.
MERRILL: Amy and Tina, you're both married.
AMY: I've been married four years now, but my husband [Arrested Development's Will Arnett] and I have been together 11 years.
TINA: My husband and I have been married two years in August. We worked together at Second City, where he was a musical director. Now he works at Saturday Night Live, writing original music for sketches.
MERRILL: What about the rest of you--are you in relationships?
MAYA: I've been dating my boyfriend for three and a half years. But he's not a comedian. In fact, I've never once dated a comedian.
RACHEL: I'm trying to get away from dating comedy dudes. They have a certain vulnerability, but they're never going to commit.
MERRILL: It's true--you have to pay attention to the signs. One day told me, "I've been running away from women my whole life." And I thought, well, women, sure--who wouldn't run away from women? He doesn't mean me. So, any sex tips for Glamour's readers?
TINA: Make sure you don't laugh.
AMY: Try not to barf.

Merrill Markoe is the author of What the Dogs Have Taught Me and cocreator of Late Night With David Letterman.