WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1532 - Paula Pell

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

Paula Pell is often celebrated as one of the funniest people alive by some of the other funniest people alive. The world is finally getting to see what they mean thanks to Paula’s standout role on Girls5eva, but for years she was comedy’s best kept secret, writing legendary SNL sketches, doing punch-up and script doctoring for major movies, and contributing to hit sitcoms and award shows. Paula tells Marc why it took her a long time to feel comfortable being in the spotlight as a performer. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the world of Sonic the Hedgehog, a new hero arrives. I am ready. Is there anyone stronger? No. Tougher? No. Funnier? I do not make jokes.

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What the fucksters? What's happening? I'm Mark Maron, this is my podcast. Welcome to it. That episode, when was it? A couple weeks ago. I'm still thinking about that Malcolm McDowell episode. Oh my god. I still think about that one. And that's nice. That's not always the case.

There's so many good interviews coming up because I want you to know that this this episode was actually pre-recorded so uh, Brendan could have some well-earned time off. And uh, so if anything has happened since right before I went to Austin, like if the world ended, or one of the old guys died, everything is thrown into chaos, or even little things, I won't be addressing it. Not that I do necessarily anyway, but uh, just know this is pre-recorded, but I'm here with you now.

I'm here with you now. Today on the show, I talked to Paula Pell. This woman was mythic to me, someone that I'd heard about in the world of comedy as just one of the great geniuses, writers, performers, but I know I have no real experience of her outside of not knowing that she had written certain SNL stuff, but I'd always heard about her and she's on this show

on Netflix called Girls 5 Eva, which is funny, but before, she's always just been known as one of the funniest people that many funny, funny people know. She wrote on SNL and 30 Rocks. She writes for the Oscars and the Golden Globes. She's been a kind of a go-to script doctor for Hollywood comedies. She wrote the screenplay for the Tina Fey movie. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, that movie Sisters. And I just didn't know what to expect. But man, what a man. She's a character. She's definitely herself. She's got a point of view. And it was a it was great talking to her. It's always interesting to me to meet these people that that I've heard about forever, but

I have no point of reference. I got a little up to speed, but it was very exciting. Very exciting to meet Paul Lappell. I'll be in Montclair, New Jersey on Thursday, May 2nd at the Wellmont Center, Glenside, Pennsylvania near Philly on Friday, May 3rd at the Keswick Theater, Washington, D.C. on Saturday, May 4th at the Warnerwick Theater, Washington, D.C. on Saturday, May 4th at the Warner Theater, Munhall, Pennsylvania outside Pittsburgh on May 9th at the Carnegie Library Music Hall,

that old haunted weird place, Cleveland, Ohio on May 10th at the Playhouse Square, Detroit, Michigan on May 11th at the Royal Oak Music Theater. You can go to wtfpod.com slash tour for all my dates and links to tickets. I've been, what have I been doing? I've been exploring the world of vegan cheese a bit. I didn't really want to,

but sometimes you wanna have things that seem like the things you used to eat or you were excited to eat in the past. I was never a big cheese guy, not a cheese head. I was instilled with a very strong fear of most dairy by my mother. My brother's a little lactose intolerant. I don't think he'll be mad at me exposing him. But I liked cheese, but it was just not part of my diet,

nor was milk, no milk really. Obviously I like ice cream, but I just, to me, when I look at dairy of any kind, it literally looks like fat to me. Like that's what fat looks like in a gelled form. But I have been, I tried this, what is it, Meekinose, is that the name of the brand? They had make a an aged cheddar vegan cheese. Now you remember that, you remember that stuff that port wine spread? My dad used to love that stuff. It was a port wine

cheese spread, came in a little plastic tin with a red top. I don't know who made it, but it had a very kind of like pungent tart cheddary flavor to it. And this stuff has that as well, but I know it's not cheese. And I don't really like facsimile food.

I don't like vegan food that has been made to Replace or or copy Non-vegan food I have a problem with it look I'll eat a Beyond Burger, but I'll take it for what it is This doesn't really taste like a hamburger, but it looks like one it feels feels like one, has its own taste, it's fine. Don't like fake wings, don't like, I don't like too much fried shit. But this vegan cheese, I don't like the, I don't love the vegan cheese slices because they are literally just slices of oil, gelled oil. And I know that because they, they, they don't seem to go bad ever. I'm getting a bit bored and I'm getting a bit tired of my protein options.

I mean, how many fucking chickpeas can I eat? How many beans can I eat? How much air fried tempeh can I eat? I'm not missing the meat and I know that it doesn't matter. Am I getting all my oils? Am I getting all my oil? Am I getting all my oil? Am I getting all my oil?

Am I getting all my oil? Am I getting all my oil? Am I getting fried tempeh can I eat? I'm not missing the meat. And I know that it doesn't matter. Am I getting all my oils? I've been taking, I'm just doing a tablespoon of fucking walnut oil now. And then the woman I work out with, she's like, what about algae based omega threes? I don't know.

I guess what's happening folks, is I'm desperately hanging on to something I have control over in my life as I enter the unknown. I know the context of my job upcoming. I know the context of my comedy and whatnot. But, you know, once I walk out the door, who the fuck knows? But man, if I can just take a handful of vitamins that I take every day, whether they work or not, that makes me feel like I have a little control over something. There's no evidence that any of it does anything. You know?

I think I'm just scrambling. Like, how am I... There's just so few things. And then I start to fix things around the house. I've become obsessed with this, the fact that I have not watched the leaves of my rubber plant yet. That's ongoing.

Tightening screws a bit, cleaning inside light fixtures, going out and doing actual shopping, trying to mail a table. How do you mail furniture? Well, you hire someone to do it, not me. I'm gonna take that thing out in the car, I'm gonna go shop around, I'm gonna go to shipping places. I had a conversation the other day

about pallets and crates and a lot of money. What about taking it apart? These are the things that sometimes fill part of my day just to feel like I have some control over something. God damn it. The vegan thing, I used to do a bit about that. It's an ideological eating disorder. Look, I'm on board with it.

But there is sort of that control element to it. I'm just seeing it as it is, folks. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. And you've heard me talk about Squarespace for years, but now there's even more reason to get up to speed with the latest Squarespace tools. They have a completely new design system called Squarespace Blueprint, which is how you build your online presence from the ground up with a professional layout, then get to work on all the added features that will make your site a place where customers and fans can get everything they want. And let Squarespace AI help you with written descriptions that you're stuck on.

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That's squarespace.com slash WTF. Offer code WTF get started today do it so yeah I just get out in the world occupy my time with a minutiae small tasks multitasking bullshit to feel like I have some control of my life why don't we work on that pan a little bit? Maybe that needs a little work. Why don't you try to fix the cabinet? What about, what's going on with the lavender plants?

Why are they falling down? Get on it. This is a full day, folks. Is it what I should be doing? Is it creative work? No, but it gives me the illusion of control, friends. The illusion of control. I don't know, man.

I just don't know where, I don't know what we're supposed to do with this new time. I mean, it's like, you can't, in order to buy stuff, you know, you gotta go to a store and a lot of stores don't even exist anymore. So we've been put into this position to buy everything online. But what about shopping a little bit?

And what are we doing with all this freed up time? Just like letting our phones emotionally jerk us around for anywhere from 10 minutes to five hours. The scrolling thing, I gotta pull out. Sometimes I lay in bed and I just flip through those Instagram reels. I enjoy watching a couple of Tourette's influencers. I don't think for the wrong reasons.

I feel bad that they have it and I'm happy that they're normalizing it, but some of them, when they tick out and they say things, it's pretty fucking funny. And I think they know that. I think that if it's filthy and raw enough that I can accept it, I don't judge it, I'm sorry they're going through it,

but sometimes it's pretty funny. And do they know that? I think they know that. I'm happy they're normalizing Tourette's, but are we not supposed to get a laugh sometimes when somebody says, you're done, little baby wiener. I mean, come on, come on, you are not the father. I'm not gonna tell you who that one is,

but man, it's honestly, I can't get enough of some of those ticks. And maybe I'm wrong, you can point it out to me. Somebody tell me I'm wrong. I'm fully aware that they have a neurological problem. I know it's hard for them, I'm fully aware that they have a neurological problem. I know it's hard for them. And I know that normalizing it and making it

something that people can identify and not be weird about. I know all those things and I engage with all that. And I believe that I have empathy, but boy, sometimes they say some shit it's just you know hilarious maybe I'm jaded maybe I've I've seen way too much organized planned comedy some improvisation but there's nothing more genius than just unfiltered fucking you know id blasting out of someone with this neurological disorder. Is there a balance there?

Is what I'm supposed to learn from it just to ignore it? I don't know, I don't know. I'm good with it either way. And I've seen this particular influencer on television shows and sometimes the host can't help but laugh. I mean, I think they know that, but I don't know that they milk it or anything, but I think that's part of it, right?

It's part of the normalization. Anyway, maybe I should just stop scrolling in general because I don't know where it picks up. I guess it hears me. I've got a lot of Peter Sellers lately. I probably got more Grateful Dead going through there than I need. I get a lot of big cooking in exotic places. I get guitar stuff.

I get some Karens. I get that guy. There's another one. I don't know his name either. I'm not promoting influencers here, but there's a guy who just looks, he dresses up like a janitor with a beard and he acts really nerdy and he goes to gyms

and he walks up to dudes lifting like a ton of weight and they're just like these muscle dudes and this guy looks like a little unassuming dude and he'll go up there and tell them that the weights are fake and then he'll just lift it three times and these big fucking turgid weight bros who are fucking ripping out of their clothes. It just emasculates them so beautifully and so perfectly that I can't get enough of it. Yeah, anyways, vegan cheese, Tourette's influencers, what do we do with all the new time we have? And yes, I think we've done enough here.

I hope you're well. And now let's meet Paula Pell. All seasons of Girls 5 Ever are now streaming on Netflix including the new third season it was a thrill to talk to her and She's definitely funny and a character and and a brilliant person. So here we go strap in From the world of Sonic the Hedgehog, a new hero arrives. I am ready. Is there anyone stronger?

No. Tougher? No. Funnier? I do not make jokes, I make warriors. Knuckles, now streaming only on Paramount+. Yes! From the world of Sonic the Hedgehog, a new hero arrives.

I am ready. Is there anyone stronger? No. Tougher? No. Funnier? I do not make jokes, I make warriors. Knuckles, now we're ready. Is there anyone stronger? No. Ha! Tougher? No. Funnier? I do not make jokes. I make warriors. Knuckles now streaming only on Paramount+. Yes! Addiction doesn't discriminate people. In Canada, for instance, we lose 20 people to drug overdose every single day. So if you're listening to this and you've experienced

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for a while at some point somewhere. She's a good egg. Good egg. She's a real good, damn good egg. That's good that you got a good egg. You know, it's hit or miss with the eggs. Well, I got, I got, some of them don't make you sick right away.

No, no, you're surprised that. The pathogens have to like cook in you a little bit. I guess, yeah, I guess this egg was bad. I don't know, man. Oh no, you're surprised that. The pathogens have to like cook in you a little bit. I guess, yeah, I guess this egg was bad. I don't know, man. I got divorced after 17 years. 17. My ex-wife's lovely person still friends with her

as lesbians do, we stay friends. You can do that. And then I came out here just thinking I was gonna just have the most idyllic, fun, gay time. Yeah. Because I moved out of the Hudson Bay. I was living up there in New Paul's and I was like, I'm getting rid of the house. We're gonna, I'm gonna go to New York. I mean, LA with my best friend. And we're gonna have so much fun. And then I got here and I was like, oh wait, I'm in my 50s. I'm like, I'm with all these cute gay girls in their 30s,

sitting in parties, house parties going, they're all coupled up. But you landed one. I landed the best of all. There you go. I landed a cute ass darling sweetheart, funny, funny, dear person, thank God. So you live in Woodstock?

Yes, I live in Woodstock. Talk to me about the benefits of that. Well, I feel like the Hudson Valley, I moved there the first time in the early 90s. To New Paltz? To New Paltz, and I didn't know how cheap it was there, and my friend, anytime I ever went in New York City to, outside of New York City, we would shoot at the Douglas

house at SNL, we would shoot our commercial parodies at the Douglas house in the Palisades. And we'd get in the car and we'd get out of the city and I was like, wait, there's grass? Cause you first move to New York, you don't think that exists anywhere for like hours. And so, I just always would look at it and just pine and go, someday, I'll be able to have a yard with my dogs and I can then drive into the city to work, whatever. So, one of my friends that lived in the city in New York with me said one day,

I wanna show you and your wife my house and everything upstate because I want to show you that whole area. So she took us on a whole day tour of all those towns up in the Hudson Valley. Yeah, Hudson. And we could not believe. And yeah, Rheinbeck. Well, but that's the more expensive side, but like the other side of New Paul's and all that area, we could not believe how idyllic and incredible it was.

And then we started looking at houses and we bought a five-bedroom house that had been renovated by two gay men, so impeccable. And it was six, five acres, five bedrooms for $260,000. Come on. What year was that? And so it was in the 90s, early 90s. So for years, that was like my, people would come up and visit and they'd be like, what did this run you?

And I'd tell them $260,000. And they'd be like, why are we not up here? Well, it took the pandemic. Then everyone came up. Now you can get a shoe box up there for $260,000. Yeah, nothing. Well, it's just, well, when was that? Well, you grew up, Where'd you grow up?

I grew up in Joliet, Illinois until I was 15. Suburbia? I'm 60, yep. And I grew up until I was 15 and then we moved to Orlando, Florida. Oh my God. How was that? And my dad got a job that was supposed to be just two years with AT&T when they were doing that.

In Orlando? That was supposed to be just two years with with AT&T when they were doing that they were doing that Anti-trust suit with the government with all the telephone companies monopoly thing Yeah, the monopoly thing and so he got a job and whatever what he was doing at the time in data or something I ate you know for the phone company and He answered this ad of like do you want to go to Florida And we used to go in our camper and go to the camp near Disney or whatever. I see where we grew up in that kind of like American suburban trip.

Yeah. You had a camper. And then we do the camp, then we'll pop up Apache and we'd never went in a hotel unless there was a tornado. So like to even today, when I go in a nice hotel, I feel like I'm doing something bad because I grew up Catholic. So I'm like, I'm going to have to pay for this karmically that I get to go in.

You're waiting for the winds. Yes. I'm waiting for the, the, the sound of the train, which is the sound of a tornado. Anyway, we moved to Florida and my parents sent me, cause there was no internet, obviously at the time, they sent us two Polaroids in the mail, cause they were there for a week to pick out a house. And they sent us two Polaroids of the mail, because they were there for a week to pick out a house.

And they sent us two Polaroids of this house and it had a pool. Now I never in Joliet, there was one girl that had a pool and her family had a jewelry store. And it was like, she's the one with the money. They had a pool, probably the size of like a tiny driveway, like the tiniest pool inside their house.

Inside the house. It was an indoor pool, and we just thought like that was the ultimate. Did you go swim over there? Probably not, but like the ultimate wealth. And then my parents showed this picture of this house, and at the time in Orlando, they bought a four bedroom house with a gigantic pool, and it was $65,000, the house.

So I kept thinking like, what's, what, are my parents in the mob? Like, what is actually happening? I was very confused and my sister and I got there and I left an all girls little Catholic high school that I knew every teacher and loved it and was so into all my classes. And I was like, you know, just loved all the social, like all the, just had so much fun.

And then I moved to a giant public school where like the first day somebody yelled at me in the hall for not like being in my class, you know, and I was just like, I had always known my teacher. It was just a different thing. Traumatized. I was, and there were boys in the women's bathroom. What?

Yes, and so I was- Well, they were ahead of the curve, I guess. I was really, I was really traumatized, and then- Why were there boys in the women's bathroom? Just talking to some girl. I mean, that's how you seal the deal, Mark. You go in the women's bathroom, wait for her to come out, she's washing her hands, and you're like, what's up?

It's a cool move. I mean, I've done it as a lesbian before that I go in. But that's like a women's bathroom. And it's not as shocking, I would think. I try the same moves, but it doesn't. So was it like, how Catholic were you? I was very Catholic, but I have to say, looking back, like, because I've been around, obviously, in Florida, like the hardcore Christian church people and all that, is Catholic growing up in Illinois, like, we didn't really learn that much about the Bible and stuff. We were just, we were Catholic and you did all the Catholic things. Right, but it wasn't, I didn't grow up with a lot of intense.

Well, no, the new Christian is so much different. It's a full lifestyle choice. I mean, back in the day, I grew up Jewish. You're just sort of like, I go to the thing, but it's not like a whole life. And all my nuns were dykes. They were all like secret. Now they're on Facebook.

I'm like, oh, hi, you and your partner. How's it going? You know? Yeah, there's so many gay nuns and they- And you're in touch with some of them? Yeah, there's one that was one of my music teachers. And she's wonderful. And I've said hi to her on there and I just-

Not a nun anymore, I'm taking it. And it's just not a nun, not a nun. They came in the middle of the night and took her habit and her, you know. Did they really? No, they didn't. No, you're out. But she probably burned it in the front lawn of the church. That's sort of a interesting relationship to have.

Where's that movie? Where's that comedy? No shit. An older lady, how would we cast it, Mark? Who could play it? Well, you did. You're good in this new thing. Oh my God.

Oh, but like, let me not interrupt you about lesbian nuns. No, I just, at the time, it was always that thing that I was so unaware that I was gay, and then, but I knew that I was just different, and then I would have these, I would have these nuns that were like those kind of younger, but definitely gay nuns that were kind of those guitar mass nuns where they were 70s kind of,

you know, very, and then we just had this kind of thing where not in any way like they were interested in me or anything. No, no, no, those are the priests. Like, but they really just had that look of like, oh, honey, you don't know you those are the priests. Like those. But they really just had that look of like, oh honey, you don't know you're a baby gay. Like, oh God bless, God bless. Well, when does that sort of reveal itself to you? Well, my first girlfriend and I

were best friends in high school in Florida. And we were so enmeshed with each other that we would sleep in the same bed of two twin beds in her room at night. And we would sit and like hold hands, cause she was gonna go away to college. We would hold hands and listen to music of that era of like 88, right around 1980.

We'd sit and listen to a song and cry. And then we go, if somebody walked in right now, they'd think we were lesbians. Like that's how out of our ability to see it in front of our face. So the attraction wasn't clear. Oh, it was clear, but we just were like, we are the best friends on earth

and we lay on each other going to choir trips because we feel safe with each other and we love each other and we'll be there for each other and going to choir trips. Because we feel safe with each other and we love each other and we'll be there for each other when we get married and have kids. And we will, at our weddings, we'll kiss each other and we will, it's like so fucking demented. Because you just can't just go, yeah, I wanna kiss you, I wanna make out with you.

And so right after college so right after high school, then we were like, we were in that phase, right before two people are gonna get together where they're like being really pissy with each other, we fought all the time. We're just being like, oh, well guess what? Then I don't, and we had a big fight. We went on a choir cruise, our final thing in school,

cause we sang together and stuff too. We went on this choir cruise and we fought the whole time. Cause we were also boozers. So we went on this choir cruise and we fought the whole time because we were also boosers. So we were high school and we were in Florida, it was like a lot of house parties. And we would sit and get drunk and then we'd get sad because we're not gonna be around each other and we'd play music and then we'd just be like,

I don't know what, you know, we'd get pissy. It's like, you just need to make out. Just go take a swim in the pool and make out. I don't know what. I don't know, what do you want? What do you want from me? So someone had to make the first move. Yeah, and we finally did.

And then we were like, oh my God. And- Was it a relief? Oh my God, it was such a relief. It was a release and relief. But it was such an era where you could not, you just could not be that. Like there was no world where you could be like that.

And we had gay friends that were males that were still closeted, but they went every weekend. So we would go with them and be at the gay bars and dance all weekend and party. Still had to be secret. But it had to be so secret and you had to, the hardest thing about it I will say and kind of a grim note at that time

is when she and I finally broke up like further into college. We stayed together for a few years. There was a big breakup and she kind of broke my heart at the time, she's still my friend and she knows that she broke my heart and is sorry about it, but it was very devastating to me and I couldn't have anyone comfort me in my family

because they didn't know. So I'd come home to visit Orlando and she'd come home for Christmas. We'd see each other. It would end up me driving home, screamed, crying, so sad, broken. And then I'd get home and my mom would go, well, you're gonna see Susan,

she's your friend your whole life, what are you just? They did not have any idea that I literally had like the biggest first love heartbreak of my life. You couldn't tell your parents, you know? It's so sad. It's so sad, that was the saddest part. She's trying to be helpful. Because the other part is, you know,

like we used to go, we're taking, mom, we're taking a nap. It's like we had, we had Almond and wine that we would put in football cups with ice. Oh, the round bottle? That round bottle? That round bottle. Yeah, yeah, I remember that. You could get two different sizes.

We'd get the big giant ass one and we'd put it in those Almond and cups with ice. Yeah. And it would be like a big gulp full of wine. We'd drink that all day, hanging out in the summer. And then we'd be like, mom, we're taking a nap. And then we'd go and lock the door. And my mom would be like, is your door locked? And we're like, let's disengage from each other

for a moment so we can answer the door. So when you came out to them eventually. Yes, I did. But pretty late, in my 40s, early 40s, I met, because then after that... But did she say like we always knew? No, this is what my mom did. I had diarrhea for five days in fear of coming out to them at Thanksgiving that year, because I had met a woman and I was pretty sure I was gonna have another relationship,

because I went for years at SNL, zero relationships, male or female, nothing. Because I just, that first one was so heartbreaking, and then I just got so into my job at SNL. And I just- It lasted that long? You didn't have any other relationships? No, nothing.

I mean, I wasn't, Mark, I was, I grew up the fat girl in school. I didn't really get a lot of action anyway, so having a pause wasn't really like, I wasn't going without because I was used to. That sounds like a 20 year pause. It was a pretty big pause. But I just never, because I also,

I think Deep Down was so afraid to kinda make it real that oh, if I re-engage yet now with another woman that I'm really, then that's it. Then I gotta tell my fans. Like, I was. Got to live the life. I still have a joke with all my SNL friends when we'd have hosts that were like some hunky guy. They'd always go, what's the percentage this week?

Because I always used to say I was like 4% straight or 6%. And I'd go, it bumped up to seven this week, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the joke. So, but I really, I really was so scared. Thanksgiving, I had just a pit in my stomach for days and then I finally was like, I really was so scared. Thanksgiving, I had just a pit in my stomach for days and then I finally was like, I gotta do it,

I gotta do it. Because I have this new friend, she was definitely more of a masculine presenting person. And like my mom would go, I saw your, you saw your friend in California, she is, she is sporty, She looks really sporty. She used to say sporty. So we, we, I came to her Thanksgiving

and I was like talking around in circles, like, well, I just want you to know that, you know, I just don't want you to be disappointed if I, cause I probably won't have kids. I probably won't have kids. And she'd be like, well, you don't have to have kids, Paul. If you, no, but cause if I wouldn't, would not have kids cause I probably won't get married." And she'd be like, well, you don't have to have kids, Paul. No, but I, because if I wouldn't, would not have kids,

because I probably won't get married. I may not get married. And I just could not get to the fucking point. And finally, I was just like, because Dee is my girlfriend, she's my girlfriend. And she was like, I thought she would cry or like engage, very loving parents.

I thought she would be like, well, it's okay, but it makes me feel like sad or scared for you or whatever. And she was just a little bit quiet, which scared the shit out of me. And then she was like, okay, well, I figured so, we figured so. And then she proceeds to tell me that years ago, that she found my letters from my first girlfriend

and that she read some of them. So she was like, well, I knew back in the day, I was like, you could have, you could have saved me so many years of like, right, having to change the story of like, you know, having to pretend and pretend. Kind of twist you all up inside forever. But, but do you think she didn't tell you because she thought it was a little past? Oh, a hundred percent. She used to say about my friend, who was my best friend in high school, that I ended up Susan. She used to say about her, she always used to say, Susan's picky. She'd always go, well, Susan's picky. Because she'd be like, is Susan ever a boyfriend anymore?

Because she had one in high school and not anymore when she got a load of me. Yeah. But she was like, Susan is very picky. And I'm like, yeah, she just wants vaginas. She just wants to be with a man with a vagina. But after you came out, was the relationship with your folks fine? Yes. It took a little while. I mean, you know, they would have this discomfort, those very Midwestern of like, if I said, you know, I would have this discomfort, those very Midwestern of like, if I said, you know, I think we're going to get married because we got married, it was not with anybody.

It was just kind of, we couldn't even find any, because we couldn't get married in New York. So we went to Connecticut. So we went and had like in some weird little hotel, like it was an eco-friendly, beautiful hotel with these two lesbians. And they did these ceremonies because she was a whatever of a piece. What do you call that? I'm old. My, you know, the, Oh, justice of the piece. Justice of the piece. And then she also had this beautiful place. So they cooked for you

and they had a little ceremony, but it was all, it was like their dog was the witness. You know, it was, it was very, Was it legit? It was legit. You had to still file. So we went and filed and I remember us going in the... Because it was one of the few towns that you could go then and get legally married. And I remember just going in a jewelry store that was a very downtown... There's always that jewelry store in the downtown. The old jeweler? Like the people who had the pool when you were growing up? Yes, exactly. It was that jeweler.

And I just remember us looking at rings and just having that deathly... There's like the old guy in the back sitting with the watchmaker's lube on his eye looking at us like, who the fuck are they? And we just were trying to just kind of peek at stuff, but they could smell it. Did you buy rings there? No, we didn't buy rings there. So when you're in Orlando, was Disney World a thing yet?

Yeah, I actually ended up going to college at UT Knoxville, and then I came back and I performed at Disney for many years. So you went to UT Knoxville for acting? For theater, but also because it was near my girlfriend who was in North Carolina going to college. Susan? Susan.

So, I didn't say that at the time, but I was like, I want to do something in the Appalachian area. How did Susan end up? She is great. She lives in England and she was a therapist for many, many years. She's great. She's awesome and still friends with her and her long time wife and everything. But I ended up coming back and getting a job at Disney performing and it was so fun.

I did that up until I did SNL. I did Disney for three years and then I did Universal for almost two years at the theme parks. So what was the training that you got? Was it pretty thorough acting wise, theater wise? Theater, yeah, I got my degree in theater. I did four years, I did a lot of theater. Musicals. Musicals.

And also drama, weirdly, because in the 80s, it was like all those like extremities and Agnes of God and all those really great, I did all of them and I was always the mother superior or you know, I was always the older one that comes in. Did you like doing that? Oh, I fricking loved it. I loved, I remember at the time thinking like,

why is this so fantastic? Like when I have to cry or something in something that was so dramatic, because that was a comedy, I was a ham and everything. But I was like, because you're being asked to have emotion, you don't have to hide it. Right. And you get to do it.

If you do it well, if you just let it happen, then people clap. Like it's as opposed to going, just get yourself together, get your shit together. They actually embrace that you're having a breakdown. Yeah, shut it down. Not now. Don't start.

And I lived, like I grew up with a wonderful family that we were emotional. If I came in crying, my mother and father would be like, oh my God, like they would be very loving to me. They didn't tell me I couldn't, but it was just the era. It wasn't a therapy era. You didn't like- But it was the Midwest too, right? Yeah. You didn't come in and just, you know, when I first moved to Florida, the most hilarious thing is I always thought I was very loving around my friends. We were all, we loved each

other and we partied together. We were such fun, like fun group of friends. I moved to Florida and the first day I got in, I auditioned for the choir, concert choir. I moved, I got in there, they had a very competitive concert choir, won like state championship, all this shit. And I got there the first day and everyone was hugging each other. Everyone was hanging on each other, hugging each other.

And I thought it was somebody's birthday. I kept saying, oh, it's somebody's birthday. The teacher, all of them, she, the director, they'd come up to her, hi. I was like, oh, did somebody die in her family? I kept trying to figure out why everyone was touching each other. And then I realized that it was a completely different way

of not like my Midwestern upbringing, where it was like everyone was always on each other, which worked out when I was trying to cover that my best friend and I were doing it. Oh good, so it paid off. We could wrap around each other, like I said, on the choir bus. But that was just the sort of like theater community,

the choir community, that just did. Yeah, it was just, they were, the South, I guess. Everyone was just very affectionate with each other. And do you still sing? I still sing. I sing in the show and I- Oh, that's right. Of course you do.

I watch that, yeah. I sing in the show and I am like a B- singer. I've been trained singer, but I am a good blender. I'm a really good harmonizer. But I'm working with Renee Goldsberry and Sarah Braulis who are like insane talent and busy's got a great voice, but Phillips. And so sometimes, you know, they'll, they'll send me, they'll send us our

parts to learn and I'm the alto always. And they'll send us the parts that their stuff is very, you know, flowery and everything. And they'll go, okay, and yours is the medium time just time for us. And then you stay on that for the next three pages and then down, you know, so it's a lot of like anchor. It's really my personality. Just the gay anchor. Pete Slauson But you never thought about like doing cabaret or anything?

Jennifer Snell Well, I have actually, you know, I did that co-op, that documentary now where I played Elaine Stritch. Oh yeah, oh yeah. We did that company parody. And when I did that, I was really like, I really would love to do some kind of cabaret. It seemed like you could put together a hilarious show. Yeah, because my wife and I just did a show at Bell House in Brooklyn where we told our origin story

because we have a very filthy, but heartwarming origin story. And- Where was this for, a moth or something? It was, no, we just did it. We did a show there and it was so much fun. We kind of threw it together, but it was like, you know, an hour and a half.

What was it called? It was called Pell-rito, because she's Janine Breed-o, so we just put our names together. But- And how many times did you do it? Oh, we just did it that one night. And then we went right into starting to promote this, and we're writing a movie. So we just did it, because we'd never done it. And we've always told these stories about how we met and all this stuff. And then somebody was like,

you got to get up on stage and do that together. You're both funny. And I think we had done it in like a podcast we told the story. And, um, but then we did a bunch of other shtick. We had, I, cause I wrote Debbie Downer with Rachel. So Rachel came and married us at the end as Debbie Downer. We did a lot of, we had friends, John Lutz and different other people come and do stuff. We had a great musician, Meg Toohey, who's a friend of Sara Baralas, do some of her songwriting, like great songs,

heartbreaker songs. And we showed a lot of funny, Janine had, one of our parts of our story is that when we had our first date, she was like, she had cancer in high school and her make-a-wish was to go to SNL. And I was a writer there and I was in the monologue. It was Eminem and Rob Lowe and I was like, Jesus Christ,

she's younger than me. I mean, I knew she was 20 years younger, but she was old enough. She was in her, you know, 30s and I was in my mid 40s, mid 50s, sorry. So we just always have these like, we had so many weird things like that, like wait, we were in the same room and I had lines with Rob Lowe in this monologue and she was there as this senior in high school, make a wish, but in the show we did a thing where we told that and then she had this picture

that made everyone absolutely die laughing because she was homecoming queen and she always said to me, I was homecoming queen just cause I was, I had cancer. She goes, that's the only reason I was homecoming queen. And there's a picture of her sitting in a convertible, like you do with the homecoming, sitting up where they sit up on the end

with this gorgeous tall girl next to her, who was like the runner up Homecoming Queen. And she just said her name was like Kimberly or something. She goes, not this year, Kimberly. I got the big C. You're not going to make it. And she looked like a hundred percent like the clip art of Homecoming Queen. This girl was born to wear the crown. And here's Janine with her bald head sitting there waving. Oh my god, like everyone voted for me. Sorry That's a great story So you're in Florida to tell the what you're so your theme park experience was good

It was so weird and good and I have to say those jobs back in the day I think it's changed a lot because they stripped a lot of those live Performers and comedy people because there are tons of comedy actors that would work. Yeah, I talked to other people. I can't remember. Yeah, Wayne Brady did stuff. A lot of those people were amazing. A lot of my friends out here in LA. He was from Orlando. Was he there when you were there? Yeah, yeah. We worked together. And the thing was, I got a theater degree. I came home,

broke a shit. My parents were like, you got to come home, I came home, broke a shit, you know, my parents were like, you got to come home and work for a while. I auditioned for a job out there and I got it. And then I was making like 700 bucks a week with insurance, full everything. And I worked at night, so I didn't even go till... Were you a character? And I worked at this crazy place Called the adventurers club that was at Pleasure Island for a while in the in the 80s and 90s

They had this place called Pleasure Island at Disney World where they had an entire island of nightclubs So it was like a disco a comedy improv for grown-ups all for for the grownups. So the parents would get a babysitter in the hotel or whatever, and they'd come let it rip. And it was, every night was New Year's Eve, so at midnight there'd be this huge party outside, and they had a Western dance club, and it was always packed to the gills. Well, the place I got hired was called Adventurers Club,

and it was like a 1930s, like social club with adventurers, like Teddy Roosevelt kind of character. And there was a character named Amelia Perkins, the president of the club, and it was this matron, funny, bawdy lady, and I had a bouffant, but it wasn't, it was cartoony, but it was more theater.

It felt very theater, like we did radio shows. Was it scripted? Part of it was scripted, but then the first cast really developed a lot of the comedy. Right, right. And it became kind of the script of it. But we would do comedy shows, we did scripted things, and then we did radio shows and musical cabarets.

Do you think that's where you kind of started putting together the ability to write? Yeah, I think so, but you know, up until I walked into SNL and had that meeting, which I was like, what is this for? Because all I had done is acting and they were like, well, we saw you in a pilot of sketch comedy and you wrote that those things that you were doing, those characters, right? And I'm like, yeah, but I'm not a writer. Like, I could, I wrote my whole life, but I never would let myself. I was like, because I really thought it was some completely other skill set.

Plus, anything I knew of SNL was, it was Harvard guys. It was just, I thought they were going to be like, who, you know, whose aunt came in and wandered in to the writer's room. But you're working at the theme parks, and you're doing other acting as well? I did, I was on, because you know, at the time Orlando was kind of trying to be,

they called the third coast. They were trying to do a lot, Nickelodeon was there. So I would always be the adult in shows, Nickelodeon or Mickey Mouse Club, where it was a bunch of young kids that were very talented, like a lot of them ended up being big stars. I would always be the adult that was like, of young kids that were very talented, like a lot of them ended up being big stars. I

would always be the adult that was like, Jimmy, turn off that radio. It was not the funny part. You know, like you'd come in and just be the bummer, the parent. But you got the voice. But I'd go in and do it. And somebody recently, I was on Seth Meyers the other night and they showed it on the show because somebody recently who was in this with me sent me a thing for Mickey Mouse Club and it was Ryan Gosling as he was about 11 playing my son in this whole sketch and I did not know it was Ryan Gosling. And that was on TV. It was on TV at the time and he was just a young kid in the cast,

and somebody put it on the internet, and they're like, this is Ryan Gosling. And I was like, shit, that's my skin. And it was me just at the table with him talking and all this, and it was 100%. He looked exactly like himself. Oh my God. Yeah.

So in Kenan Thompson, when he was little, he would be in all that, and I did a lot of things for that too. So you knew them when he would be in all that. And I did a lot of things for that too. Pete Slauson So, you knew them when they were kids, kind of. Julie Snell And I was a lotto lady. I was in the lottery, I did lottery commercials that were this line of lottery commercials. And so, I did all

these things that made me feel like I'm doing this as a career. I'm, you know, anytime, like I go shoot a commercial in Miami and they'd have a hotel for me and I get to go in no tornado I get to go in and just like sit and and they give me like, you know $30 for a per diem Yeah, so it gave me that excitement of like I'm a working. I'm a working actor Yeah for diems are great. Oh, even if they're only $30 because it's always a surprise I'm convinced that per diems that I probably am owed like $300,000 in per diems over the years. Because I feel like I never hear of them. And then every so often they'll go,

oh, well they have a per diem like for you. And I go, should I have been saying that, is that like a thing always when you're doing stuff? No, I know, or sometimes you just, you know, you can just get whatever you want at the hotel or food or meals and you don't think of it. Oh my God. Yeah, well they do that on purpose.

Well my problem is I'm terrible in hotels because I just wanna keep ordering food, and I love ordering food in a hotel, or drink, like I just love it. And so they'll be like, you're getting $100 in Proof DM and then I'll get like $400 worth of food. And I'm like, no, it doesn't work like that, Paula.

Like you're not benefiting from the per diem. Sit in the room and have them bring it. Yeah, and I'm also very, I'm getting better, but I'm very bad about, I've always, always, always paid the bill. I'm always the person that's like sneaking it, figuring out the really sneaky assass way to do it so everyone will go, wait, where's the bill? And then I have a coy grin. I've had enough therapy

now but I've had enough therapy that I know now that's my kink to just do that that I don't need to be doing as a person who should have more self-care than that. Pete Slauson But what's the foundation of that kink? How is that pathological? Just to be the one. Big shot or the? No, not big shot at all. It's I gotcha. I got, but then times that I've been getting my utilities cut off, it's like maybe you don't got them for maybe five meals.

Was it a codependency thing? Yes. Oh, I'm a total recovering codependent. Oh yeah? That's a tough one. Oh my God. So codependent. And now I'm like 60 and all filters, my filters now, I have no, like I am not codependent. Oh yeah, that's a tough one. Oh my God, so codependent. And now I'm like 60 and all filters,

my filters now, I have no, like I am not codependent now. I just am not, no. I'm still kind, loving. You've got boundaries now? But I just have so many goddamn boundaries now. It's just like, no. Yeah, one of the boundaries has some fuck you to it.

Well, it's all just truth now. I never told the truth. I was Midwestern, then I moved to the South. Like no women in those two places tell the truth. So, you know, my grandma used to say, oh God, I love that soup. And then she'd go, I didn't care for that soup. And like that was my whole life,

was you don't hurt people's feelings. You don't- You invent a personality. You just don't, you're not, don't be troubled. Like don't. When was the moment where you realized I'm done with this shit? Oh, I think because I spent, and so many of those years were glorious because we were all the same age. So it was like friends and, but at SNL, I was mom.

I was the teat. I was a big caretaker there. And I also was creating comedy with them. So I was, and you know, some of these people are all just, like I said, wonderful friendships, wonderful, but I made that my role. Even if they didn't want it, I was the comforter. I was the comforter.

And you need a lot of comfort when you're at SNL because you're either failing miserably or you're the absolute shit talker, the most incredible thing of the night. And so there's like devastation all the time. And so I would just put all my devastation away because maybe my sketch got cut. I would just put all of that away.

I would, it would all be about me comforting them. And then I would go home and eat like three pizzas and put a cork in my sadness. And so I did that in relationships and I did that at work for sure. And then I just kind of turned a corner at some point in my 50s where I started going, I'm just, that muscle is gone, like it atrophied.

I just don't, I don't have it in me to just be that role. I wanna comfort myself, I want to comfort myself. I want to, you know. It's exhausting. It's exhausting. And you end up like with a shattered self. Oh my God. My therapist said codependency is pulling up

on fumes in your car to a gas station and putting the gas in the other car and watching it drive away. Which is exactly, exactly. I get it. You're depleted. you're sitting there, there's no cell service. You actually hit like a classic codependent bottom.

Yeah, oh, I hit so many bottoms. Okay, so how do you get from, what do they see for SNL? How do you get from Orlando to SNL? They saw a pilot I did with some of the actors in Orlando that were comedy actors. They had a place called SAC Theater that was like a big, kind of the second city of Orlando.

And they were so many, so many talented people came through there. And Jonathan Mangum who does the game show with Wayne. They were all so talented and so incredible at improv. I didn't really do improv, I was more theater and comedy, but I could improv if it was like music, or if I loosened myself up, I just didn't have the schooling that a lot of people had of improv,

where there were all the rules of Second City or Groundlings. But I could get loose and do it, but I loved being characters. I loved creating them or writing them for myself. Yeah. And I wrote a character in this pilot they did. I wrote a couple of characters and one of them was a character that was of a choir director who was singing Led Zeppelin. So I just came up and got my music on the stand and then I was, Hey, hey, mama, say the William Booms!

You know, and I was saying the thing. And I talked to my invisible choir there and it was very successful in the pilot and everything. And then I was just sitting in the green room at my now job at Universal Studios, which was a daytime theme park show called Murder She Wrote Post Production Show. It was all about the show called Murder She Wrote Post-Production Show. It was all about the making of Murder She Wrote.

And it was a giant show, like with theater, where there'd be hundreds of people coming in every two hours, you know, every 45 minutes. And that's what it was about? It was about the making. So we played all the post-production. I was an editor. I was the ADR person that would bring someone

from the audience. And that was a universal property, I guess? It was at Universal. It was just ADR person that would bring someone from the audience and that was a universal property Was that universal? Yes, just at the theme park? Yeah, and that show but that show yeah, and I was sitting in the green room It was still you know a corded phone on the wall and I got a call from my local agent And she was like, are you sitting down and I said yes, and she said SNL saw that pilot, because they were, it was Disney produced it, so they were kind of trying to sell it. And she said, SNL saw that pilot,

and Lauren wants to meet you, he wants to talk to you. And I said- That's crazy. And I had been the most obsessed with SNL my whole life. Really? I used to audio tape every episode on the shag carpeting with my Panasonic tape recorder cassette. Like the first season? All of it.

Yeah. I had always loved it. In high school, I did Rosanne and Rosanna Dana for like school assemblies. I was just obsessed with it always. Huge fan. Huge fan. And I said, well, what is it?

Like what, and they're like, it's not an audition. And I was like, well, what the hell is it? And should I bring, you know, I still brought my character glasses in case I needed to like break into something. It's just a Lorne meeting. It's just a Lorne meeting. He's interested in you sexually. And I was like, I was just like, okay. Yeah. And I was so terrified.

They flew you up? They flew me up. They picked me up at the airport. I went to NBC. I walked in that building just shitting myself. And I walked in and I came in and he was late because he sometimes is late for meetings. He was late. So I got to know all the people in the talent department

and talked to them and they ordered food. And I just remember being so nervous. They said, hey, we're ordering at a Zen palette. Do you want anything? And I said, I'll have a side of rice. And I sat and ate this like dry rice, like just white rice because I was so nervous. And I came in and sat down and he just started

talking and he was like, you know, we're, we've kind of cleaned house this year. It was 95. We've, you know, Most of the writers are gone. We've now hired all new writers and almost all new cast. And we're looking for one more writer. And we would like to see if you wanted to be a writer. And I was like, what?

I mean, I literally told them I don't, I've never done, I was like, I've never written for TV. I've never touched a computer, I don't know how to do any of it and they were like that's, this is where you learn that. Like this is where, I mean they're like you wrote all the stuff we saw right and I was like yes but I was trying to talk them out of hiring me because it came so fast that I thought something was wrong with it. I was like is this a scam that happens sometimes with Lauren? Does he get tooted up?

And like, does he get drunk and like, oh, let's just bring some- Destroy someone's dreams? Let's just bring this chubby lady from Florida and just works at the theme park and bring her in, and then she can just like jump off the George Washington Bridge. And so they said you have to be here in five days.

So I went home and quit my theme park job, gave my dogs to my mom temporarily. And I just got in a plane and came and stayed in a hotel for the first month and got a little apartment. And then I just stayed there for almost 20 years. Pete Slauson So, who, like, you get there, you move up here, and what's the first day like? Julie Snell Oh, I was terrified, but Mike Shoemaker, who is still to this day one of my dearest friends.

He's one of the other producers. Producer that he created Seth and Jimmy's shows, and best producer on the earth. And he just knew, because I really thought it was gonna be just like, I thought it was gonna be, first of all, the only woman. I thought that I was gonna be the only one that didn't have like television writing credit.

And I was very scared of the Harvard aspect. There was gonna be all these dudes that looked at me like, what? And so he had two other women, Cindy Capinara and Laurie Naso, who awesome people, amazing, still deep friends of mine. And they were there and they were actors too. And they also wrote and they hired them too.

And so he knew how scared I was because I kept saying, you know, okay. And then he said, here's some other scared girls. Exactly what he said. He called me three days before he left. I would have still done it, but I was literally having a breakdown where my mom would say,

what's the worst scenario? And I'm like, the worst scenario is going to my dream place and fucking it up because I'm not doing the thing that I am skilled at for that place. And it would be devastating. And so I went there with, and I got a call right before I left, and Shoemaker was like,

there's two people that wanna say hi to you. And they got on the phone and they're like, we're so excited and nervous and we can't wait to meet you. And then I just felt like I'm going to college again. It's just my girls in the dorm, we got there, we were all new, we were all scared. Will Ferrell came that year, all of the new, all the people that ended up being these huge stars.

They all- Who was the cast? It was Will? Will, Sherri O'Terry, Molly Shannon, Chris Catan, Darrell Hammond. Wow. It was just that whole era of, you know, and Rachel came a little bit later.

But, and then Tina came two years later, Amy came later, and it was just for years and years and years, just glorious years and years and years, just glorious, amazing, you know, incredible time. Who were the other writers? Were they Harvard guys? Yeah, it was Harvard guy, you know, Robert Karlak, like Adam McKay, they all came when I came, all of those guys.

And they were all so brilliant and funny, and we kind of felt like the show had gotten so shit on now that we were like, let's just do it. Like we didn't really know what we were doing and we were like, let's just come up with stuff that is funny to us. And we started, and it was a very perfect era for me because I loved writing characters and that was an era that characters were king.

And you did Debbie Downer. I did Debbie Downer, Bobby and Marty, the music teachers, I did the cheerleaders, I did Tony Bennett's show with Baldwin and just did a lot of those like Appalachian Emergency Room where it's just a parade of insane characters. Chris Parnell always was the hillbilly in the emergency room that came in with something in his butt.

He'd be like, well, I was practicing kung fu on a slipper tarp, and I fell Wink Stinker down on a Ziggy statue. And they'd be like, room six. And I did a lot of the commercial parodies too. I did a lot of those. So by the time that Tina and Amy get there, you're kind of established?

Yeah, I was doing a lot of those kind of hit characters of that time. You know, at the time, like, there were some people that kind of thought of those characters as, you know, the fast, not fast food, but the very popular commercial thing. But man, when you had those characters, it was the most fun ever because you knew that they were going to order one up, you know, and the biggest torture was trying every week to figure out something new. Yeah. And it may or may, it was competitive. There were a lot of people, so it may or may not

go well. So to have something you could load up, like let's do a cheerleaders with, you know, Robert, well, we didn't do one with De Niro. That would have been really fun. Yeah. But, you know, to do those, because they all wanted to do those hit characters. Sure, you mean the guest hosts. The guest hosts, yeah. Yeah. But I hear things, but nobody,

I've never got it really, I've only talked to one person that, not negative about SNL, but she was heartbroken by it because she got fired. Michaela Watkins. Were you there? So funny, yes I was.

And I just love her and think she's brilliant. She found so many great vehicles Yeah. Oh, God. Were you there? It was so funny. Yes, I was. Yeah. And I just love her and think she's brilliant. Yeah, she's the best. Yeah. And she found so many great vehicles to show how brilliant she is. Yes, absolutely. But that was the only heartbreak story.

But I always thought or somehow believed that it was so competitive that it was miserable for a lot of people. Yeah. I think that place, it has to do with number one, the era you're in. Yeah. Who you, if you had a real supportive friend group, because we would fail plenty of times. Like I'd get stuff, when I thought something was the funniest fucking thing I have ever thought of in my life, and it would literally get absolutely nothing, you know?

And so I think I started enjoying it there more once I saw all these people that I put on a pedestal of like, oh, their writing is insanely good, that they would fail. They'd get nothing that week. They'd get nothing. But when you're starting, it's so hard to break into it because you might have things that to me,

you were funny, that you used to do, that you were the star on stage live at an improv theater, and you'd bring it there and it was just not something that Lauren liked. It was not something that the rest of the writers liked, and you'd try it and try it and you'd be like, you'd have to say to people like, I know that's where you think you're funniest,

but you gotta shake it up because that's not getting put in, and you're gonna end up getting fired. I mean, we wouldn't say that in words, but I'd always try to tell people, try to do something different because I could see they were so attached to that move of like, and if it wasn't hitting, you gotta just, it's like a standup.

If they're doing their standup and they keep doing that joke that's not getting it, it's like maybe a different joke in there, but they love that joke. I keep doing that joke that's not getting it. It's like, maybe a different joke in there, but they love that joke, yeah, yeah. Well, but it seems like also that cast was fairly, there was, it was eclectic and it wasn't,

it didn't seem like there was massive egos. No, not, and we all came in like as nobodies. I mean, really, truly, everyone at that time. That was probably helpful. That was so fantastic. And I think I've many times, many eras of seeing new people come in there and people leave, I would always look and go,

I wouldn't have survived this one. I wouldn't have survived this era if I came. I wouldn't have survived. Because sometimes there's two new writers and one new cast member. I couldn't be a new cast member, just one person. Like that is brutal. And some people do it and they break through.

But when you all come together and you can be in sketches together and we did a lot of ensemble things, it was so like we're happy for each other. Like yes, and it was smaller. Now it's so big. It's really competitive. Oh, there's so many people there now.

I know like when they run the list of people on the show, I'm like, oh my God. It's half the show, the opening. Yeah. But was, did did you were you ever offered to be a you know a cast member? No, it was really clear when you came in there as a writer that was an actor. It was really clear that they were like You got to take that hat off while you're here because this isn't We didn't bring you here as a vehicle to put you in the cast.

And they had to say that to people because you get there and you could get your little all about Eve head going and you're like, oh, perhaps I'll have a tiny part in this and get an applause break. And then next week, you know, and you could, I was not that person. I was the co-dependent, good taker.

I was not gonna be the one that ever took a job from anyone. So, but I really put it away. And it took years for me to allow myself to take up space as an actor. Like it was uncomfortable. Like I'd be on 30 Rock or I'd be in Parks and Rec. And it was very hard for me to just be an actor and be okay with like that attention

because I felt like it was bad. I was doing something bad. Really? Yeah. Well, it's interesting because there are all these women, like Amy and Tina and Maya, they all speak so highly of you as being this sort of like inspiration

and this person that was sort of a rock for them. And did they seek you out? How did that relationship start? Well, as they got famous. Was Kristin there when you were there? Kristin was there, I wrote a lot with her. She's amazing. Ugh, adore her.

I watched my friends get successful at the show, then they got successful outside the show, then they got their own shows. And then occasionally they'd say, do you wanna be, you know, do you wanna be Pete Hornberger's wife and have like really fucked up things happen to you? Yes, I do, yes, that would be great. And it would just be little here and there.

So they're the ones that eased you back into acting. Well, they would hire me for stuff, you know, cause I knew them and I would very occasionally, I mean very occasionally audition for something more. Like I wrote the movie Sisters and I put myself in one little scene of it, but it was, I always had shame. I always felt like I was doing something. It's very probably Catholic residual of like,

don't be all high and mighty and try to do the other thing and try to take that away from that. Like I always felt in some way that I was taking it away from someone else. That's kind of nuts, yeah. It is, but. Because you're so funny. Maybe you didn't realize your worth.

But I think at that show, like there were occasionally writers that did get a little aggressive about like trying to be the funny one. And I was definitely a ham behind the scenes with people and we'd all be very much performative. I mean, like wigs and doing characters and singing and everything.

But when it came down to work, it was like, that is not mine, you know, that's not mine. Who was update when you got there? I can't remember. It was Colin. It was Norm MacDonald first and then Colin, Colin that next, because Colin was a writer there when I came, he came the year I came.

And then he became Update that next year. So he made the jump? He made the jump and you know, Tina made the jump and I certainly saw it happen, but I knew that I knew that place and I knew that I didn't have the ability in my soul to push myself in a way that like I had seen other people kind of try it a little bit and like get on updates somehow or something. I'm not talking about them because they did it the most perfect way.

But there would be someone who could actually- What was the process of that? How did that work and what if you wanted to? There was no process. It was a very weird thing that people didn't look highly upon unless you did it in the right way. Like for example, my best friend is James Anderson. One of the funniest, ungodly funniest,

he wrote almost everything Kristen Wiig ever did. What Keenan did, Fred Armisen, written so many classic things at that show. And he and I were roommates in college and he was, you know, gay, Kentucky, like we just were so not of the world of SNL. Did you bring him in? He was my best friend.

He was a theater guy, like a chorus guy in musical theater. He graduated with me at UT. He came to New York. I got SNL. And then he would be at the show all the time, and everyone would go, why? He is one of the funniest human beings on Earth.

They were like, why isn't this motherfucker on our show? I mean, writing on our show. Why isn't he writing? And I knew that the way that place was is they have to fall in love with the person. You can't say, Lauren, I have this friend that is so good. Because the eyes go dead. They have to somehow get exposed to them and go, who is that person? I'm excited about it. So we did it in a way that was very masterful and ended up working there 20 years as a big hit writer. But you had to enter in a way that didn't feel that thirsty, like, see my friend and like them and hire them because you know me and like me. It doesn't work that way there at all.

That's the politics. It's the politics. And also just there's something that is, I think it's changed now because everyone does multi hyphenate things. They write, they're in the thing they wrote. When I was growing up there early years, that never happened. There wasn't- Oh really?

That's a new thing. In show business even, it wasn't like, standups would do it in sitcoms, obviously in Seinfeld era, but like, or Roseanne, but there wasn't like- Just for a little while, you'd complete your material pretty quickly. Yeah, and it was not a looked upon thing of like, you're a writer.

And then, so I used to, even when I wrote on movies and things, when I was younger, I'd be like, oh, I'd love to play that, but I could never make myself, because I was so afraid they were just going to be like, I just had no balls. I couldn't, I couldn't advocate for myself at all. Pete So, after 20 years, how did it end there? Julie Well, I became too much of the mama. And I just remember this new era of people coming in that were way younger than me, that I just didn't have it in me to care about making them stars.

And they were wonderful people, but I was like, I am so fucking exhausted from doing this show. Most of my friends have left. I had a couple friends that, I mean, I made friends with all the younger people, but I felt old. I was like Nana S&L, you know? And I just didn't feel like it was the same tone right then when I left of my kind of comedy stuff.

I just felt like a lot of it, I wasn't getting things on as much. And then just being expected, kind of unspoken that I was this nurturer, I was like, that ends now cause I can't do it anymore, I can't do it. And I left and you know, I had worked on the set of Bridesmaids pitching jokes and I had never met Judd, but I was with Kristin and on the set of Bridesmaids.

So I pitched tons of jokes for a couple of weeks on the set and they used a lot of stuff and Judd was like, what are you doing next? Like, what are you doing? And so we started this working relationship that was great for quite a few years. And I learned a lot from him about movie sets and about writing movies and all that.

In what capacity? I did that. Yeah, I did that and I worked on, This Is 40 and I did a lot with him with his stuff. On set pitching? On set pitching. Do you have credit on those? I'm executive producer on This Is 40.

Okay. But, you know, I did a lot of, I also did a lot of rewrites on other people's movies for years and years. So, I did some official and some the right rewriting where you get paid a chunk, but then you don't get credit because you'd have to prove that you wrote more than half or whatever. So I loved it. I loved that stealthy, they'd give me some cash and then I would make something funnier. There were movies that you were given where you're like, wow, this really isn't funny. Oh, every single one practically. I mean, that's when I really learned the lesson that if you have one thing that made a studio money or one thing that I'm, and this is completely not about Judd Smith. But like I would start doing other writing where I didn't really know the writers, but I kind of knew of them.

I would get a movie that I knew the person had one other thing that was like successful a while ago. And they would have a movie that I knew for a fact, they got like a million bucks to write. And it was so phoned in and so bad. And they would be like, can you just maybe make this both funny and cohesive

and make the story make sense? And can you, and I would do it, but I'd sit there going like, I'm making like a 10, you know, way less than what they made to write it. And it made me really realize that like, some people do coast, like they get that successful trust

with people in the studios, just throw money at them of like, bring me your next thing. Then they pay somebody else much less to make it the funny thing. How do you not get filled with resentment? You do, but then the more you do the rewriting, you get paid more. So you push, I had great agents and great lawyer

that just as I did it, I slowly over time built and built and built and built. Then when I did do a rewrite, it was a considerable amount of money. And I'd be like, oh, I can pay my bills for quite a while with that. And I haven't written other than Sisters, I wrote a couple smaller indie movies that we never made, but I'm writing a movie for Netflix now with my wife.

And that's the first movie I've written. We just handed in the first draft, but that's the first movie, big, kind of fun comedy I've written in years and years. And are you in it? I have a little teeny possible part in it, but we just handed in the first draft. It's the one with Kim Kardashian is involved in it.

It's four comedy ladies, Kim Kardashian. And it is just... It's... She's just playing herself? She's playing a woman that is like, looks like her, but she's not, she is playing, like, her moves are close to herself. But it's called the fifth wheel,

and it's a kind of commentary on the hot girl and like how most women would not wanna go on a trip with her. Not her, but a girl that looks like her. So most of the acting started to unfold because these people that you kind of brought up, brought you in. Brought me in, and then I got to know more,

and then I got more confident where I would do, like that documentary now is a big thing that really got a lot of coverage in terms of like comedy people, like theater people, a lot of people watched it. So a lot of people would text me or be like, oh my God, and that was the first big juicy kind of acting thing.

And then I did in a wine country, which was like a big part in it. And that was the first movie I did where I wasn't just that one little funny thing that came in. I was like throughout the movie and I had sad parts and I had like sweet parts and I could act again. And I'm more nervous doing one tiny scene than I am doing an entire big part. I could see that, because you can kind of ease into it and live it. You get comfortable and you're rolling on it. It's like coming out and saying one joke

as opposed to like going and doing a set for an hour and talking to people and shooting shit. Well, it's great that you've now like, you set out to be an actor and now you've come to it. I've allowed myself to do it now. Like I gave myself permission finally at 60, out to be an actor and now you've come to it. I've allowed myself to do it now. Like I gave myself permission finally at 60, you know, and it happened about five years ago where I was like, you know what, nobody fucking cares.

Everyone's happy for you. Everyone is happy in your life that you worked with for years and gave them writing and they performed and became successful people. Yeah. And I co-wrote a lot. So they were brilliant too. They were great writers, but like none of them are going, that bitch is gonna take this part

that I am not even gonna be asked to do because she is a character. Like I'm a matron, I was born at 50. I am definitely, I played Mother Superior in eighth grade with braces. Well, that voice, you know, that's in your head. It's just in my head, that old broad always. That's telling you you stink and you can't do it.

My hair is, well, yeah, not stink. I've never, I was always kind of quietly confident about my acting, but I didn't want to, I just didn't want to do it. I think it was just from SNL of like, put that away. If you're a writer, you're a writer, you can't be doing the other because you're taking that job from someone else.

Do you do any writing now other than the stuff you want to do like screenplays and stuff? Yes, I do. I do. Award shows still? I mean, we've been doing the show for three years. So I've had wonderful times where I was like, I actually can pay my bills with the show as an actor

and I don't write on the show at all. I did AP Bio, that was another big show that, I mean, in terms of parts that I did and I wrote one episode of that. But I pretty much stay, when I'm acting, I like to stay away from the writing. But what was it like doing those award shows? Oh, those are hard. But the nice thing about those is they don't like, they don't bring out the writer directly after that joke died and go, this is. You wrote the one thing, what did Tina and Amy do?

Two Golden Globes? Golden Globes, I would help. But you know, those are always so communally written. It's like, hey, can you throw, can you send me, I mean, they'd all throw us some cash, but it's like, can you send me 20 jokes about this? And then you just sit and I always love just shitting out jokes.

I was like always that at SNL. Is like, give me something funny for the end of this. Give me a funny thing, a turn here. I was like triage. I was that emergency thing last minute. So that muscle is good for me because when I am acting now, even if I do think of a little tweak of something, but this show is Meredith, Gardeno and Tina and all them, Robert Carlock. It's like the scripts are so funny by the time you get it.

Girls 5 Eva. Yeah, it's such a funny premise and you're all so funny in it. And it does feel like there's a clip to the writing that's very solid. It's so many jokes. You have to put it on closed caption to catch them all. But yeah, but they're not like the, they're not one-liners and not sitcom jokes. They're all very character driven and just very... Yes, they're character driven and also that we're allowed to have these sort of moments

in it that are little heartbreaker moments. Because I love the heart breaking, that I did the Agnes of God, as I said, and I loved that being allowed to just in a moment feel really sad on camera is really fun. Yeah, well, I mean, and it's all appropriate because these are, you know, they're all women who have had this arc. Yeah.

And now they're... They had a one hit, they were one hit wonders and they knew that life in the 90s of being a girl group and being like the Spice Girls light. And then, and then they just went away. And I, my character immediately became a dentist. Yeah. I'm the lesbian dentist that got married

and was the first person, gay person to get divorced in the state of New York. Right. So I just, you know. And busy is sort of like a married woman. Busy was married for years with the gayest man on earth who was also in the boy group. So they got put together in the nineties as like the little couple. And then they, they finally get divorced in it. And then, um, Renee is like, you know, the was, went off to try to be a solo artist and then her thing, her thing, she did cribs and all that shit. And, and then she, she just, her career, all of our careers evaporated very fast. Was the Italian one? And then, and then Dawn is Sarailles, and she just ended up taking over

her dad's Italian restaurant. Right. In Queens with her brother. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's just like, and then they have their one hit wonder song sampled by a rapper. Right, yeah, yeah. And then that rapper goes on Tonight Show

with Jimmy Fallon, and they're like, why don't you bring on these ladies? And then we come on and we're like, holy shit. There's a line that I have in the pilot where I say, I come off after we've performed and I'm like, I don't know what this feeling is. It's like either a mini stroke, I know what it is. Kindergarten, Kerry O'Neil bred a fat kitten. It's joy.

And it's just like that feeling of like, oh, I haven't felt this in 20 years, in 30 years. It's all very sweet and very funny and sad in a way. You gotta have the sadness in there. It is. Yeah. And you've done three seasons? Three seasons, but this season we did for Netflix.

We moved to Netflix. The third season. The third season. So now it just came out and we finished it right before the strike. And then they had to wait, obviously, to edit and all that. And so now we have this fresh new season. Can that see? With two other.

No, it's eight, eight and six. Oh wow. So it's a really good binge. Yeah. Just, um, and also just the, the music in it is so funny, but also there's like some really great songs we've put out like our albums of the songs. And there's so many fucking funny songs that they've written.

And then Sara Bareilles writes like one or two each season that are the most Sara Bareilles, heartbreak and good, like love something like, oh, they kill ya. They absolutely kill ya. But it's so weird because this happens to me a lot though, so it's not specific. Like, I didn't know anything about it. No, well, Peacock, when we first started with them,

they were just starting, kind of. So they hadn't found their viewers, especially for an original comedy. That's basically the streaming part of NBC. NBC, yeah, Peacock. And it just really couldn't find comedy audiences there because they were new, they didn't really, they all loved the show, they were really supportive.

But when we knew, we kind of found out at the same time that it wasn't gonna be on third season at the same time that it was gonna go to Netflix. So we had kind of not the most horrible thing of like the call and then you go for a month walking around drinking and eating, my life is over. We didn't have that.

We had like, oh, we're gonna figure it out at Netflix. And already like our premiere was last week in New York and they had us perform at the beginning of the premiere. Usually premieres are pretty dry. You go in and take a couple pictures in front of the poster, and then you all sit and watch it. Or you leave. Or you leave.

You leave it halfway through, and you're like, oh, this is a stinker. And they had a giant stage in front of the Paris Theater by the plaza, and they had a big piano, and we did like a medley of our songs. And it was so fun and so funny and wonderful. And then we just went in and saw some episodes with the audience.

They were great. And we just had this like very good, hopeful feeling. But now we're kind of like having a first great date with Netflix and now we're like, oh God, are they gonna wanna fuck us again? Like we're all very like, we can't say it out loud. We're just gonna pretend like we're not waiting for their texts.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, they'll give you a few. Well, I sure hope. Yeah, because it's so funny and it's just so amazing to me. There is so much good stuff out there that just gets lost because no one knows where to see any things anymore. It's very difficult.

Netflix just has an audience that is so built in and it's net international too. So like I always loved finding British shows like funny as shit British show or Australian show. You'd be like, oh my God, have you seen the show and it would be on PBS or wherever it was. And comedy wise, and I'm so excited that like England, cause I have some friends in England that are comedy people, and they're like,

oh my God, we love this. And I love that there's this exchange across, you know, across country lines that people will enjoy it. So they're all up now, all the episodes? All of them are up, yeah. They came up last week, so the whole three seasons are up. And then there's a music, there's an album of all our music for this last season that's on kind of like, I don't know if it,

I think it's Spotify, but you can just do Girls 5 Heaven, it's all the music of us, like a soundtrack of the season. But there's so many, so many funny. So now you get to sit and wonder if anyone's watching it. Oh my God. And no one will tell you. I remember doing like, when I do movies

that were theatrical release, how you'd sit and do that box office mojo and you'd just be shitting yourself like waiting for the numbers to come out or in a TV show when you do series and you'd just be like holding your breath. But then streamers, it all ended. You couldn't find out anything.

Yeah, no one knows anything. For years. So you get to have that anxious feeling with no resolution. Oh my God, it's so hard. I mean, since the strike, I think there are new roles where they have to tell the creators certain things. Because people would be not told, and then you're like, wouldn't you like to be,

want us to know so we can maybe step our shit up or like make it, do something bigger. Adjust it, make it less this, make it less that. And it's interesting, some things like, could get the numbers, that would've been a hit show. Yes. Five years ago, and they're not enough for the fucking algorithm.

Well, I mean, Seinfeld, you know, famously had terrible reviews and everything that first season, and then, you know, NBC exec was like, no, I love it, let's give it more time. And that was back when you could just really let it. And Lauren's always been like that with people. He would let someone just simmer for a long time.

And then one year you see him break and you go, you know what, he was correct. He was right. He was correct. And also like, I think the culture had to adjust to Seinfeld. Oddly, I didn't watch Seinfeld, but I've got to do an event with Larry David.

So I'm literally watching. You're binging it. Well, I'm watching the episodes that everybody knows. Yes. For the first time, now. Yeah, that's how I am with friends. I never watch friends ever. Me neither.

Never. But I know them all. Yeah. And I know bits and pieces. Yeah, you know the bits, you know the clips. Yeah. The clips. Right.

There's so many shows like that. I mean, that's how I am sadly now with, cause I've just been, I've been trying to do too much after the strike, especially and during the strike. I was doing so much like trying to load things up and write things and that I just don't watch that much television. I don't either. And people are always like, what are you watching? It's like when someone goes,

what are you reading right now? And I'm like, the pamphlet to my new air conditioning unit on my toilet when I'm sitting there, that's what I'm reading. I know, it's not part of my life. No. If you work in show business, you're like, I do comedy, but I just never, I mean, there's been things I've watched.

Yes. Sopranos, Breaking Bad, The Wire. Like Fleabag, I loved, I totally, oh. I devoured that and I was like, oh, this is so good. But I also have a little bit of me, if somebody says, oh my God, it's the best thing that I've ever, movie wise, I don't wanna go see it.

Cause I'm so afraid I'm gonna be disappointed. Yeah, I hate when people come off stage before me and go, they're great. I'm like, don't fucking. Now I'm gonna fuck it up. Oh, don't curse it. I don't even want him to like me. Say that I'm a piece of shit

and I will come out and prove you wrong. Exactly. Great talking to you. Oh, it's so great talking to you. Thanks for doing it. I think you're such a funny, brilliant man. That's nice. And I feel that way about you as well.

Well, thank you. I am masculine produce. I keep saying producing. I'm not producing any masculine anything, but I am a little presenting, but I still wear lipstick. Okay. Bye guys Oh a pail great all three seasons of girls five ever are streaming on Netflix hang out for a minute folks Addiction doesn't discriminate people. In Canada, for instance, we lose 20 people to drug overdose every single day.

So if you're listening to this and you've experienced addiction, just know that you're not alone. CAMH is the Center for Addiction and Mental Health, and they're hard at work creating better treatments and interventions for anyone experiencing addiction. CAMH is revolutionizing our understanding of the brain and transforming patient care by knocking down the barriers that keep people from getting help. Sometimes it feels like there's no hope if you're feeling the impact of addiction in your life. Maybe you experience it directly or maybe indirectly, like if you're dealing with the effects it has

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So listen Thursday's guest is someone I crossed paths with back in the 90s as part of the alternative comedy scene Tammy Faye Starlight. If you're a full Marin subscriber and you want to hear me talk about that time Check out the bonus episode we did about Luna Lounge. It began to sort of take off But again, although it was alternative comedy or whatever and there was a slew of people You did have this weird mixing of Lower East Side performance art characters Were a den of you. What happened to that woman? She was kind of a comic too. Shapiro was around Rick Shapiro Reverend Jen

You know Michael Portnoy was doing whatever the fuck he was doing. Who people know as the guy who got on stage with Bob Dylan at the Grammys and had Soy Bomb written on his chest. Which was by far the least interesting thing he did on stage. One time he got on stage and took a bottle of his Prozac out of his pocket and dumped them all over the stage and then stuck his dick in it. Which I thought was good. That's available now for full merit subscribers. them all over the stage and then stuck his dick in it. Which I thought was good.

That's available now for full Marin subscribers. Just check your feed for the bonus episode titled WTF origins, Luna lounge. To sign up for the full Marin, go to the link in the episode description or go to WTF pod.com and click on WTF plus. And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by a cast guitar. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, I'm gonna be a man, I'm gonna be a man I'm gonna be a man, I'm gonna be a man, I'm gonna be a man I'm gonna be a man, I'm gonna be a man I'm gonna be a man, I'm gonna be a man I'm gonna be a man, I'm gonna be a man I'm gonna be a man, I'm gonna be a man

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I'm gonna be a man, I'm gonna be a man So Boomer lives. Monkey and Lafond at Cat Angels everywhere.