Sarah Silverman Talks About Her First (And Only) Season on ‘Saturday Night Live’

For some performers, getting cast on Saturday Night Live represents a career peak, and a level of public visibility they struggle to sustain after their time in 8H is over; for others, it's just one stop on the road to a different kind of success. Sarah Silverman falls into the latter category. When she joined the cast as a writer and eventual featured player in 1993, she was a 22-year-old stand-up comic who'd only recently dropped out of NYU. Although appeared in several iconic sketches alongside the likes of Adam Sandler and David Spade, she was let go after only one season. Nearly everything she'd become known for was still ahead—Mr. Show With Bob and David, Jesus is Magic, School of Rock, “I'm Fucking Matt Damon,” and Wreck-it Ralph, not to mention the Emmy-nominated The Sarah Silverman Program, the talk show I Love You, America, and countless other films and comedy specials.

In this interview, conducted during the reporting process for the GQ feature “Saturday Night Forever,” Silverman talks about why having failed (her words) at SNL helped her become the performer she's become, her memories of Phil Hartman and Chris Farley, and what life was like in the SNL writers' room in the mid-'90s.

Sarah Silverman: I'm wondering what I can add to this. I was there for such a blip of time.

GQ: I appreciate you doing this. I know it’s not the most important chapter of your career. But in a way that makes it more interesting.

Okay.

Did you watch SNL when you were younger?

Oh my God, yeah. Obsessed. Totally.

What was your era and who were your favorite cast members?

I watched it with my mom when I was little, in the late '70s, when I was tiny teeny. And I think I probably remember the original cast from reruns. And of course those reruns were just the “Best Of,” so they were incredible.

But then it was, like, Blly Crystal. Martin Short. I remember the film with Martin Short and Harry Shearer when they're swimmers. Do you know what I'm talking about?

That was a big memory for me because it was like this oddly very bonding thing with my mom and I. And then of course, “The Sweeney Sisters.” Jan Hooks and Nora Dunn, I fucking loved them. That was big in my high school days, “The Sweeney Sisters.”

I mean, obviously Steve Martin was my idol growing up. So every time he was on was huge. Eddie Murphy. Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo’s friendship was like when you’d see John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd—[Murphy and Piscopo] were the next friendship that you watched and got excited about. You felt like they were really friends. It was so good. When they did Frank Sinatra and Stevie Wonder? “Ebony and Ivory”?

And I loved Gilda Radner. Obviously I saw her mostly in reruns, but I loved her.

Those Best of Saturday Night Live reruns were my first exposure to the original cast. And it’s funny, because if you watch it that way, it’s like, “Wow—this is an incredibly well-paced 30-minute show with no bad sketches.”

Exactly—it's a 90-minute live show, but we were raised on these 30 minute best-of shows of the original cast where you're like, "Oh my God, they were the most brilliant." And they were brilliant—but if you boil the episodes down to the best 30 minutes, they're all going to be really good. And also Lorne knows, when a new cast primarily comes in, it's slow for a second, it takes a beat. And then all those people that you're like, "Oh, who are all these new people?" become your favorite people over time. I feel like he had the patience to know, "Okay, it's going to take a minute."

He definitely knows what he's doing. But for me, it was seeing friendship. So I loved that. And then when I was there, it was Sandler and Farley and seeing that friendship on screen. I know when I was a kid, at least, there was something about seeing what you felt like were real friends doing this together that made it extra. Then, after me, when you saw Tina and Amy and that kind of friendship and women being the stars, that was wild to see. When I was there, it wasn't like that at all. I'm not complaining. I loved being there. I loved every second of it, but it was a totally different place. And seeing where it went to from there. And that's why it's survived for 50 years. It changes with the times. Sometimes it takes a beat, but it does.

I mean, is there anyone better than Keenan Thompson? He makes everything brilliant. He's a lot like Will Ferrell was, where he's the straight man a lot, and he just makes the most of it. He serves the purpose and he brings something incredible to every single thing he does. There's just so many talented people. But I mean, when I was there, you needed a key to go to the ladies' room to protect yourself from the guys. That would never happen today. After I was there, Tina Fey was head writer and the whole world changed and it became a lot more diverse. And it took a while, but it got there. That's why it's still going.

I feel like 1993, when you came in, was an interesting transitional moment for the show. You and Norm MacDonald both started that year, right?

Yeah, the new people the year I was there were me, Norm, Jay Mohr and Dave Attell, who was a writer. And three Harvard kids.

What was the audition process like for you?

I didn't have the audition that other people had. They saw me do stand-up and then I just met with Jim Downey and I met with Lorne and that was it. And then they hired me as a writer and featured performer, but I didn't audition with characters or anything. I didn't have that experience that so many people do. I wouldn't have gotten the job if I had, for sure.

I hadn’t done characters. I was figuring out who I was. I wasn't a sketch performer. I was a stand-up, you know?

You’ve said in the past, when you’ve talked about this experience, that it didn’t work out because your sketches weren’t very good. Is there one that you were in that you still look back on fondly?

I was in some that became classics like Spade's “Buh-Bye,” that first “Buh-Bye” sketch. I was in “Lunch Lady Land.” I was Chop Suey.

That’s right!

Those were the ones that I got to be a part of that kind of had lasting effects. I mean, besides that, really all I did was, I was a plant in the audience during the monologue when they’d take questions. And then I hosted 20 years after I was there and I took questions from the audience and all the questions were me from 1994, asking questions of Nancy Kerrigan and Jeff Goldblum. I can't remember who the others were for, but it was kind of awesome, because it was like the sweet, little innocent girl asking me questions, and it was me from so long ago.

Do you have a favorite sketch that you wrote or worked on that didn’t make it to air?

I've been talking about it because I do a thing about flies in my show right now, but I had learned some fun fact at that time about how flies' whole life expectancy is 24 hours. I thought that was so cool and tragic and beautiful. So Phil Hartman was so sweet—he had seen me do stand-up and he goes, "Hey, why don't you write something for us to do together?" I did, and it was something where he was an elderly fly, like 23 and a half hours old, and I was like a young fly who’d just sprouted wings.

It was just, like, him telling me the ways of the world and saying things like, "I remember noon." But at the end, a dog comes in and takes a shit and leaves and then Phil says something like, "Go get it, kids." It actually did not make air, but I remember liking that one. My strength was in punch-up, on Thursday nights. That's where I made any kind of dent and made it onto the show—jokes and punch-up, punching up the sketches on Thursday. That was my strong suit. It's fun because you get to just think of jokes to add to sketches that are already pretty solid, sometimes less so. I just loved getting laughs in the room.

What was the writing process like back then?

I remember it was kind of the end of an era. I mean, I watched people fight with fists and get into huge screaming matches. I had never experienced anything like it. I just remember always thinking, "I can't believe these are grown-ups," because I still felt like a kid. I was 22 and from New Hampshire. I just couldn't believe that complete grown-ups could act this way. But that was kind of part of it [back] then. I can't imagine it is now, but it was really wild. It was interesting. It was an incredible experience in that way, as well. But I also just loved making them laugh. If I could get a laugh on rewrites, I was so happy. It was so exciting. I think that's probably why I liked punch-up best because it was fun to pitch stuff and get laughs, actual laughs, when my sketches were not received as well, because I wasn't good at it.

Maybe you were ahead of your time.

I'd love to think that and I am sure that's the case for Larry David [SNL writer, 1984-1985.] But if I'm being honest, I just think I had not fully formed yet. I see clips from then and I go, "Oh, I can see pieces of me in there," but I was still... I don't know. My guess is [my sketches] were really not strong. I don't think I was ahead of my time. I may have been, shortly after, when I kind of realized stuff, after I had failed that experience. I think coming out of that and going back into stand-up and just going back to square one was what really took me to where I was meant to be. But that experience was so important.

And, I mean, I was weird. There was a writer named Ian Maxtone-Graham. He was very hoity-toity in my view. A lot of [the writers] were, like, rich people. I don't know, just in my mind I thought that, because he had three names. He had the office catty corner to mine. I don’t know why—I would have to ask a therapist why I would be this way—but Tuesday night was like an all-nighter. At a certain point, you just feel gross and gamey in your clothes, and he kept a fresh drawer of clean boxers and a fresh drawer of clean socks in his office. I would just take boxers and put them on, and socks, just to feel clean again. Then he would walk by me and I would be fully in his giant boxers and socks. I just looked at him like, "Fucking say something," and he didn't. He never acknowledged it. I never acknowledged it. Fucking weirdo. Me, I mean.

I mean, it’s also weird to not acknowledge it.

That was my way to be a bully in a place where I didn't really have any power, I think.

I'm going to violate your boxer drawer.

And, you can see by what I'm wearing that I was in your space and I took your things. I'm just staring at you like, "Fucking say something," but you didn't. Then I did it every few days. We did not have that kind of friendship. We do now. I love seeing him when I bump into him now—but it's just so odd. I was like a kid misbehaving for attention and [he was] the adult just not giving it to me. But I liked his boxers. They were big, thick shorts.

Do you feel like it was a culture where misbehaving was how people carved out a space for themselves?

Maybe. Maybe. I'd smoke a joint in my office at two in the morning and go back in the writers room. I smoked cigarettes. I don't know. But mostly I was a good kid. I always was a good student and I always did my homework. But I don't know, I think there was a part of that that was maybe encouraged in some way. And I think in some ways it's great, but I guess I was powerless there. I was young and I was a girl and I was totally out of my depth and maybe that was some way of feeling powerful or something. I don't know. It's so weird.

It reminds me of one thing someone told me in one of these interviews, which was that Lorne was more comfortable dealing with people who behaved like rowdy children. When you tried to meet him adult to adult, it was harder, but if you were a problem child, that was his zone.

I remember they used to have a retreat before the season and go to—I think it was called Mohunk, this big, like, empty hotel that we'd stay in, like a lodge. And Farley was sitting next to Lorne at a campfire and I overheard him say, “Lorne, would it help the show if I got even fatter?” And Lorne goes, “No, no, Chris—we want you to be healthy.” It was just fun, funny things over there.

You got to be there for the end of that great ‘80s-’90s era, when Hartman and Spade and Farley were still there.

Yeah, it was crazy. It was a lot of people's last years. Farley had been there three years and he was already a big star there. And I remember showing up for rehearsal on Thursday or Friday and sitting on the stage and I got there early and so did he. And he was like, “Can you believe it? Can you believe we're on the same stage as John Belushi? I can't even believe it.” And it really opened my eyes to being in the moment because I was kind of coming from a place, like so many comedians, of, like, “Well, if I got the job, it couldn't be that great.” But it was, you know what I mean? He saw it that way and I thought that was really cool. It affected me to see him that grateful and still so excited.

He’s the greatest. Which brings me to the impossible question everyone hates answering. If you can only pick one, who is the funniest person in the history of Saturday Night Live?

Oh my fucking God.

Sorry. Like I said, everybody hates this one.

God.

And then everybody says they can’t pick one person, and then everybody gives me 20 names, and that's how we do it.

I can’t. I can’t. But really, I think I'd probably go with the people that are the glue. In terms of that, I would say Phil Hartman, Will Ferrell, and Kenan Thompson are the characters that were the glue—they could play the straight men, but were also the funniest ones and brought something to everything. That's the thing that comes to my head. But, it's so many, so many. It's like Jan Hooks for me was like, oh my God.

She was so funny.

Yeah, yeah, totally. And it's funny, because there’s like people like Tim Robinson who didn’t make a dent there, but Lorne clearly saw that there was something there, because he produces I Think You Should Leave, which is one of the most exciting sketch comedy shows, certainly of the 2000s, to me. It's so brilliant.

There’s always someone writing some version of the “Saturday Night Dead” headline somewhere, but there’s still so much interesting stuff out there that you can trace back to people who passed through SNL. It keeps generating.

It perseveres.

It’s like this lab where something is always happening.

It’s a lab! I think that's a perfect way to put it, because there's always a year where it's a bunch of new people and nobody knows them and the reviews are “Saturday Night's Dead”—which, like, if you're shitting on a show for not being original, that headline couldn't be less original. I think it's probably been used 50 times. But yeah, it's really special. Like [John] Mulaney and the people that were just writers on the show. And it's always interesting seeing the influences of comics that become big and then they bring back the stuff they grew up with. Like, the resurgence of Weird Al is because all these people that grew up worshiping Weird Al and became famous in the comedy space and then brought him back. I don't know. It's some cool stuff, watching how it all works.

Do you have a favorite memory of an interaction with a guest host, or another visiting celeb?

Rosie O'Donnell came on. She wanted to write sketches with the women on the show, and she had us write stuff together that made the show, and I was really impressed with that. There was no feminist vibe there by any means at that point. I was like, "Wow, she can make that happen?"

Sally Field was really nice, and I remember Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love both wearing slips, dress slips, and holding hands. I was in the stairwell. I was behind them or in front of them, and I was very aware of them and just, like, "Wow."

That's a crazy one, in retrospect.

In retrospect, especially. I was a fan, so I was like, "Wow." Also, that band you would never think of that blows your mind live, and you're just like, "Whoa—am I a fan of Tony! Toni! Toné!?"

You've sort of already answered one of my questions, which is about why this show has persisted for this long.

Yeah. It could have easily become a caricature of itself. It could have easily stuck by its guns and stayed one way. It could have easily responded to the call for diversity with, like, "Fuck you, whatever." It's a very strong base, and Lorne takes risks with the people he hires, and he has an incredible eye. He sees stuff in people before maybe even they do sometimes.

You’re proof of that, in a way.

A hundred percent. I don't know what he saw in me.

You’ve obviously proved him right in the ensuing years.

Yeah, he made that choice. It's funny—I just watched something that someone posted on TikTok or something that, from when Cindy Crawford hosted a show on MTV, and she came to SNL and there's a clip where she's interviewing me. And I'm like, I see myself in her—in little me—but I have this dopey way of talking. It was who I was then, but it was also me being someone that I thought I was. You know what I mean? I don't know. Like as we are when we're 22, I was not a fully realized person.

I definitely was not ready for it, but it was an amazing experience, and certainly prepared me for the rest. Everything else was pretty easy after that.

Right. It’s like space camp or whatever.

Yeah, or Outward Bound. They throw you in a lake and you just have to learn to swim. They don't have a little school to acclimate you. You're just there and you go, "Oh, is this how?" I got a sketch on and I was so excited, and John Malkovich was in it. Then after dress rehearsal, I was sitting on the floor in Lorne's office and Malkovich was sitting on a chair, and he leaned down to me and he goes, "I'm so sorry I messed up my lines." I go, "Oh, don't worry, buddy. You'll get it in the live show." Then Mike Myers says, "It's cut from the live show, Sarah. Look, it's on the left side of the line on the board." Nobody tells you. I had no idea. I was like, "Ooh."

You got to write for John Malkovich, so there's that.

Yeah, it was awesome. I have it, actually, on a VHS tape from the rehearsal show. It was a very awkward, odd sketch and weird, but yeah—I couldn't believe it got on at all. I think that they're generous with the new kids, in the beginning.

SNL50: The Anniversary Special airs at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on Sunday, February 16, on NBC and Peacock. To read all of GQ’s coverage of Saturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary, click here.