Good Hang with Amy Poehler

Podbit · Good Hang with Amy Poehler

Sarah Sherman

Explore episode Jun 16, 2026
TV & Film
Outside-In: Sarah Sherman's Six-Year Revelation

Sarah Sherman · Jun 16, 2026 TV & Film

Sarah Sherman admits she has spent six years at SNL building characters from the outside in — picking the wig before knowing the motivation. Watching castmate Ashley Padilla work from internal character truth made her realize her approach was making writing twice as hard. She's trying to flip it for season six.

Where this was said

The First SNL Audition Bomb and the Spite Career

At 42:50 · chapter starts 41:30

Sharna Halpern set up Sarah's first SNL audition when Sarah was 22 and performing as Sarah Squirm. Sarah knew it was probably too soon but went anyway. She did what she thought the assignment was — characters and impressions — and it was obviously terrible, she says. She remembers her outfit in crystalline detail (her memories are always marked by clothes) but less vividly the actual set, which is telling. This follows her Northwestern rejection from the sketch group, which she describes as devastating. Both rejections are fuel: Sarah is explicitly motivated by spite, and getting a 'no' from peers or institutions tends to sharpen her creative ambition rather than deflate it.

TV & Film
First SNL audition at age 22

Sarah Sherman · Jun 16, 2026

Sarah auditioned for SNL at 22 at Sharna Halpern's urging, bombed badly by doing what she thought the assignment was — characters and impressions — rather than being herself.

Similar podbits

TV & Film
Acting as the Fighter's Second Life

JRE MMA Show #183 with Rico Verhoeven · Aug 4, 2026 TV & Film

Rico has already appeared in Den of Thieves, Den of Thieves 2, and Roadhouse alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Dave Bautista. Jason Statham is developing a specific role for him. Working alongside elite actors taught Rico something about himself: the emotional suppression that makes him a great fighter is exactly the material that makes great acting — if he learns to stop pushing it away.

TV & Film
Trump's RFK Jr. Roadkill Joke at the Correspondents' Dinner

Berlin Islamic Terror Suspect Killed, Troy Jackson’s Aborti… · Jul 27, 2026 TV & Film

Trump joked that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. personally ran over, butchered, and delivered the evening's beef tenderloin to the dinner — then topped it with a punchline about RFK wanting to serve raccoon roadkill as an appetizer. The crowd's laughter at jokes targeting his own administration signaled a rare night of good-natured self-deprecation from Trump.

TV & Film
The Thor Audition That Changed Everything

Alan Ritchson · Jul 27, 2026 TV & Film

Alan Ritchson walked into a Thor audition with his sides still in his hand, half-assed it on a spotlight-lit stage before two silhouettes in a dark theater, and bombed so completely that the casting director broke protocol to call his team. The feedback? He had no craft. That one sentence sent him to acting school — and changed the trajectory of everything.

TV & Film
Buying a Tesla Before He Booked the Job

Alan Ritchson · Jul 27, 2026 TV & Film

Alan Ritchson walked out of his Titans audition so sure he'd booked the lead that he called his wife and told her he was going to buy a Tesla. She said he hadn't booked it. He went and bought the car anyway. His instincts were right — he was offered the role — just not the one he wanted.

TV & Film
Reacher: 56 Million Viewers, One Character

Alan Ritchson · Jul 27, 2026 TV & Film

Reacher drew 56 million global viewers in a single week of Season 2. Alan Ritchson points out what makes it unusual: unlike ensemble shows, almost all of that visibility lands on one person. It's an anthology with a rotating cast built around a single titular character — and the scale of it is something even he calls unprecedented.

TV & Film
Motor City: The Silent Film No One Could Get Made for 15 Years

Alan Ritchson · Jul 27, 2026 TV & Film

Motor City has no spoken dialogue. Every major leading man in Hollywood — Jake Gyllenhaal, Hugh Jackman, Gerard Butler, Adrian Brody — was attached at some point. It was greenlit nine times. The concept was simple: Greg Silverman wanted a film everyone in the world could watch with the exact same experience, regardless of language. Alan Ritchson read the script and called it a masterpiece.

TV & Film
Arnold Schwarzenegger on Fame and Gratitude

Alan Ritchson · Jul 27, 2026 TV & Film

Working with Arnold Schwarzenegger showed Alan Ritchson what 100% recognition looks like. People feel Schwarzenegger before they see him — like a meteor approaching. Alan's wife wants a strict no-photos policy around family. Arnold stops for everyone. The contrast was a master class in how gratitude should manifest when fame is inescapable.