Speaker
Sarah Sherman
Appearances over time
1 episodes
Episodes
1Podcasts
Quotes & moments
Sarah Sherman invented a character called the Russian Tsarina for her school's Into the Woods production — no lines, no accent, just a red and black lace gown and a fur hand muff from the costume closet.
Sarah's bat mitzvah had an April Fool's Day theme; invitations were snakes-in-a-can that she hand-delivered to every guest's house.
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.
Sarah Sherman was discovered performing as Sarah Squirm and all her SNL contract paperwork still carries that name; Lorne Michaels asked her to drop it when she joined.
Sarah wrote John Waters a letter decorated with intestines asking him to open her HBO special; he called her from a Baltimore area code while she was walking home from therapy eating sourdough bread.
In her first SNL year, Sarah had a recurring stress dream — twice — about using a prop toilet on the studio floor even though she knew it wasn't hooked up to any pipes.
Sarah's Jungian dream analyst interpreted her prop-toilet dream as a metaphor for putting work out into the world and feeling embarrassed about it.
After watching Sarah perform an animal character, Lorne Michaels told her he could tell she was loved as a child — a remark she found deeply insightful.
Sarah Sherman's habit of building characters from costume outward (outside-in) makes jokes harder to write than building from motivation inward (inside-out), a struggle she's worked to address since watching Ashley Padilla.
It was Colin Jost who first suggested Sarah come on Weekend Update as herself — she hadn't considered it presumptuous to propose — and it became the career break that made her face recognizable.
Sarah Sherman revealed that her seemingly improvised crowd work calling out audience members wearing glasses was a written bit she had performed for eight years, not spontaneous riffing.
Sarah bombed repeatedly opening for Adam Sandler because the audiences had paid large sums specifically to see Sandler, not an unknown opener doing shocking body-horror comedy.
Sarah's first Hell Trap Nightmare show was held in a friend's Chicago basement and featured a performer with chorizo taped to his genitals smashing light bulbs.
SNL makeup department head Louis Zakarian can apply a complete bald cap in under two minutes — a record he cited at Comic-Con panels.
Sarah Sherman invented an entirely new Into the Woods character — the Russian Tsarina — from a red lace gown and a fur hand muff, with no lines, no accent, and zero authorization. She then convinced the director to list her in the playbill. This is the origin story of every character she has ever played.
Sarah Sherman cannot fathom how Amy Poehler was pregnant while hosting SNL, noting she can barely work there when her contact lens is dry. Amy points out that pregnancy makes you a completely different body — something a body-horror comedian should find endlessly fascinating. The mutual amazement is palpable.
After Sarah performed an animal character on SNL, Lorne Michaels pulled her aside and said, 'When you did that, I could tell you were loved as a child.' Sarah called it being completely 'clocked.' Parental scaffolding, it turns out, is visible from the stage.
Sarah Sherman's recurring SNL nightmare isn't about bombing on camera — it's about wandering a never-ending hallway on writing night, begging colleagues to write with her while everyone says no. Bombing in front of millions is survivable. Bombing in the writer's room is a fate worse than death.
Sarah mailed John Waters a letter covered in hand-drawn intestines asking him to open her HBO special. While tearing apart sourdough bread on the sidewalk post-therapy, she got a call from a Baltimore area code. 'Hey Sarah, it's John Waters. I'll see you on set.' The audacity of the ask paid off completely.
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.
Sarah Sherman's first Hell Trap Nightmare show was held in a friend's Chicago basement. The lineup included a noise musician who flashed the crowd with chorizo taped to his genitals while smashing light bulbs. Sarah performed ten minutes of bad stand-up and chugged a can of room-temperature clam chowder. A career was born.
Sarah Sherman's bat mitzvah was on April Fool's Day, with snake-in-a-can invitations hand-delivered to every guest's house. Standing on the bima in front of 80-year-old conservative synagogue regulars, she delivered her first joke to a rapt crowd and crushed. She has been chasing that high ever since.
SNL makeup head Louis Zakarian can apply a complete bald cap in under two minutes. He rips bird beaks off and slaps googly eyes on in the same breath, and has never once said no to a request — including making it look like Sarah had a speculum blowing her mouth open. He also stops for selfies.
Mitra Jouhari — actor, writer, producer, activist — joins from the Netflix set on her lunch break to describe how she met Sarah Sherman in 2015 through a mutual friend in New York, toured with her, and eventually had her write and appear naked on Three Busy Debras. Questions in hand, she sets the table perfectly.
Amy Poehler loves a pervert but cannot stand a creep — and she argues there is a hard, definable line between the two. The joke is that Sarah Sherman's entire comedy career occupies the pervert side of that line, keeping audiences simultaneously delighted and ritually humiliated.
In her first SNL year, Sarah dreamed twice about using a clearly labeled prop toilet in the middle of Studio 8H — and doing it anyway, fully knowing it wasn't plumbed. Her Jungian dream analyst's verdict: pooping in a dream means you're putting work into the world and feeling embarrassed. Clocked again.
Analysis
What they talk about
- Comedy 33%
- TV & Film 33%
- Arts 25%
- Health & Fitness 9%
Connections
Shows they appear on and people they share episodes with. Drag to explore.
