Rise to Fame
A piano cold open the week after the 2016 election broke every rule about what SNL cold opens do. She sat alone as Hillary Clinton in a sequined pantsuit and played Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." Nobody laughed. That was the point. She'd spent four years on the show building one of the most distinctive character galleries in cast history, but that Sunday morning settled her status differently. Two back-to-back Emmys followed (2016, 2017), which felt like the industry confirming what the audience already knew.
In the Spotlight
Leaving SNL in 2022 after 11 seasons, she moved to the woods and started farming and doing carpentry. That pivot feels intentional for someone who burned through a decade of live television by choice. The Barbie movie (2023) handed her Weird Barbie, the doll that's been played with too hard, which is either perfect casting or a private joke. The Roses, a War of the Roses remake with Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman, suggests she's not done with the prestige ensemble circuit. The question is whether the post-SNL resume adds up to what the live show promise implied.
Side Notes
Her Columbia graduating class is quietly absurd: Jenny Slate, Greta Gerwig, and Grace Parra all came out of it. She co-founded a musical improv group there, played piano since age 5, and joined a prank collective that staged elaborate recorded stunts. Her father was an architect who died when she was 18. Her first TV break wasn't SNL; Rosie O'Donnell plucked her from thousands of applicants for The Big Gay Sketch Show in 2006. She was the first openly lesbian cast member in SNL history, which feels like the most undersold part of a decade-long run.