Cecily Strong Shares the Secret to Her Saturday Night Live Success | Vanity Fair 

Cecily Strong, whose hilarious invention of logorrheic self-ignorance, “The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation with at a Party,” has made her a breakout star of

met me for lunch at Trattoria Dell’Arte, opposite Carnegie Hall in Midtown Manhattan, close to where she lives.

It became clear from the start that the vivacious Ms. Strong cannot be anticipated in anything she says. We had scarcely met when mention of pasta compelled her to confide with transparent candor, “I was just in Rome. I’m having an Italian love affair. I first met him in Seville, Spain, before I broke my foot in Ibiza.”

“He’s studying to be a diplomat, which is nice. It’s all very new. So who knows if it’ll be a thing? But it’s still fun. He reminds me of Roberto Benigni in a way. We’ve talked every day for two months. I’m not rushing into anything, I promise. If I were too emotionally attached, I’d be too scared to talk about it.”

when she’s serious. She can’t help herself. Could she remember the first time she made anyone laugh? “When I sang ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ to my parents in a French accent,” she replied. “It was very lounge-y. I think I did a little lounge dance.”

Born in 1984, she was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. Her parents sent the precocious three-year-old Cecily to a local pre-school drama class. “There were only three of us in the class—another little girl and boy. I did not like that little boy. We were supposed to do

and he was the prince and I was the princess. But I threw a fit because I didn’t want to do it with him, and so we wound up doing

instead. I went from a princess to an elf—and it felt much more comfortable. That’s how I should have known I was going to end up in comedy. I cried about being a princess. And I was like,

She scanned the menu and declared, “I love stuffed baby artichokes.” (She doesn’t eat meat.) We shared a feast of the vegetable antipasti—the artichokes, Sicilian eggplant caponata, stuffed peppers, broccoli rabe, hen-of-the-woods mushrooms, and, for good measure, green beans with quinoa. (“Love green beans.”) Drink? “I’ve got to stay awake today. I wish I could, but not yet. If it were later.” She settled for an iced tea.

came via her time as an understudy at Chicago’s phenomenal mecca of improvisatory comedy, Second City. (Among its renowned alumni: Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert.) It takes a scary kind of courage to improvise comedy. “There was a long time in Chicago when I kept thinking, Am I like one of those people on

She persevered, regardless of her innate anxiety and fears, and supported herself with several jobs, including performing on a cruise ship with fellow Second City members for four months. “It was half vacation, half prison.” What were the audiences like? “It depends on where you’re porting. I only knew the fun people who came from New York and New Jersey. I think a lot of people in their twilight years die on cruises. Cruise ships have mortuaries. That was the rumor, anyway. I think we had a couple of people pass away on our ship.”

the show,” she said. “We weren’t that funny!”

Cecily Strong, you might have gathered, is somewhat nuts—but in a good way. Kristen Wiig, Amy Schumer, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Melissa McCarthy: all possess an essential, irresistible sense of insanity. It goes with the territory. But why this extraordinary movement of female comics? “I think women have always been funny. But when Tina Fey became head writer at

the culture shifted, and women gained a bigger voice in comedy. It’s not as if Hollywood producers are feminists. It’s more that Hollywood said, ‘

made us so much money, all we want now is funny women.’ ”

s “The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation with at a Party” (“There are homeless people out there who can’t even pay their mortgages”) with Colin Jost, who succeeded Seth Meyers on “Weekend Update.” They also write the show’s study of non sequiturs and risqué malapropisms, “Porn Stars”: “Herpes handbags! One out of every four people has it—and so should

work is that she delivers everything with a straight face. She never cracks jokes. “If it sounds like a joke, it probably can’t work.” Her kind of comedy has always been a slyly serious business. She told me that she first realized it was the way for her when, at 18, she was studying theater at CalArts with ambitions to become an actress. She was performing a scene for the class from Tony Kushner’s

as the medicated, tragic heroine Harper, who suspects her husband might be gay. The moment she began, however, everyone started to laugh, and she realized then that tragedy is comedy with a different end—and that the more serious she was, the more people laughed.

Portraits of Gilda Radner as Baba Wawa and John Belushi as Samurai Futaba, hand tinted by

Dan Aykroyd takes a call backstage while dressed as Beldar Conehead.

Land Shark takes a bite out of John Belushi while Gilda Radner sits idly by.

“Nerds” Bill Murray and Gilda Radner take in the view, 1978.

Writer Erin Maroney, Chris Farley, Ryan Shiraki, and Billy Baldwin backstage during the 1990s.

The fabled “van down by the river,” home of iconic motivational speaker Matt Foley, played by Chris Farley.

Party time! Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar, coming to you live from Aurora, Illinois’s community access channel.

Inside the writers’ room: Executive producer Lorne Michaels sits at the head of the table, the host to his right, and the head writer to his left.

Will Ferrell as Harry Hugs for the sketch “Happy Smile Patrol,” 1999.

Thank you for smoking: Tracy Morgan observing workplace smoking regulations.

In the makeup chair: Garrett Morris as Idi Amin, Fred Armisen as Prince, and Dana Carvey as George Michael.

From left: by Edie Baskin, Mary Ellen Matthews, and Suzy M. Drasnin. Courtesy of S.N.L.

Face off: Special-effects experts rig busts of Kenan Thompson, Nasim Pedrad, and Bobby Moynihan with explosives.

Photographer Mary Ellen Matthews shooting Will Ferrell ahead of his second stint as host.

Behind the scenes of “Laser Cats 7” in Lorne Michael’s office, with Steven Spielberg, Bill Hader, and Andy Samberg.

Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler at the “Weekend Update” desk during rehearsals, 2004.

Bob Dole and Norm MacDonald as Bob Dole, shortly after the 1996 election.

Playing politics: Alec Baldwin, Sarah Palin, and Lorne Michaels backstage with Tina Fey as Palin on the monitor. Amy Poehler and Hillary Clinton, 2008.

Barack Obama makes a cameo at Bill and Hillary Clinton’s Halloween party, 2007.

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