Aubrey Plaza’s Saturday Night Live audition was too strange to get her cast
In an interview on The Tonight Show, Aubrey Plaza describes the characters she created for her ill-fated Saturday Night Live audition
Aux News Saturday Night Live
The annals of history are full of funny and famous people who failed to land Saturday Night Live, like Stephen Colbert, Kevin Hart, Zach Galifianakis, and Jennifer Coolidge. Flubbing an SNL audition clearly does not preclude a successful career, as is the case for Aubrey Plaza. Plaza actually did work at the show, as a set design intern (“They loved me because I did not care about set design at all. And they wanted an intern that had no interest in learning what they did”). Yet when it came time for her to try out, she sadly didn’t make the cut.
“I didn’t make it to the Lorne [Michaels] audition, the famous final audition, but I did a preliminary first-round showcase at [the Upright Citizens Brigade].” she tells Jimmy Fallon during an interview on The Tonight Show. “I remember one character I did was like kind of like a Puerto Rican news reporter that was always trying to make all of the news stories sexy, even if they were horrific news stories. And I was just trying to like, sex up the news or something.”
She continues, “The other one was, I was like a pill-popping housewife that had my own talk show called Celebri-Tails, where I would just name celebrities and name what kind of tail they would have if they had a tail. Like I would say, ‘Lindsay Lohan would have a bushy squirrel’s tail.’ Or, like, ‘Bill Clinton would have a polar bear’s nub.’ Or, like, ‘Oprah Winfrey would have a dragon’s…’ it’s just stuff like that. Anyway, I didn’t get on the show, so.”
Without having been at that fateful showcase in which Plaza didn’t get through to the next round, we can’t possibly know if the issue lay with her performance or with the characters themselves. Certainly, a strange audition isn’t an issue anymore: in a new profile for Vulture, current cast member Sarah Sherman reveals she was scouted from a showcase in which she joked about her “pastrami-like pussy lips” and later had a “grotesque” final audition in which she “talked about tying my nipples together with my long nipple hair.”
The “horrific, but make it sexy” news anchor seems almost tame in comparison. Nevertheless, Plaza will host SNL for the first time on Saturday, January 21, so all’s well that ends well!
66 Comments
ie, not good enough
Maybe? A lot of successful actors have failed to score an SNL gig, or they did and they never had a huge impact on the show.I think there are standout performers on the show but I don’t use the show itself as a measurement for the talents of a person.
She didn’t have the same special something as that Masshole comedy guy who got fired before the season premiere.
most of SNL isn’t good enough
Too many people judge SNL based on the “Best of” DVD’s.
Not sure that means anything. Plenty of comics fail to get on SNL, or have only one season no one remembers, and then have wildly successful comedy careers.
SNL requires an extremely specific set of skills, and also of sacrifices (you can’t do much in the way of alt comedy anymore except in the 10 to 1 slot)Don Glover is lucky he didn’t make it, Jenny Slate is lucky she got canned, that’s the case a lot with SNL
diarrhea in gerbils should never be ignored.
You shouldn’t ignore anyones’ diarrhea.
You gotta take care of your poop shoots, my dudes.
When you’re right, you’re right.
“The thing this country doesn’t need more of is GOOSE diarrhea.” — Ted Cruz, 2016
Not to be a feces shamer, but even regular goose excrement is pretty disgusting.
And such large portions!
At least we know it’s not wet tail. That’ll kill a hamster quick (which you may approve of).
I guess it is better than killing the hamster slowly.
Blessing in disguise. They wouldn’t have had the faintest idea what to do with her.
Best case: one season standing around in the background. Worst case: five seasons standing around the background.
I think she’d be up there with Jenny Slate and Tim Robinson in the category of “Wait, she was on SNL?”
Don’t forget Sarah Silverman.
Really? The characters she described sound right in SNL’s wheelhouse. Tell me you can’t see Cecily Strong or Kristen Wiig playing a reporter that acts sexy in inappropriate situations. Or Amy Poehler or Sarah Sherman playing a pill popping housewife who talks about what tails celebrities would have. Those sound very standard SNL.
The first one, yes absolutely. The second…maybe a 10 to 1 sketch, but I think it would be hard to actually make that funny for long.
I know exactly what to do with her. Gotta bend her over first
Dear America,Why do you still SNL?Hugs & kisses, a confused non-American.
My favorite example of Lorne’s impeccable eye for talent is that on the same day, he auditioned John Mulaney, Donald Glover, Ellie Kemper, TJ Miller and decided to reject all of them and hire Bobby Moynihan.
But John Mulaney did work for SNL (as a writer). When he tried to be on-camera for a TV series, it bombed.
Mick Jagger, in response to Mulaney pitching a joke to him: “Not Funny!”
In fairness to Mulaney, the series was total shit in ways I suspect were executive meddling that had nothing to do with him. I’m pretty sure the Martin Short and Elliott Gould parts weren’t part of the original idea, and if they just stuck to the “millennial Seinfeld” bits it would have been better. Also, Bobby Moynihan was successful on the show. It’s not like he rejected 4 of the funniest people working today in favour of Brooks Whelan. That happens sometimes, super successful on SNL but never find their niche after.And sometimes the casting people just absolutely bite it.
Just earlier I was listening to the Blank Check podcast on Monkeybone where they discussed how Chris Kattan gave by far the best performance in that movie, and how he was so successful on SNL and cratered once he left (the inverse of your Robert Downey Jrs, Julia Louis Dreyfus, etc).
Not a Bobby Moyni-fan?
Guess the world’s got to wait for the Moynissance.
Not sure if it was before or after he auditioned for SNL, but Glover was a writer (and occasional actor) on 30 Rock, so Lorne couldn’t have disliked him too much.
But Bobby Moynihan is funny and had a successful SNL career. And Michaels did hire John Mulaney as a writer, which is probably for the best because, let’s face it, the only character John Mulaney can do is “John Mulaney.” And similarly, while I like Ellie Keller I have a hard time imagining her doing big broad SNL characters a la McKinnon or Wiig and other breakout female SNL stars. And Donald Glover probably would’ve outgrown SNL even faster than he outgrew Community. And TJ Miller is an obnoxious, unfunny trainwreck. So, what we’re really saying here is that Michaels rejected three talented people (and TJ Miller) who nevertheless weren’t particularly suited for the role in favor of a guy who ended up becoming a featured player and put in nine strong years on the show.
Should have read down before I posted. I agree. The may have missed Kemper for Moynihan but he acquitted himself well. It’s not like he was a one-and-done trainwreck.
I think that turned out rather well, although Moynihan stayed a little long. Also fun fact, most of them were in Mystery Team with Donald Glover’s comedy group
Mulaney is damn funny but can pretty much only do himself, so being a writer was probably a good fitGlover I expect may have been too low-key and offbeat. Plus he’s more of an observer/commentator than comedy frontmanKemper was the miss of that group. She’s greatMiller they probably saw on @ midnight and decided he was too off-putting (good foresight on that one)And Moynihan is pretty good IMO. It’s possible Kemper would have been better but that’s hindsight.
I feel like you could have just gone with “Aubrey Plaza is too strange” and it’ll fit with anything. I’m a fan, I like her, but she’s kinda terrifying at the same time.
That feelng is “scaroused.”
No such thing as a scary boner
I really don’t get why people keep saying that. She’s funny and talented but she seems very ordinary for a comic actress, to me. What’s weird about her?
Watch more interviews with her, I recall one with Conan O’Brien that was particularly bizarre.
It’s her meta character like how Jennifer Coolidge reinvented herself. Bobcat Goldwatithe’s voice, Christopher Walken’s metered demeanor. It’s a character in a character. And possibly – partly to do with the stroke she had at 20.
She is 100% right in my wheelhouse of what I find attractive lol. Pretty much in the same was as Jenna Ortega’s Wednesday 10/10 would date her lol
Date? Fine. But FFS you don’t marry crazy! It’s a rule!
LOL hey now there is good crazy and bad crazy. Kooky, quirky and just a bit off sure, stalkey, fightey, stabey maybe not so much.
Fair.
God I haven’t thought about Buckcherry in like 20+ years lol
…and I just discovered the girl in that video was 16. Jesus.
Oh wow LMAO, man you just can’t tell how old a girl is anymore. I worked at a gas station for like a decade, and on more than one occasion I joked with some of the young guy to check that ID boys. I don’t remember 16 years olds looking like THAT when I was 16, manny moons ago in the 90’s
I have teenage daughters. Some of their friends look 12, some look 25.
I’m sorry lol, yeah it’s really crazy 14 year olds looking like they are 20. Kind of makes me wish I was a teenager now, I missed out LOL. But it’s also SCARY granted I am too old to be hitting on a 20 year old, the thought that if I was they could possibly be thrown in jail as a child molester young. Check them ID boys.
She’s married, isn’t she? Somebody must be able to live with her.
What are “Aubrey Plaza” and “strange” doing in the same thought?
just name celebrities and name what kind of tail they would have if they had a tail. And now I can’t stop thinking about that.
Or, like, ‘Bill Clinton would have a polar bear’s nub.’ He does look kinda like one of those emaciated polar bears.
She always looks a little uncomfortable on talk shows, but her wide eyed stare as she (I think) improvised “polar bear’s nub” is like watching someone possessed. I assume by a Christmas witch.
William Shatner: prehensile monkey tail only partially under its owner’s control.
I love when Fallon says “We worship you in our house”, and she says:“Eeeew.”
That’s a good answer TBH.
Sarah Squirm is God.
Eh, this is a misleading story. It wasn’t too strange to get her cast. It was too strange to get her past the UCB showcase to try to land an actual SNL audition. Which describes roughly 15 years worth of content that was on the UCB stage…
Plaza is the ultimate example of how mediocre white people can become very successful simply because they are white.
“I remember one character I did was like kind of like a Puerto Rican news reporter that was always trying to make all of the news stories sexy, even if they were horrific news stories. And I was just trying to like, sex up the news or something.”
Aubrey Plaza and Chloe Fineman make out in the new SNL trailerI’ll be in my bunk
What a legend! Thanks for the image
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