had “Yes And”-ed my therapist.
I had picked Costa Rica as my destination because there would be stuff to do there and it wouldn’t be me on some beach with a bunch of honeymooning couples. I went to a lodge in the middle of the rain forest. And except for the fact that one night I woke up to find a large beetle halfway up my pajama leg, it was a great trip. I had no idea that I would also get a character out of the deal.
There weren’t many people at this lodge, but for meals we sat at communal tables, which was nice because I didn’t feel strange being there alone, and it forced me to talk to people.The surroundings were beautiful: mountains, ocean, monkeys howling in the morning, and scarlet macaws flying overhead. One morning at breakfast, we were just making chitchat and someone asked where I was from. I said, “New York City.” And someone else said, “So were you there for 9/11?” The question hung awkwardly in the jungle air and sort of screeched things to a halt. I answered that I was, but sort of tried to get the conversation off the shoulder of the road and back onto the highway. For a week, that moment stayed in my mind just sort of batting around, me thinking nothing of it. When I was back home in New York, I was out listening to a band, something I don’t go do very often, and there it was! That bolt from the blue that you hope for—the muses decided to pay me their once-yearly visit. The name Debbie Downer popped into my head, someone who just has to go to the negative stuff that’s in all of our heads but that we edit out during a fun moment. I wrote it up that week with the writer Paula Pell. At first we tried to set it in an office, but something just wasn’t clicking. Then we realized it needed to be somewhere really happy. And so we set it in Disney World. We started joking around, making that “Waaaah Waaaaaah!” sound while we were writing, and then we thought, “What if we actually put these goofy trombone noises into the scene?” The over-the-top “waaaah waaaaaah”s were making us laugh, so we said, “What the hell, let’s include them.” The scene did well at the read-through table and was picked for the show that week. During rehearsal on Saturday, Jimmy and Horatio were cracking up. “Those guys better knock it off!” I thought. I didn’t want them messing with this scene that I felt could actually go pretty well. Of course, on thelive show, it was I who ended up cracking up on air, flubbing that one line at the beginning and simply not getting back on track. It was the ultimate “church laugh,” where you know you should not be laughing but you can’t help yourself. I knew the camera was coming in for a close-up—there was no escaping it by hiding behind another actor or keeping my head down. “GET IT TOGETHER, DRATCH!” I was thinking. “Lorne. Lorne. Lorne. Lorne,” I thought. But it was to no avail.
People ask me if Lorne got mad over my giggle fit, and the answer as far as I know is no. The audience eats it up when the actors break during a scene, but I would always try not to break. It can become a cheap tool to get the audience on your side since they dig it so much. I think Lorne knows it’s going to happen from time to time, and it’s not a big crime on the show. Ironically, although I was being highly unprofessional by laughing so hard through my scene, I think that was my favorite moment of my time on SNL . The subsequent Debbie Downer scenes could never hit the heights of that first one with the genuine laughing breakdown. But for me, that first scene was just unbridled joy—we were all having fun and clearly it showed. It also shows just how live the show really is: There are no do-overs, and whatever happens during showtime is out there for all to see. Whether it’s because we started laughing in what would become the biggest break-fest in SNL history, or because the character resonated with people in an “I know that person!” type of way, I
I had picked Costa Rica as my destination because there would be stuff to do there and it wouldn’t be me on some beach with a bunch of honeymooning couples. I went to a lodge in the middle of the rain forest. And except for the fact that one night I woke up to find a large beetle halfway up my pajama leg, it was a great trip. I had no idea that I would also get a character out of the deal.
There weren’t many people at this lodge, but for meals we sat at communal tables, which was nice because I didn’t feel strange being there alone, and it forced me to talk to people.The surroundings were beautiful: mountains, ocean, monkeys howling in the morning, and scarlet macaws flying overhead. One morning at breakfast, we were just making chitchat and someone asked where I was from. I said, “New York City.” And someone else said, “So were you there for 9/11?” The question hung awkwardly in the jungle air and sort of screeched things to a halt. I answered that I was, but sort of tried to get the conversation off the shoulder of the road and back onto the highway. For a week, that moment stayed in my mind just sort of batting around, me thinking nothing of it. When I was back home in New York, I was out listening to a band, something I don’t go do very often, and there it was! That bolt from the blue that you hope for—the muses decided to pay me their once-yearly visit. The name Debbie Downer popped into my head, someone who just has to go to the negative stuff that’s in all of our heads but that we edit out during a fun moment. I wrote it up that week with the writer Paula Pell. At first we tried to set it in an office, but something just wasn’t clicking. Then we realized it needed to be somewhere really happy. And so we set it in Disney World. We started joking around, making that “Waaaah Waaaaaah!” sound while we were writing, and then we thought, “What if we actually put these goofy trombone noises into the scene?” The over-the-top “waaaah waaaaaah”s were making us laugh, so we said, “What the hell, let’s include them.” The scene did well at the read-through table and was picked for the show that week. During rehearsal on Saturday, Jimmy and Horatio were cracking up. “Those guys better knock it off!” I thought. I didn’t want them messing with this scene that I felt could actually go pretty well. Of course, on thelive show, it was I who ended up cracking up on air, flubbing that one line at the beginning and simply not getting back on track. It was the ultimate “church laugh,” where you know you should not be laughing but you can’t help yourself. I knew the camera was coming in for a close-up—there was no escaping it by hiding behind another actor or keeping my head down. “GET IT TOGETHER, DRATCH!” I was thinking. “Lorne. Lorne. Lorne. Lorne,” I thought. But it was to no avail.
People ask me if Lorne got mad over my giggle fit, and the answer as far as I know is no. The audience eats it up when the actors break during a scene, but I would always try not to break. It can become a cheap tool to get the audience on your side since they dig it so much. I think Lorne knows it’s going to happen from time to time, and it’s not a big crime on the show. Ironically, although I was being highly unprofessional by laughing so hard through my scene, I think that was my favorite moment of my time on SNL . The subsequent Debbie Downer scenes could never hit the heights of that first one with the genuine laughing breakdown. But for me, that first scene was just unbridled joy—we were all having fun and clearly it showed. It also shows just how live the show really is: There are no do-overs, and whatever happens during showtime is out there for all to see. Whether it’s because we started laughing in what would become the biggest break-fest in SNL history, or because the character resonated with people in an “I know that person!” type of way, I
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