She's got characters
Which is why Michaela Watkins could be the next big star of 'SNL'
NEW YORK - Michaela Watkins was taping a guest appearance on the CBS sitcom "The New Adventures of Old Christine" last November when her cellphone buzzed. Seeing the 212 area code pop up, she guessed it was her older sister, a New York attorney, trying to track her down in Los Angeles.
When Watkins returned the call after taping wrapped, though, she reached the NBC switchboard in Manhattan instead, her pulse quickening. After a couple of false starts, she was put through to "Saturday Night Live" executive producer Lorne Michaels, who'd auditioned Watkins a few months earlier, her second tryout for a coveted cast member's slot. Michaels wondered if she could make it to a script meeting the next day. Watkins asked: Does this mean what I think it does?
It did, she could, and by week's end the 37-year-old actress-comedian had been named one of two new featured players on "SNL," joining Abby Elliott in replacing departing cast member Amy Poehler. For Watkins, a graduate of Wellesley High School and Boston University who is already putting her stamp on the show with wicked sendups of Arianna Huffington, "Today" show cohost Hoda Kotb, and Joan Rivers, among others, the job offer was the fulfillment of a dream - and payoff for years of toil in regional theater productions, open-mike comedy gigs, and improv troupe work.
"The call of a lifetime," as Watkins describes it, came from a comedy institution she'd grown up with and long aspired to join, a show that's propelled the likes of Poehler, Tina Fey, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus to greater stardom. "My family is not into the show-biz world at all," she says during an interview at "SNL" headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. "But even they were completely transfixed by this show, which was revolutionizing comedy and television at the time."
Practically from the day she began talking, Watkins continues, "I was playing characters around the house, imitating whoever in the room had the most distinct personality. Trying to be Gilda Radner, basically."
She laughs, as if realizing how preposterous it was to project herself into Radner's shoes 30 years ago. "Girls who are really awkward as teenagers . . . " she begins haltingly. "I wasn't going to get boys because I was pretty." Pause, beat. "That wasn't going to happen, you know." Head shake. "If I could make people laugh, that was going to be where my money was."
The money may be rolling in now - OK, trickling, she says - but as Watkins retraces it, her road to 30 Rock was neither straight nor smooth.
In 1987, Watkins moved to Wellesley with her mother and two sisters after the break-up of her parents' marriage. Her father, Mark, a Syracuse University math professor, remained in upstate New York. Myrna Watkins, Michaela's mother, teaches Latin in the Newton school system. Cast in a community theater production of "See How They Run," a British farce, while in high school, Watkins fell in love with the stage and went on to major in theater at BU, where she starred in several campus productions, including a solo comedy show she wrote. Even then, says BU theater professor Michael Kaye, a close friend of Watkins's, appearing on "SNL" was a "life mission" for her.
Watkins graduated in 1994 and headed to New York. Waitressing and tending bar to support herself, she auditioned for acting roles without much success. "It's not that BU didn't give me a lot of tools," she says, "just not about the business part. There's this conception that you move to New York and start doing theater - some people got on soaps, some did summer stock - but to be honest, I wasn't very good."
A road trip took her to Portland, Ore., and that city's thriving arts scene proved a much better fit. Watkins worked continually in local theater over the next five years, polishing her acting skills and earning her Actors Equity card. In 2000 she moved to LA, hopeful of breaking into television and commercials. Her credits soon grew to include roles on "Malcolm in the Middle," "Californication," "7 Deadly Hollywood Sins," and a multi-story arc on "The New Adventures of Old Christine."
"My family would say, 'Well, how long are you going to give it?' " says Watkins, smiling. "But I never had a reason to stop."
She also joined the Groundlings, an improv troupe whose alumni include Phil Hartman, Lisa Kudrow, Jon Lovitz, and Will Ferrell, where she found a more expansive showcase for her comedic talents. A two-year apprenticeship with the company's Sunday cast - a kind of junior-varsity performance team - plunged Watkins into a working environment much like the one she would find at "SNL," where writers and performers work at a furious, competitive pace to create fresh material every week. She tried her hand at stand-up comedy, too, and performed with LA's Circle X Theater, an avant-garde company whose motto was "mind over budget."
"That kind of scramble is how I seem to work best," says Watkins, describing one trip she took to New York for an "SNL" audition with her only character notes scribbled on the back of her hand. "I don't belabor over things. The more I come at something completely fresh, the better it is for me."
Karen Maruyama, a Groundlings colleague, says Watkins has a natural gift for comedy that lends itself to over-the-top character sketches. "She's a pretty girl who was never afraid to play an old lady or some bizarre character," says Maruyama, "but bizarre with a heart of gold. Michaela could always mix the vapid with the vulnerable."
Last November's call came at a high point in the up-and-down history of "SNL." Campaign 2008 and the Fey/Sarah Palin pairing had been a comedy bonanza for a show that's often struggled to stay buzz-worthy. With new cast members being worked into the mix, Watkins understands it may take time to recapture some of last year's mojo. One strategy: Lampoon outsized personalities like Huffington (whom Watkins happens to admire), who never seem to go on sabbatical.
"I heard someone on 'The O'Reilly Factor' say, 'That's what they do. They attack conservative women!' " says Watkins "They? They is me. There's no machine here figuring out how to take down the next conservative woman."
Comedy "makes fun of the status quo," she continues "whatever the status quo is, whatever side you're on. Now it's getting into the economy stuff, which feels out of my mental jurisdiction. I still can't get my head around pork barrels and stimulus packages and bailouts." She laughs. "I feel like saying, 'I was told there would be no math!' "
Both her parents say they're thrilled Watkins has finally achieved her lifelong goal. "My first reaction was, hooray, you're finally living the dream," says Myrna Watkins, who watched a live performance of "SNL" in January. No one's bugging her about getting a real job anymore, says a smiling Michaela Watkins. That call last November, she says, "seemed to shut them up."
Joseph P. Kahn can be reached at jkahn@globe.com. 