Funny Guy

You've been on the show for five years now. Do you have a favorite role?

I like "Weekend Update" because you can be yourself. There are two kinds of comedians: those that disappear into characters and those that you can only see them. I'm definitely the latter, so for me right now, "Update" feels like putting on an old pair of shoes.

You grew up in Bedford, New Hampshire, where your mother was, according to your SNL bio, a "legendary" French teacher. What's Bedford like? And what makes a French teacher legendary?

Bedford is right up against Manchester, which is where I went to school, but there's a quaintness to it. You could probably run two minutes from my front door and lay your eyes on a cow, if you have ever had a need for it. The only thing I can tell you about the "legendary" part is that when I go home, about as many people approach me because I'm on SNL as approach me to tell me to say hello to my mother.

How do you prep for something like your John Kerry impersonation?

You watch a lot of TV, and then you try to find ideally two or three moves, and ultimately it usually takes just one. It was hard with Kerry. The best impressions take one thing and exaggerate it, but gravitas doesn't exaggerate well.

What are you watching on TV these days?

Battlestar Galactica. It's going to make me sound like a huge nerd, but that show is awesome.

Is SNL really the toxic tar pit of disappointment and dysfunction it's made out to be in the popular culture?

It can be disappointing, but every job is disappointing. Everybody has bad days at work. But it's an incredibly supportive group of people; there's no backbiting. It's just competitive, because there's not enough minutes for everybody - although we went to a smaller cast, and suddenly more people are smiling at the after-party.

What about the long history of drug abuse?

The hardest stuff you see is a couple of Red Bulls here and there. That's about it. I don't actually believe you can write good comedy high. I'm going to stand by that. But I feel like the best comedy is when somebody comes up to you after and says, "You must have been high when you wrote that."

Is there a sketch you wish you'd never done?

My first year, Horatio Sanz and I did a comic-book talk show. We did it with Ian McKellen, and it went well. Then I tried it with Kirsten Dunst. It was the last scene in dress rehearsal, and about halfway through, it was going so silently that I just wanted to stand up and say, "Thank you very much for watching." There was no chance we were going to do it on the live show, and I felt bad for making people watch the whole thing. We call that "The Big Swing," and there's nothing worse. You go for the fence, and you just feel the air.