AVC: Why'd you stop?
BH: You got your license?
JS: I got my driver's license. I figured out how to masturbate with a girl being present. They call it "sex." I was working on Saturdays, and it stopped being my favorite television. Same reason I don't watch 24 any more, I guess.
AVC: Why do you think you were hired? Do you think they hire you to fit a certain type they're looking for?
KW: For me, my second audition was all women, so I know they were looking for a girl. And I'm a girl. I don't really know, though.
JS: I don't know. I assume that those conversations go on behind closed doors, and we wouldn't be privy to them. I guess you can make sense of it if you want to, but at the end of the day, I think they probably just found us entertaining in some way. I think it's everybody else watching the show who tends to think in types. I worked at Second City before, and they always had that same theory, like "A big guy just left, so they're going to hire a big guy." But I don't think… things didn't always work out that way. It's just someone trying to make sense out of chaos.
KW: At the end of the day, you just want a good show.
AS: Yeah, you hope it's whoever made everyone laugh, in however way they did it. I don't know if it's by design or if it's coincidental, but I feel like all four of us kinda do a different thing from the rest. Which is nice, for sure.
JS: Big picture: you could just say "Well, there are four white people," or "They added three younger, skinny, white dudes with mop-heads." But if you get more specific into what they do with those elements, then it becomes very, very different. What at one point was very hard to discern will become very easy to distinguish as time goes on. It's one of those things that happens time and time again with the show. I don't think it's as compartmentalized or standardized as people may think.
BH: But it is cool, coming in with a group like this. It feels like a base. There's a really cool support system.
AS: There are stories other people have about just them being hired mid-season… It doesn't sound that fun. Although everyone here is so nice that I can't imagine anyone being that bad. It's just extra nice to have each other. [Laughs.]
JS: It's competitive, though. You know, it's an hour-and-a-half show that we have to share with Weekend Update and the host and two musical acts, so truly you're talking about 40 minutes of material, and yet eight hours of material is being generated every week. The reason it's competitive is because the show's not long enough, not because the people here are competitive. Everybody wants to do well and have their things be seen and get their thing on air, but it's not to the point where people are being unsupportive by any means, so that's good.
AVC: So no sabotage?
JS: I mean, nothing that we could directly talk about.
BH: Nothing we could say about in front of you
AS: It loses its power. If you're talking about pranks, though, well… [Maniacal laughter.]
KW: Jason does own a fart machine.
JS: It's rented. I rented it.
AS: Keep that receipt, by the way.
BH: That's a total write-off.
AVC: Do you ever read press about the show?
KW: I don't. If they send us something that's a general thing about the new people, I'll read that.
BH: Something actually in print, I'll read. But as far as Internet, like boards and junk, I don't read that.
AS: I'm weaning myself off of it, because I come from a lot of Internet stuff. I had a website with my friends, so we would always be checking out how much we were out there, but now it's to the point where the Internet is a place that can turn so fast.
KW: It can make you insecure.
AS: They can say such harsh things. There's no filter. And if you put stock in something good someone says about you on the Internet, then you also have to let it affect you when somebody says something bad. I'm trying to choose to not look at any of that, because it's not really helpful in any way. Better to just do what you think is good here, and let that be that.
AVC: So none of you have looked at your IMDB profiles?
BH: I looked at mine the Sunday after my very first show, because I had message things on it. I was like, "Oh cool, people are saying things," and then it registered, and I was like, "Oh, this is why I don't want to look at this." You don't want to get caught up in it.
AS: I looked at my IMDB page just to make sure I'm still on the show.
AVC: Is there pressure to create recurring characters or catchphrases?
BH: Not really.
AS: I think that they want it if it happens, but there's no one's going, "Think of a catchphrase." Just come up with something funny, and if they like it enough, and think it can go again, they ask you to do it.
AVC: Kristen, you have a recurring character. Are you ever afraid that you'll run it into the ground?
KW: Yeah. Or that what made the first one funny won't be funny the second time. Or I'm afraid that I'm doing the exact same thing. It's hard to write a second recurring character.
AS: There's also obviously some sort of internal mental stigma of being on the show. Because we all watch the show. You know that exists. Franchise the characters. It's part of the show.
JS: You can't predict it, though. I guarantee that if you watch that first "Wayne's World" sketch, you're not going to hear a lot of people laughing, and definitely not a lot of people in the background at the end of it saying, "Oh, do that again." Much less "Make a movie that makes $100 million and a sequel that makes a bunch of dough and a career!" So if you're aiming for that, you're aiming for the wrong thing.
AS: It never happens because you're trying to do that.
BH: If anything, things that have gotten on the show have been the Plan B of the night.
JS: It's back to the whole Monday pitch meeting. If you have an idea that you see through, soup to nuts, if you see it through the whole way from pitch to air… Some people work that way, I don't know, I certainly don't. I'm sure they would love it, but… We don't have meetings where they say "All right, everybody, let's hear your Irish accents. Who does the funniest one? All right, you're going to be Leprechaun Pete. Go write that." It's not McDonald-ized to that nature. Where it's cookie-cutter and all planned out.
BH: It's weird and mechanical, too, if you do it that way. I know it probably sounds silly to everybody, but I never am like, "I'm going to do this accent," or anything like that. I remember watching the show growing up, and it was different because it was like watching a show with a timeline. Like, "Oh, are they going to do Wayne's World this week?" It's more what makes you laugh. It's kind of that simple. Like when you're in high school, and your friends make you laugh in the cafeteria. It's that simple.
JS: I wish he would have said this just to me, because it would make a better story, but before my first audition, Chris Rock happened to show up to do some stand-up material at the club, and he went on right before me, and as he was walking out, he sorta tapped me on the shoulder and said, "They love original thought." If you just keep that in mind, as long as you know it's yours, you know that if they like it, it's yours to keep, regardless of being on the show or not.
BH: They would always rather you do what you like, rather than you do what you think they like.
AVC: Chris Rock wasn't being sarcastic in that story?
JS: No, not at all. It didn't really—I mean, there's a lot of people that've auditioned for this show that we've never seen on the show, that we've seen do a lot of things that are great, and there's a lot of people that have been on this show that didn't do much on this show that's the same. It's very—[Laughs.] Maybe he was being a smartass.
KW: You ruined it, you ruiner.
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