Paula Pell worked as a writer on Saturday Night Live for nearly two decades but was never one of the show’s official on-screen players.
“I don’t want to assume, but I’ve heard, here and there, little things and who knows because we’ve all been there when they’re picking people and it’s so random,” the actress, 63, said during the Tuesday, May 19, episode of Amy Poehler’s “Good Hang” podcast. “I mean, not random, but there’s reasons that you don’t think are the reasons and all this, but I do suspect that … I was a big lady. I was a big plus-size person.”
Pell explained that when she joined SNL in 1995 there wasn’t plus-size representation on “any” TV show.
“There were starting to be people like Roseanne Barr, like people that had more real looking bodies, but I was just not of the aesthetic of that place whatsoever,” she said.
Pell shared that she did not audition for SNL but instead got a call to meet with Lorne Michaels. The comedian, who was working at Disney World at the time, flew to New York City for the meeting.
“I got there and [I] was terrified and I went in. He was, like, two hours late and I sat down with him,” she recalled. “He started talking like we had been talking already, like, he started in the middle of a sentence.”
Pell joked that she did not get a formal job offer from Michaels but somehow ended up on the writing staff. Ahead of joining SNL behind-the-scenes, she shared that she was “not a writer” and only had previous comedy experience doing live performances at theme parks and theaters. However, she never voiced her desire to pursue acting on the show.
“Even though I’d written short stories, I don’t know how to do any of this,” she said of comedy writing. “I was so afraid to ever show any desire to perform.”
Pell worked on SNL from 1995 to 2013. During her tenure, she created some of the show’s most popular characters and sketches including Debbie Downer, The Spartan Cheerleaders, Aunt Linda and more. Pell occasionally made a cameo in sketches — usually as a parent or teacher.
However, Pell ended up getting the courage to act later in life as she snagged roles on shows like 30 Rock, A.P. Bio, Love, Girls5Eva and more. She is currently starring on Peacock’s The ‘Burbs series alongside Keke Palmer, Jack Whitehall and more.
“It’s why I’m so gloriously happy to be able to perform later in my life because I finally let that out of the cage,” she gushed.
