Comedians go from good to great when they’re able to turn their low points in life into some of the best material in the history of comedy.
Kate McKinnon is exceedingly uninhibited, unselfconscious and brazen in her spot-on, wacky impressions of everyone from Robert Durst, Betsy DeVos and Justin Bieber to Dr. Anthony Fauci, Jeff Sessions and Rudy Giuliani. It makes it somewhat surprising that the Emmy-winning “Saturday Night Live” star is quite the opposite offstage.
During her recent interview for Variety magazine’s “Power of Woman” issue, Kate explains to Claudia Eller how people are caught off guard with her calming approach.
“People are often confused when they meet me because I’m soft-spoken and pensive. I am extraordinarily introverted,” says McKinnon.
Kate McKinnon is one of six creative leaders in comedy honored for Variety‘s 2021 Power of Women. The comedian actually began speaking in character voices at age 10 to relieve her social anxiety.
“I found I was more easily able to communicate with people doing a funny voice,” she says, conceding, “I found it was a way to share joy and to bring a sense of fun and community in a way that I had trouble doing just in my own voice. I do have a personality, but I find it easier still in some ways to communicate in character.”
She got into the game by training in sketch comedy for eight years before joining “SNL” in 2012. McKinnon says the show’s “one-of-a-kind” platform allows her the immediacy of engaging with audiences on timely events as they’re unfolding. “SNL” was also incredibly cathartic for her during the pandemic, giving her a way get through the darkness.
“Of all the seasons I worked on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ this one may have been my favorite because it helped me to feel less alone,” she acknowledges. “I felt a sense of communion with the audience in the studio and the audience at home.” Being able to “share in the ludicrousness and pain of what we were all going through made my year bearable. If I hadn’t been able to commune with people through a TV screen this year, I really would have been in bad shape.”
Once she joined the cast of “SNL” herself, McKinnon says she was bowled over by Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey, whom she refers to as “the greats — all of them have been my mentors.”
Of all the impressions she has done, including a slew of political figures like Lindsey Graham, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren and Kellyanne Conway, McKinnon has a hands-down favorite: Ruth Bader Ginsburg. “Because of the tidal wave of love and goodwill that I could feel emanating from the audience, and because she is so beloved and such a force for political change in our world, it felt so good to have that energy in the studio when I conjured that person. I loved her so much. She was the closest thing to a superhero.”
Audiences consider McKinnon to be “SNL’s” superhero and would hate to see her go anytime soon. When asked what her future holds, she says.
“I have some special stuff up my sleeves, and basically what I want to do is play characters. I love my weirdos, and I would like to play my weirdos in different contexts, in more dramatic contexts or more narrative comedy contexts.”
