Sherman also reveals a gross sketch she wrote with Mikey Day that didn’t make the cut on the show.
Nothing gets past you, Lorne.
Sarah Sherman recently revealed that Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels called her out for a face she didn’t realize she was making on the sketch comedy series. The face in question, below, involves Sherman staring with her mouth agape.
“Lorne always says — cuz I’m always going like [makes the face], because someone’s doing something weird, and I’m [makes the face] — and he’s like, ‘You’re going to catch flies in that mouth,'” she explained on the Stavvy’s World podcast.
In her defense, Sherman, who admitted she’s been playing a lot of “normal” female characters in blond wigs of late on the show, said she’s reacting to some shocking plot points.
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“I’m like I’m legitimately disturbed,” she said of her facial expression. “Nikki Glaser and Tommy Brennan are doing a sketch where they’re siblings, and they have a lot of sexual chemistry. And so I’m [reacting that way].”
She continued, “I try to really get in there and go like, ‘Huh?’ I’m really present in the sketches. Sometimes I’m fully like 10 seconds late on a line because I’m watching too much.”
Elsewhere on the podcast, Sherman also revealed a gross scene with Mikey Day that didn’t make the cut because “it didn’t get a single laugh.”
“We were like animatronics that were puking,” she explained of the sketch’s premise. “And then they built us a vomit rig that hooks in your ear like a Bluetooth, so it was really like in place. So yeah, we’re doing like huge technological developments in the vomit rig field, and nobody’s buying.”
At this point, podcast host and comedian Stavros Halkias suggested, “All I’m saying is if you don’t do a vomit rig before you leave, it will be a wasted tenure on SNL.”
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“Well, obviously I’ve written it 800 times,” she replied. “That’s it. I write four sketches a week, and they’re exactly what you think. They’re what you think. They’re what you can imagine. They don’t make it past the finish line… We’ll get there.”
Sherman, who was on the podcast in support of her new HBO Max comedy special, Sarah Squirm: Live + In the Flesh, is of course known for her body horror comedy. She first joined SNL starting in the show’s 47th season in October 2021, and was promoted to repertory status two years later.
Also on the podcast, Sherman discussed turning down the high school quarterback, being a really bad lifeguard, wondering what it’s like to have nuts, and more.