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Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the most fun (near-delirious writing days fueled by snacks and seltzer).
But Fridays are when the show has to come together.
On the third run, theyre beginning to find their characters and rely less on cue cards.
AHHHHH, siiiiIIiister, Bryant says.
McKinnon counters with a more dramatic AHHHHHHH, sister, in an old-timey voice-off.
McKinnon shakes with laughter.
Bryant, who is 32, started the same year as McKinnon and Cecily Strong.
It took several more seasons for Bryant to find her beat and her fan base.
In 2018, Bryant earned an Emmy nomination for her work onSNL.
Q-TIP, Q-TEEP, Q-TIP.
Back on set, Bryant is trying to figure out which pronunciation is absurd but not too absurd.
The process is technical, slow, and precise.
Another chimed in with I was sort of shocked.
Not because she is not capable; I just didnt realize she was going for it like that.
I had no idea she would so aggressively pursue this task.
By day, she attended theater classes.
At night, she took improv classes.
She was soon asked to join an all-female team made up of comedians ten-to-15 years older than she.
After the cruise-ship tour, she joined the Second City ensemble.
I was just feeling myself.
I was like,I know these are fucking good.
A few days later, she was offered an audition forSNL.
She had it pretty early on.
She knew her sensibility; she knew it was unique.
On her firstSNLepisode, Bryant had one scene.
Her most notable characters are often similarly young and huggable or are actual children, like travel expertCarrie Krum.
There are lots of horny theater kids in her repertoire.
To be nice is to be always pleasing or weak or dismissible.
For women, it can be a limitation.Nicerarely allows for agency or assertiveness.
It means you have a tendency to be underestimated.
It sucks, she says of the prison of her own charms.
Im nice, she clarifies, but Im firm.
Im a journalist!, she repeats, until she finds the right cadence.
After the fourth take, she asks for playback and is sure she needs to do it again.
She agreed to star on the condition that she also write and produce.
Capturing that required Bryant to fight for her vision.
People feel much more emotionally connected and invested in the character but also in me as a person.
She insists she does not, nor has she ever.
Lets confront this head-on, and at some point well move on, she explains.
Bryant is comfortable with the wordfat so comfortable, in fact, that shes bored of it.
I feel like its not the only thing I am, she says.
I feel like Im a lot more things before that, like friend, wife, daughter, whatever.
Im also a star!
A certified star, she says, slipping into a 1940s diva voice.
Im also rich now, so eat shit.
Sure, she struggled with garden-variety teen self-doubt growing up in the hyperblond, preppy Republican deserts of Arizona.
But it wasnt foundational, she says, more just a sense of it not being her scene.
Meghan McCain, whomshe has spoofed onSNL,was a few years ahead of her.
That was taking swings, she says.
Her parents encouraged her creativity.
My house was filled with stuff to make you think and feel magic, Bryant says.
Her parents marriage set the model for how she expected the world to treat her.
Thats another thing she had to fight for onShrilla boyfriend she had sex with.
But I always was having cool sex and had boyfriends, she says.
Conner, with his bare hands, pulled chunks of my barf out of the sink.
And I was like,Thats my fucking man.I love this man.
I will marry this man.
The show didnt make me think I can wear a fashion dress or whatever, she says.
Its made me, like,Ive got to get things done.
Behind the scenes, Bryant has learned how better to be both niceandfirm.
I write these things, and then I have to film them.
I forget its going to be actually me and my pussy and my face.
