The Post sat down with SNL cast member Aidy Bryant and SNL writer Streeter Seidell after their free comedy show in the Convocation Center Saturday
Daisy Bentley couldn’t stop crying.
At a free comedy show at the Convocation Center, Saturday Night Live star Aidy Bryant had two freshmen join her on stage to perform a role-playing bit.
“I’m not going to sleep tonight,” said Bentley, mascara still running under her eyes. “I feel so lucky. … SNL is my dream.”
Before the show started, dozens of attendees filled the spaces around the stage to do line dances, including the Macarena and the Cupid Shuffle.
“I’ve never done a show where people just casually did the Macarena before,” Bryant said during the show.
Opening for Bryant, SNL writer Streeter Seidell commented on having food on a plane and being overweight. Throughout his performance, Seidell joked with a group of men in the front row, calling them the “boat shoe crew.”
For her set, Bryant told “important facts” about her — she loves candy corn — shared some rejected SNL pitches, discussed an outrageous chain text and went through her childhood journal.
“The show was absolutely fantastic,” Mitch Layman, the other freshman Bryant called on stage, said. “I hope this happens for me for the next four years I’m here.”
After the show, The Post sat down with Bryant and Seidell to discuss SNL, their inspirations and being intimidated by The Convo.
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The Post: What did you think of Athens?
Aidy Bryant: I had a blast. Also, I wasn’t expecting it to be such a huge crowd, so it was so exciting, and they were so fun and engaging and great. It was the best.
Streeter Seidell: When we drove up, on the GPS, we looked at basically the Astrodome we were like “Uh-oh.”
AB: We were like “Oh no, we can’t fill this.”
SS: “I hope 35,000 people are gonna come out tonight.” But it was great.
AB: It was so fun.
P: Streeter, what is your favorite sketch you’ve ever written at SNL?
SS: Even though I don’t think it was the most popular, I wrote one with … Mikey Day called “Career Day” with J.K. Simmons. He was at his son’s school’s “What My Parent Does for Work” day and he was a thing called a Japanese messy boy, and it was a very strange, vaguely sexual job where he ate food while dressed as a child while powerful Japanese women watched and didn’t say anything. It was very weird, but we were like crying laughing when we were writing this. (Laughs) And then (Simmons) won an Oscar the next week. … That’s just perfect.
P: Aidy, do you have a favorite character?
AB: I really enjoy doing Morgan. It feels very easy to me. … It’s definitely who I am in some ways, … and it’s really fun to do it with Cecily (Strong). I mean, to me, nothing beats Dyke and Fats. That was like the best day of my life.
P: You both made it to SNL fairly early in your careers. What are your thoughts on being on the show already? Any plans for the future yet?
AB: I ended up getting to SNL so much faster than I ever thought I would. … I assumed that maybe if I ever got to audition it would be 15 years down the line, and so all of a sudden when I was 25, I was like “I’m in New York now!” and it was really overwhelming. So in that way I don’t know that I’ve really started to plan for my huge, hot movie career. I’ve more of just been really enjoying what’s been happening and taking things as it comes. I think maybe now, I’ll start to think more of stuff like that because, you know, I’m heading into my fourth season. I’ve got my legs underneath me now. … I feel like I’m only just now settling into, “Oh, I’m on SNL. It’s really cool, and I love it.”
SS: It’s still very fresh for me. I’m about to start my second season. … It was definitely the last job that I ever had a desire to have. … For me, it was the absolute summit of the mountain … so I have no idea what’s going to happen after.
AB: Me neither! What are we going to do? … We’ll come back to Athens and be like “Guys?!”
SS: We’ll open a comic club on Mill Street. The Chuckle Dumpster. It’s in the basement of a pizza place. That’ll be good.
P: Aidy, you said you’ve actually been to Athens before.
AB: It was actually with something called Baby Wants Candy (a group that improvises a full musical). I was so cocky when we were coming here. I was like, “I’ve been here, Streeter. I’ve been here before and the theater is gorgeous. You’re going to love it.” And then we got here and we’re like “This is a dome! We can’t handle the dome!” … I really did love performing there like five years ago or whenever I did.
P: Who inspires you most for your careers?
SS: I was such a John Candy fan as a kid and still am. I think he reminded me of my dad, a funnier version of my dad. … I’ll always watch Planes, Trains and Automobiles. That’s, I think, his finest work.
AB: Especially now having known her a little bit, Amy Poehler stands out to me as someone who not only is like one of the funniest of all time. She’s also really nice, really cool and she's just a positive person to be around and I think sometimes you can get so caught up in like, “showbiz baby,” it’s a really nice quality to have.
SS: Coming across a non-cynic comic who’s not a personal disaster is always kind of like “Oh wow, like how?”
AB: And I think she inspires me on so many different levels: as a human being, as a comedian, as a woman — so many different levels that she’s kind of my pinnacle peak.
P: Aidy, with all of the women who have come through SNL, what is it like being a part of that club?
AB: It feels very cool to be any part of trailing after them. Especially at this particular moment in the show, I’m really honored to be a part of this class of women because each one has something really special and I get really emotional or inspired to be around them every day.
P: What song gets you pumped?
AB: Especially on SNL weeks, it’s so frantic and so chaotic and so stressful up until the very minute that Saturdays when I get into the studio, I try to put on some quiet music and stretch and relax because I’ve been going so crazily and not sleeping that just taking 20 minutes to be quiet and have chill music, drink some water and stretch out, it feels really good and I always feel like it helps me focus for the rest of the day.
SS: That’s so healthy.
AB: It really, really works for me. Fridays are a really hectic day for us and so to come in on Saturday, sometimes you feel like “I haven’t had a breather,” and you want to focus on what you’re doing and I don’t know, it works.
SS: This is kind of a bullshit answer but a true one. One of my favorite songs is the SNL end song. … I adore it. … I always sneak in to where the seats are and watch the end of the show just ’cuz I love that song so much. So it doesn’t pump me up so much as it feels like a job well done.
AB: I totally agree. It feels like a reward. … I kind of have that too with the opening credits.
SS: That is the best pump up song I guess because you hear it, and you’re like “Show time.”
AB: And there’s that little drums in the beginning.
(Both break out into drum sounds)
P: Is there anything else you want to say to the Ohio University students?
AB: Truly thanks for being such wonderful, gracious, welcoming hosts. We had such a fun, fun, fun, fun show and everyone was so sweet that we met. It was really a treat.
SS: I couldn’t have said it any better.
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