Kate McKinnon

- I'm Inaigarten, and this is Happy Hour. In each episode, I invite someone really interesting for cocktails and a great conversation at my kitchen table in New York City. Today, I'm joined by Emmy Award-winning actor

and comedian, Kate McKinnam. You know her from SNL and the Barbie film. Obviously, I have a taste for the strange. Kate also has an upcoming children's book, called The Mills and Quib series.

(laughs) We talk about everything from creating characters, to gardening, to tickling, alien abductions, and so much more. - Do you hear that?

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greater than 50 gigabytes, me slow, when at work is busy, C terms. (upbeat music) - Kate McKinnam, welcome to Happy Hour. - I'm so happy to have you here.

- I'm so happy to be here. - So I made Kai Boroscus. How's that for an unusual name for a drink? Tell me more, especially when I made with vodka. And it's like the national drink of like,

exactly. - Yeah! - Drink out to the lish. - It's going to be a rocky ride. - Good, it is because I'm the biggest lightweight

I've ever met. I have one sip and I can feel it. - I can too.

- And I've always felt it.

- What I say is I spend much more time talking about cocktail, so I do actually drinking cocktail. - You have the same way? - Yes. - I barely drink, I have a drink maybe once a month.

And then when I do this, and I'm going to be toasted. - We met a couple of years ago at the barn. - Yes, it was my very best friend Alex Kyrilovicino's Bachelor of party, that's super int.

“- I remember you, I couldn't remember who you came with.”

- My best friend Alex Kyrilovicino and her sister Francesca. Anyway, we were there for her Bachelor of Art. - The three of us have always been obsessive fans of yours. - Hello.

- And I am for you. - When we are pleased, Scott, wrong. - Anyway, I said to myself, you know it would be the best Bachelor of Art. Surprise for my best friend Alex Kyrilovicino.

- If I just did something crazy and saw a saw, if I know was around, and I send to me, Melon, and then you welcomed us and it was wonderful. - That's cool. - It was so much fun.

- I was still talking about me and Alex Kyrilovicino and her sister Francesca. - Tina Fey used to tell her producer. Every time she said, "What would you like for your birthday?" And she would say, "I want to meet on a garden."

And I'm not the sweetest this one for years. - And we tried to make a date, we tried to make a date. - And it never happened.

And finally, she said, "I want to meet her."

And of course, you can't meet Tina, I'm not having a great time, right? - Right, of course.

“- I think that's probably a lot of people's birthday wish.”

(laughing) - Of course, what are you doing? - Well, I brought you, I brought you stuff in these composable plastic bags. They're so elegant.

- I brought you some herbs for you. - Is this where you garden? - Well, yes, 'cause we got some time and some basil and you requested mint for this guy was helping us.

- Oh, how fun. - And there's that. - Don't we need mint in our drinks? - We do. - I think we do.

- I think that's the sage and lemon in your drink. - And then I brought you as a present, very expensive, some borlady beans that I grew. - You're a serious gardener. - Well, I've become, it's become my whole personality,

which is good 'cause I didn't have one to begin with. (laughing) - Provides something, but aren't they just, - They're just gorgeous, gorgeous. - Absolutely gorgeous, say.

- Anyway, they're there, they are beans. - Yes, they can't. - They can't, it means, and you can chuck these later. - Oh, sure. - But you're losing, yes.

- Okay, there we go. This is just like a bounty, I love it, that's the most. - So, friend of mine described you as like, Russian nesting dolls. You open one doll and there's another personality

and I'm like, that has a completely different talent.

- I mean, it's amazing, you're a comedian, obviously.

You're an actor. She's your writer, you've written incredible books which are gonna talk, we're gonna talk about. - You're a singer. You play the piano.

(laughing)

“- And now you've moved to the country, do you carpentry?”

- Do you do plumbing as well? - I've just begun. - Have you really? - I have just begun. - How do you learn plumbing?

- Men, men, men, women, women. - Men, women, women, women. - Well, they, they have the skill. - To men, to men who like to teach women. - I love men.

I love to look at men on YouTube.

“And then sometimes I will meet a man in the trade”

who I just have a loving connection with and I say, "Hey, show me." And he shows me. - He'll show you anything. - And I will watch that man and I learn from that man.

- So what was the first time you did an impersonation

of somebody on stage? - I developed an impression of my art history teacher in high school who is the most fabulous person that ever lived, and I developed this impression, and I did it over the loudspeaker.

- It, I did the morning announcements as her. - As her. - In my school. - And she was very gracious about it. - What was the impediment of what it was?

- Well, she happens to talk like this. And she's a brilliant woman with, who was a brilliant educator in our historian. She happened to also talk like this. And I, I'm sorry.

- You have been morning announcements? - Yes, I did, I did. So I did. - You know, I have to say it was a pretty good impression. - I'm sure it was a good impression.

- And she was such a good sport about it and it became sort of a thing.

And I, but I always love to do accents and voices.

And I just think that whenever I see an opportunity to play a role, my first and basically only question is what's the voice? What do they sound like? And then, of course, what's the hair?

Those are the always really critical things. - Yes, yes, it's so interesting. - Yeah. - It is such a big part of the storytelling. I've never been like the greatest technical impressionist.

It's more, for me, I, I imagine the inner life of a person and I, I have, to me, the impression has to contain a thesis about who they are, what they mean to the culture. And it has to say something, in addition to just sounding

like them. And so often I have veered, tried more to say something than to sound exactly like, because I just, there are, there are people who do that so much better than not.

- And so, and you, somebody told me that you have two words for each person that are opposing, is that right? - Yes. - So, how did you come up with that idea? They're opposing words.

They're one thing, but there's something totally different. And do you think they live in all of us that we all have kind of opposing things? What are yours? - Oh, Christ.

(laughing) - Oh God! I don't even know my God, that would be, that would be frightening to respond.

“- It's funny, 'cause I think mine are kind of warm”

or loving or something like that, and really tough. Those are the opposing things to me. And I can imagine they would be similar for you. - Ha, I haven't, you know, you come off as very warm, mostly warm, I'm curious, I'd love to see that.

- No, just tough in business, I'm very clear about what I want to do. (laughing) - That's not, and I thought, "Oh, it's working." It's working, I don't worry, I will. Anyway, but, yes, I think the essence of any comedic character

is to direct diametrically opposed elements. That's so interesting, and that is what makes human beings interesting and funny and capable of being humiliated in a way that makes them endearing and relatable to them. - But you have enormous empathy for the people

that you do impressions of. And I think that they don't, they find them funny because they see themselves in it. - Huh. - Am I right?

Have you offended anybody? - I have, I'm sure I have, I haven't heard directly from them, but I'm sure I have, which upsets me because I do. I have, in order to do anybody, I have found something to love about them, even if I feel so lonely disagree with them.

- You know, I had one moment where I was being interviewed

on stage at the 90 Second Street Y,

and I said something that was really funny, and people just exploded in the audience, and they were like stomping their feet on the floor.

“And in that moment, I remember sitting up there thinking,”

"Oh my God, this is what a comedian feels like." I felt like I'd love to take it. It was like I could, I was so high, I could, like, float away. Is that the way you feel when you're on stage and you're entertaining people?

- Yes, well, because to me, laughter, when you say something and someone else laughs, that laugh is as if to say, "I see you, I agree." I see that too, we're here together on the planet, and we're having a connection, and that is like,

and when you can have a connection with five hundred people

and you have something in common, that is--

- And I feel the same way you do.

“I didn't understand what it was, that's exactly what it was.”

It is floating, it is-- - Do you feel that way too? I felt like I was just gonna float away. - Yes, I couldn't believe. And it was happening in real time, but one of the things

that happened to us, the thing I said, had been said by a friend of mine backstage, and I kind of borrowed her, and I went backstage afterwards, and I said, "I'm so sorry. I got total credit for your humor."

And she said to me, "Everybody needs a writer." And I kept like, "Just totally let me off the hook." But it's just an interesting relationship between the performer and the writer, 'cause you can use-- do you have like no books filled with good ideas?

- I used to. - You used to what happened, I started a garden.

- And we have to talk about gardening,

'cause that's an obsession. - This shit, and I have to, am I allowed to curse? This is a full-time job, I don't know. - The years of a full-time job. - It's years of a full-time job.

- That I love, but like I made, I had to make a vat of sauce this morning, because the tomatoes were about to turn I had to. So I, you know, I canned seven jars this morning. - Oh, wow.

- And I canned seven jars the day before. I'm canning, and you cannings. I picked you some beans, but that was that was easy. Compared to the canning, my God. - The canning, the pickling, the pickling alone.

- This is one of your great towns, pickling.

“And you need to give me your pickling recipe,”

one of the, I've arrived at a brine that I like. What do you pickle?

- I pickle, I decide, decide ourselves.

- Thank you so much. - True. - Wow. - The cucumber beetles ate my cucumbers this year. They died.

So I have pickedled a lot of fennel and rattishes and beets, and stuff like that. - That sounds good. - That sounds great. - Shoulda brought you down with a fennel.

- One day. - I'll be, I'll be snoping round your gorg. If there's somebody's snoping round the garden with a deer on the rabbit, it'll be me. (laughs)

So you've created some of the most iconic characters ever. Some of them are voiceovers, some of them are real, but I like Miss Frissel and Weird Barbie. Oh my God, how do you even start with that those? - Well, though, like, it's, I'm kind of niche.

I know that. I can, I can say that about myself. And I feel that I'm a little niche. And so when a character comes along, that is larger than life, a Miss Frissel, a Weird Barbie.

I say, oh, okay, thank God. This I can do in my sleep. The other thing, if I try to act normal, that doesn't work so well. But so when an opportunity comes along to play,

the equivalent of Pippi Longstocking grown-up, someone who's just outrageous, not of this world, over the top, that I feel is like, you need to be in my sleep, right? (laughs)

What do I feel like you were just doing it? Came to Kimman. So, you know, one thing I have to say is comedy,

“I think is the hardest form of entertainment.”

I mean, Jeffrey and I were asked to give a talk at somebody's retirement party in Paris. And the two of us made the disastrous mistake to decide to roast our friend. We thought it was hilarious.

But oh my God, not nobody laughed. Nobody said a word. And you're in the middle of it, half way through, and we're looking at each other going, do we just split? (laughs)

Oh, do we keep going? What do you do? Have you ever bombed? I've bombed. And what do you do about it?

I've bombed in France. You bombed in France? So, we've bombed in the same place. Yes, we had so much in common. I was at a, I was watching a soccer match.

Yeah. Sorry, football, sorry, football, whatever they call. At a restaurant, on Peri, and the Swiss team hadn't scored anything. Yeah.

And the server came over and was talking. And I said, I made a joke that didn't even make sense in English. The joke in English was, the Swiss really are neutral, aren't, which is a stretch in English.

But I said, (laughs) (speaking in foreign language) Oh, you're saying in French? Yes, but neutral. That's not very true.

It's very true. Yes, I don't know what it means, but it didn't land. It landed very wrong. And I could tell from his face, and he was like, (speaking in foreign language)

(speaking in foreign language)

(speaking in foreign language)

I just, I had to say, never mind eventually in English,

which in my tale between my legs. I went to a hairdresser once in France, and he said, would you, in French? He said, would you like your hair straight or curly? I thought, oh, what the hell?

It's New Year's Eve, how about curly? So he did my hair curly. And I wanted to say to him, I didn't, in front, I wanted to say, my husband sees me. He's going to say, kiss me quick before my wife gets here.

So I just, I said what I thought.

“I said, you know, the best thing more of it,”

on a vase, come off on a reef. And the hairdresser was just horrified. And that night, I was like, I said something wrong, but I have no idea where that night I went out with friends and asked, what did I say?

And they said, he said, fuck me quick, before my wife gets here. (laughing) So you get it a little wrong, and it's just totally wrong.

(laughing) Oh my God. - I'm laughing. - We do. - The things we do in foreign languages.

- Oh, oh, oh, oh, that's funny. (laughing) (upbeat music) - Hey there, it's Superd, you know the drill. Another week, another new episode of Birds I View.

This week, I'm thrilled to be joined by Australia's most notable women's basketball player and my former Seattle Storm teammate, Lauren Jackson. She talks about the pros and cons of going pro at 16, the Opel's legendary FIFA World Cup run in 2006,

and how her role on a team differs between international tournaments and the WMBA. Plus, in Sue's view, I answer your questions about the Yukon documentary that came out. Make sure to check out Birds I View on YouTube

and wherever you get your podcasts. (upbeat music)

“- When you were in school, I think you were like me,”

you were a science nerd. I was a science nerd too. - You were? - I was such a science nerd. I would do projects for like science projects,

and the boys in my class would go to the library for a year and study like cancer. And I hated going to the library. So I would stay home and I'd go, okay, I'm going to do a science experiment with 12 mice,

and I got 12 mice, and I had them compete against each other, but yeah, they had two teams. So you had just had to differentiate them 'cause they run together. So one of them I died purple.

I would pick them up by their tails and dip them in purple dye, and they'd come up like this. And so I had two teams of white team and the purple team, and I would compete in the mechanics team show them there.

What way? - So it was a science experiment to see how quickly they would learn something, it was crazy. - But I would win all the science projects, and the boys would hate me, 'cause they'd work so hard on them.

- Year after year, right, when the science project,

but I always thought science was fun,

and obviously you did too. - Wow, did you hit it mice against another in a battle to the death? - I did a similar, I too did a experiment. - I had a experiment with Rerman.

- Are you calling my mice for a moment? - No, but in some circles, they're not, you know, the hero of the tale, anyway, I have to say, they made a jail break once in my mother, they were running all over the house.

My mother wasn't that happy about it. So what kind of Rerman did you have? - Cockroaches. - Yeah, cockroaches? - I did an experiment with Madagascar hissing cockroaches.

And what's a hissing cockroach? - Obviously, this is you love them. - They're three inches long, and they're wingless, thank God, and when you touch them, they blow air out of little holes in their side,

and they make a hissing sound. So my experiment was to see if they would respond with a hiss to anything other than a tactile stimulus. And it was a bit of a bullshit experiment, but, you know, I played a vacuum cleaner for them

to see if that would make them hiss and I sort of turned the lights on and off. Turns out that didn't, it's just when you touch them. - Anyway, it was an important experiment

“because you need to know, well, it's groundbreaking.”

You just never know, you could have discovered something

that hissing cockroaches were cancer, it was for cancer. - Anyway, no, no, no. Why happened to the cockroaches? Well, after the experiment was done, I went to my beloved mother and I said,

"Mom, can I keep these cockroaches in my suburban bedroom?" And she said, "Oh God, yes." Because I already had it a gun. So I was halfway to jungle status.

And so the cockroaches came in. So at one point, I had hamsters, a salamander, a cockroaches, and an iguana, and in the same room, in a room,

And, you know, was the rule that they could stay

“in the room as long as I never left the room?”

- Yes. - So that was their whole world. - Yes, but I did, they were in a tank, but I would take them out and sort of play with them like Barbies.

- We had to be the weirdest kids around. I kind of know anybody else who is here. - You're purple mice. - Purple mice and using cockroaches. - Oh, Sarah, and it's you.

- Can we talk about your pregnant? - And you had an iguana? - Oh, yeah. - Did I catch that? - Yes, yes.

- And the iguana have a name? - Willy. - Willy the iguana. - Of course, everybody wouldn't name their iguana well, I guess.

- And they didn't eat each other? They didn't, they didn't meet. - But they must have been chatting about me while I was at school. (laughing)

- What would they say?

“Can you believe she's trapping us in this suburban bedroom?”

We're jungle animals for Christ's sake. Let us out, I hate this girl. (laughing) - They didn't even know there was a wider world out there. - No, no.

- No, no, I have my whole garden as all fenced in. And their rabbits in there. And the other day I was thinking, I feel so badly for the rabbits. All they know is my garden.

They've born in there, they die for like years. That's all they know. And somebody said, it's actually not so bad because the foxes can't get in and eat them. So at least they're safe.

So they were safe in your room. - They're lucky to be in Iron Gardens Garden in my God. I'm not sure they get the same thing. Other rabbits wish they were in Iron Gardens Garden. - So you and I have a secret crush.

And it's the same one, Mel Brooks. - Mm. - Didn't you use to watch Mel Brooks? (laughing) - Have you ever met him?

- I've never met Mel Brooks.

- He is hilarious. He is absolutely so funny when he was doing the producers. And my friend Susan Stroman was the director. He lived in Watermel and he just lost his wife Ann and he used to cook for him.

And so he would come for dinner. And it was just so wonderful to spend an evening with him. I can't even tell you. And on the way out he would go look through my cookbook and he'd go this chicken with 40 cloves of garlic

looks really good and not like if you come next Saturday, I'll make it for you. I don't think it was my company was coming back for.

“I think it was the chicken with 40 cloves of garlic.”

It was just you, the two of you would get along like a house on fire. - Oh, I just we watched the producers in my house, the film once a week, once a week for my whole child. - No, no, watch out.

- And we, I have memorized every line of that film. - He's just, he's just, and he just turned 100 and he's gonna let both of us. I'm sure about that, but I hope so. - So after 10 years at S&L,

you decide you're gonna move to the country? Is that what happened? - Yes. - Is it like cozy and warm of the big fire? Or is it like the shining?

Or is it like aliens in the woods? - Mm-hmm. - It's, it's cozy and warm with a little fire and a big garden and there is a town nearby that is known for its alien abductions,

but not known that I live and per se. - Oh my God. I think the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life is you and Maryl Streep for the 50th anniversary of S&L, being mother and daughter, having been abducted by aliens.

- I mean, can I, can I, can I toast that? - Yeah, I will live on forever with the producers. (laughing) - That was so fun. - That was so interesting because they were like,

who do you think you would like to ask to be in the sketch with you for this 50th anniversary show? And I was like, I don't know, Merrill Streep. (laughing) - It's everybody's first answer and then she did.

- And Merrill is Merrill will do it. - We might say, I'm not ready, I'm not ready, I'm not ready. I'm not ready. - And then they said call Merrill and just tell her a little bit about the sketch.

And I said, okay, she said yes with that, even knowing what it was about. - She knew, I, she knew roughly what it was about, but they, they wanted me to discuss the particulars with her and I said, okay, I'll call Merrill Streep.

- Fine. (laughing) - And people don't allow. - And of course we talked about gardening because that's the magic of SNL.

You get to work with the best. - Do the silliest things with the greatest living actress and it's just, that's funny. - Now that's a juxtaposition, that's funny.

- Exactly, but also she is an incredible sense of humor.

- And incredible sense of humor. She can be serious, she can be funny, she can be anything,

She turned to me and she was like,

"Are my pants hiked up enough?" (laughing) Can you see enough of what's going on? And I said, "Give 'em one more yank." Let's really get up there, Merrill.

(laughing) That was so screened, I mean, it was just to watch the other actors while you're doing it. It's just unbelievable, it's so fabulous. Okay, so tell me, tell me back to your garden.

Okay, it's my fourth season. - Yeah. - It's expanded, I've dug up more and more of my long, every day. - That's what you do. - That's what you do.

“- That's what you do. - That's what you do.”

- He planted over the winter and then he'd dig up more and then at the end of the summer you'd go, "Why did I do that?" - Mm-hmm. - So, what is your garden plans for your life?

- What's it like? - And I can be, whoa, no fucking patch across the left. (laughing) - I've got raised beds, I've got rows, I've got a terrorist section with rows

and I just learned so much every year. And I've been doing a lot of preserving, as I said, because if you grow that many tomatoes, you can't let them just fall. So you make sauce, or do you do other things of them?

- Yes, I'm on my 20th jar of sauce. I can't this morning and can I even eat all that sauce? - Yes, I can. - I can eat that a week, come on. (laughing)

- I actually found, I only grow cherry tomatoes because the big tomatoes, when you go out there, every single one has one bite out of it.

“Like a raccoon or a eating, I don't know.”

Maybe it's Jeffrey, I haven't seen him. (laughing) I'll eat that at his. - But one bite, can't you just eat the entire tomato and leave the rest?

- One bite. And I can't eat it, tomato that has a bite out of it. Just can't. - Right. - Right. - Right. - Right. - Right.

- It's mouth was on there. - Exactly. - Exactly. - It's mouth is there, Chief. I don't think so. So even New book, it's called the Jungle of, let me see if I can say this, Cara Banana.

- I wanted to write something that's celebrated the bizarre creatures that we see all around us. Obviously, I have a taste for the strange, my cockroaches, my guana, et cetera.

I've always been obsessed with how nature is so bizarre

that you really don't have to write about magic. You can just write about science and that's weird enough. And so I, just over a period of 12 or so years,

“was thinking about this story about three sort of lost children”

who become enmentored, is that a word? It's not a word. Who are meant to become the mentees of a mad scientist and they fight the bad guys. And I just, I love thinking about the world of the 1890s,

the world of Alexander von Humboldt, the naturalist who's like, got two thousand species named after him or something. He was this, some explore. I just, yes, yes, I love thinking about a time when not everything had been cataloged, photographed

and put into AI already. When there were still magic and wonder in the real world and discovery, exactly. - If you were gonna have something named after you, what would it be?

- Some bug, some weird bug. - Who loves that? - Yeah, a hissing cockroach, say. - Goodness. - Where do you even get a hissing cockroach?

- You know, the school obtained them for me and I don't want to know. And will the Guana where did he come from? - Petland. - Petland.

- Petland. - And then he went to Boca. - He went to Boca? - He retired. - He went to Boca, yes.

- That's very nice. - Yes. He was afraid actually when we were dating, he lived in Florida and he sent me an alligator in a box. - Come again.

- Do you ever sent me an alligator? No, he didn't send me flowers and chocolates. He sent me an alligator. - What was he supposed to do with that? - I have no idea.

But I put it in my mother's wash, you know, like her laundry's saying, you arrive in the morning and it was like, just like this, I was like, oh my god, the alligator's dead. And then the next day after noon,

he was just like swimming around. We had to feed him raw meat. Oh, it was just, and then one day, he just disappeared. I have no idea what happened to the alligator.

And I always suspected, but I never set it out loud.

But my mother had something to do with the crime. (laughing) Maybe she wanted to do the laundry. - Oh my god. - And there was an alligator in there.

- And this is the relationship that we look up to

- Three decades of true love looks like.

- So everybody has a sliding door as moment. Like the moment in your life, we were with serendipity, everything changed. What was that moment for you? (breathing heavily)

- I was, I was so afraid to audition for Saturday night life because it had, it was everything

“that I ever wanted, it was the only thing that mattered to me.”

It was everything that I'd been working for. - But since my childhood, and I was so afraid that if I really did it and it didn't happen, then I would, what where would I go from there? - Wow.

- So I thought that I would throw the audition. - You were afraid you would throw it and I decided - I decided that I'd throw the audition.

- And so what did you do?

- I, I said to myself, I'm going to the house. - The audition. - And because I was, I was so, I was so afraid of what it would mean if I got the job, of what it would mean if I didn't get the job.

- Yeah. - Both things were just seemed so crazy to me. And so I thought best to just, I'm not ready for this. I'm not ready to be done with this.

I'm not ready to have this happen. I just, how old were you? - 28. So yeah, so this is, this isn't gets serious time. - Yes.

- And then I, I was speaking to a friend of the phone

“and she said, I think you might want to not”

throw the audition because haven't you been working for this since your childhood and don't you want to see what would happen if you really tried your best? And I said, damn. - You, but of course she was right and I was funny

because your instinct was to not want to too much and to throw it so you didn't have to deal with the success of doing it or the pressure of doing it. - Or the failure of doing it. - Or the failure of doing it.

- Yeah, so you were, you were keeping the decision yours by throwing it rather than giving them the choice. - Yes. - The power to choose you or not. So what happened?

- I decided that I would, with this one precious opportunity that I had been working for since my childhood that I would do my absolute best. And I did. And what was the audition?

- What did you have to do? - Oh, it's just five minutes of characters and impressions and stuff and so I worked on it really hard and I practiced in front of people and I asked the opinion and I worked harder on that five minutes

than I had on most things in my life. And then afterwards I just sort of waited and hoped and prayed. - So then you got the call? - Yes.

- I think it was one of the producers or maybe it was worn in self, I forget. And I was living in LA at the time disaster. Anyway, I was walking on the sidewalk, the sun beating down, the call came and I,

I sank to my knees, not because I had to, but because I wanted to be able to say years later, I sank to my knees. - Yes, I wanted to tell you that on this podcast.

I thought if I'm never in Ina Gardens apartment,

for I want to be able to tell her that I sank to my knees when I got the call. So I'm glad I did. - I'm glad you didn't do it. And everybody on the planet is glad you went to S&L.

It's just so wonderful. So what did you read as a kid? I read a lot. I read a lot of Pippi long snocking. And I read, I just, I loved tales of misfits.

I mean, most of the books in the middle grade genre, which these books are about misfits, because the genre itself deals with questions of identity. - And everybody feels like a misfit in that genre.

I mean, there's one person who feels like the most popular girl in the class that everybody else is a misfit, right? - And I find that in real life, even the popular girl doesn't know that.

- Isn't that it? - Right. - When she goes home and is going to sleep when it's staring at the wall, isn't misfit.

“- I think that, so for me, it's my favorite literary genre”

and I still read a lot of middle grade, because it deals with questions of that feeling of being a misfit and questions of, what am I going to do about it? Am I going to lean into that? Or am I going to pull back and then become a politician?

Am I going to, or am I,

that I'm discovering that I am?

Am I going to celebrate it? Or am I going to try to fit in and hide that? - Which I know makes me unique.

“And I think that's the question of the work of our entire lives”

and it begins when we're 12. - That's really true. It really is because I think when you're at that age, you're instinct is to try and fit in so people like you.

But I think that you found people like you

because of your sense of humor. So you could be quirky and still fit in. - Fit in, am I right? - Well, they didn't like me. - Yeah, no, I didn't, like I was not,

I don't know if you can believe this.

“I was not the most popular girl in my dream.”

- Nobody was. - No one was. - No one was. - It's not even the most popular girl. It's the most popular girl.

But I was really not the most popular girl. But they did laugh when I did impressions and voices. And so I leaned into that and then eventually made a career of it and how wonderful that they did that you found a way to have a connection with people.

“And it became your career, that's who you are.”

It's just wonderful. And I will toast to that to Kate McKinnon,

always being the most popular girl.

- And you are, nobody knows how gorgeous you are. You're always playing some older guy or some woman. Some older woman, some frumpy person. And in person, you're just gorgeous. Thank you very much.

- You're stunning, you're reading. - This is Kate McKinnon. - Embarrassed. - I love you too. - Thank you, thank you.

- "Jean of the Bapai." - Happy hour is hosted by me, I know garden. Our executive producers are Jenna Weiss Berman, Susie Lektonberg, Ellie Jaffee Ramos, and Deborah Davis. Kate Tyler is a contributing producer

and just seen a senior producer. Nick Apollen Bonne is our associate producer. Tim Fernandez is the video editor with Sound Recording by Joe Plord. Our camera operators for this episode

are Joe Valenzuela and Zoe Gregorick. Music for the show is by Pink Martini. Special thanks to cinematographer, Deon Bibi. Happy hour is produced by Good White Productions and is a Vox Media Podcast.