-Our next guest is an Emmy Award-winning writer
and actress who you know from her work
on "Saturday Night Live," "A.P. Bio,"
and the film "Wine Country."
She stars in the new series "Girls5eva,"
with all episodes streaming now on Peacock.
Let's take a look.
-Being a dentist is stable and everything,
but it's no dream job.
I have a form of rosacea that's from other people's breath.
-Oh. Oh.
-Hey, didn't I hear you got married?
-Yes. Caroline and I were actually the first gay couple
in the state of New York to get...divorced.
Love doesn't always win! Guess what!
-Please welcome back to the show
one of my favorite people in the world, Paula Pell, everybody!
-Whoo!
♪♪
-Please.
Oh, my -- -Walking carefully in my shoes.
-Your beautiful shoes.
You look gorgeous. -Thanks. They're a little high.
-You know, I was saying, it might be a little weird for you
to be back in the building where you worked at "SNL"
in a room without an audience.
But you and I both wrote sketches
that felt as though they played in a room without an audience.
-Yes, I oftentimes laughed very hard --
Before I left to go sleep an hour before the read-through,
I would write something I thought was hilarious.
And then I would go into
your producer Mike Shoemaker's office,
and he would call me yesterday's sweater,
'cause I smelled like B.O. times 50,000.
And I would come in so jacked.
We didn't go do cocaine during my era.
And I would be so jacked and just be like,
[Laughing] "We wrote this thing!"
And I'd be laughing so hard. And then just smash-cut
to the table read a couple hours later,
and I've showered, and I've got new makeup on,
and I'm just staring off, and no one is laughing at any of it.
But I girled up for you tonight, Seth.
-Oh, very nice. -I girled up.
I know that, you know, there's certain --
You dress a different way when you go to Easter mass
than when you go fishing. -Yeah.
-So I wanted to girl up tonight
because I know that you like the girls here to show their shape.
[ Laughter ] -We do.
We try not to be explicit, in this era,
but we do like it to get out to our guests.
-Yeah. If you have a shape, you need to show it.
-We need to see the shape.
-Yes. This is sheer, and I don't know what I'm showing, so --
You're welcome, America.
-Congratulations on the show.
This is about a girl band from sort of the late '90s,
early '00s, that reunites, and it is allowing you
to go back to your singing and dancing roots.
-Oh, my God. I mean, I'm such a musical theater nerd
from the time I was very young.
So, just to --
There's times where I'll just be with my coworkers,
of these three other phenoms.
And I'll just be looking at them and be like,
this is a really huge honor to be able to harmonize,
and harmonize with my alto line under your beautiful --
Because I always sing alto.
So it's always funny when I learn my part,
'cause the other parts are very flowery, and then they --
They're like, "Okay, and, Paula, you're going to go --"
♪ And I go there and, uh, there ♪
And then you just stay on ♪ There ♪
all the way till the end of the song.
[ Laughter ]
-Were you typecast in your early days of theater?
-Yeah. I was always the old lady.
I was always an old --
Either a whore, as my grandfather would call it,
or I was an usually an old matron
that was like, "Where are my jewels?"
-This is -- -That is -- That is --
You might think, "I don't know. Maybe she's in her 40s."
That was 14. I was 14.
[ Laughter ]
That was "Anything Goes."
-Okay. -And I literally come through,
and I think I say that somebody stole my jewels.
-And then what do you got there?
-And that is in college, maybe two years later,
and that is Nurse Sandwich from "The Elephant Man."
-Oh, wow.
-And I remember my big line was, "Sandwich, yes."
He would say, "Are you a nurse?" And I went, "Sandwich, yes."
-Did you have other lines? -It sounded like I was ordering.
Huh? -Did you have other lines?
-I don't think I did. [ Laughter ]
I had "other lines," 'cause it was the '80s, but --
[ Laughter ]
-Now, do you think --
I have some other photos from your youth.
Do you think you were someone that, you know,
'cause a lot of times, scouts would look for talent
for these girl bands, boy bands. -Right.
-Do you think if they had seen --
-I mean, I think, you know --
We all were cute when we were young.
And, so, I think when I look back at it,
I could have been plucked from --
-Okay, somebody sees you in a shopping mall.
-That's one shot. -Yeah.
-That is when I had brown --
I had plastic braces, which my "orthopedist" --
I had an "orthopedist" --
-Well, that explains why you got the wrong kind of braces.
-His fingers smelled horrible.
[ Laughter ]
My orthodontist put those braces on.
And I thought I was getting, you know, girls would be excited --
Guys and girls would get excited by getting those metal braces
because it was cool, in some way. It was horrible but cool.
And I thought it was --
They never told me. And then I got them,
and he just glued these plastic braces on me that were clear,
which immediately absorbed
the brown dye from Coca-Cola and beef.
[ Laughter ] And so, within about a month,
I had brown blocks of plastic on my teeth.
And that really upped my game.
-You actually just mentioned
you didn't know how sheer your outfit was tonight.
This has been a historical problem for you.
Yeah, this is a picture from high school
when I was president of a club called the Keyettes.
And everyone else in Florida and everyone else was very skinny
and cute and beachy cute, just cute girls in my club,
and I was, like, the solid leader of it.
And I went to the big goodbye party at the end of the year,
and I wore this dress.
And if I can tell you the amount of confidence I had that night.
And, of course, the eyes are closed
right as the picture flashes.
But I have not only my bra showing,
I have a couple buttons unbuttoned
and my little -- my underboob roll of flesh over that belt.
And by the way, for big ladies out there,
you'll appreciate this.
Every time you buy a dress that has a belt that comes with it,
the belt is like four sizes too small.
So you buy the dress, and you're like,
"Oh, this is cute, and it has a belt, even."
And then you put on the belt, and it comes to here.
So, you know, work on that, fashion.
[ Laughter ]
This is really creeping up.
I'm going to show something soon.
-We're going to let them work on that.
And we're also going to be right back with more from Paula Pell.