-Our first guest tonight is an Emmy-nominated actress
you know from her work on "Saturday Night Live"
and the Hulu series "Shrill."
"SNL" airs live this week on NBC with host Will Forte
and musical guest Maneskin.
Please welcome back to the show
our very good friend Aidy Bryant.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Hello, Aidy. -Hello!
Hello. -So happy to have you here.
-Oh, gosh, it feels so good to be on television.
-[ Laughs ] You are --
You are the perfect first guest for me to have
after my week away because of COVID.
I know "SNL" has obviously been dealing with COVID, as well.
You guys had a pretty gnarly week
leading into the Christmas show. -Yeah.
Yeah, chill, I would say. [ Laughter ]
No, I mean, it's a weird time. -Yes.
-Wait. Do you think I'm the perfect guest
to have back because it's like family
where you can, like, be dirty around me
and be post-COVID or something? [ Laughter ]
-Yeah. -Cute.
[ Laughter ]
Yeah. -I don't know why --
What kind of family do you have, though?
You're like... Because I'm like family,
so you can be dirty around me? Like, what?
-Well, I guess I mean, like --
And I say this with a lot of love.
Like, if I [bleep] my pants in front of my family,
I'm like, whatever. [ Laughter ]
Not that you're gonna do that.
-Yeah. -I just mean, you had COVID,
here I am kind of kissing you or whatever.
[ Laughter ]
-Anyway, yeah. -Yeah.
-"SNL" was scare. [ Laughter ]
It was kind of scare Halloween time but at Christmas.
-It was Christmas -- You had the Halloween show
at Christmas, but it was -- -Yeah, well, I mean, you know,
Christmas at "SNL" is usually, like, so fun.
-Yeah. -And we used to do Secret Santa,
but we stopped because varying levels
of caring about it was making it really sad.
-Yeah. -You know?
-Well, now, I was never -- -It was kind of
right as you left, Secret Santa went "Whoo!"
-Okay.
I'm so glad because I would never have stood for that.
-No, it's so bad. Because also, you immediately
are starting to be like, "Ugh, I got a bad person."
You know? And you're like,
"Oh, this is not the spirit." [ Laughter ]
So then, we stopped Secret Santa,
and started doing this thing called the Garbage Party,
which is, like, kind of a low-pressure potluck.
[ Laughter ] Where it's like,
bring a bag of chips, bring 30 McDonald's fries, party hats.
One time, someone brought jello shots and a dog.
You know, like -- -A garbage party.
-Yeah, garbage party. -Where is a garbage party held?
-In the writers room. -In the writers room.
-On Wednesday after table. -That's great.
-And it's so fun, and we didn't get to do it in 2020,
and so it was, like, "Okay. This year we're gonna do ano--
Garbage Party is back, baby."
I was sending e-mails being like,
"This is the biggest one yet. Everybody get ready to rock."
So cocky. I went hard, okay?
Of course, Monday, nobody talking about omicron.
Tuesday, hmm, hearing about it. [ Laughter ]
-Wednesday, babe, your party's cancelled, okay?
And so I had to send out an e-mail saying
the Garbage Party's back in the grave.
-Right. -No party.
But I had ordered 30 massive smiley-face balloons...
[ Laughter ]
from a place called the Balloon Saloon downtown.
-Right, yeah. -And I realized, I was like,
"Oh, my God. Well, I can't have
the 30 smiley-face balloons delivered to the office
when everyone is afraid of a disease that's in the air."
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-So I was like, "I guess deliver them to my apartment."
-Uh-huh. -So nothing's sadder
than coming home after a long day of work
where everybody's afraid of a virus
to an apartment filled with smiling balloons.
-I think it's even sadder than you described.
[ Laughter ]
I also think -- [ Cheers and applause ]
-Kinda cool. -Like, the balloon travel bag
makes it look like they're in quarantine.
-Devastating. [ Laughter ]
And I think it's worth knowing,
like, I just got them out yesterday.
-Yeah. -So they were in my apartment
for a month. -Wow.
Well, now that's actually a pretty good advertisement
for the Balloon Saloon. -[ Laughs ]
I know! -Yeah, I mean, that's like
30 days of helium.
-Well, there were some that looked a little rough.
They were kind of smiling like...
[ Laughter ]
You know?
But, you know, it's all right.
-You did a cross-country trip. -Yeah, yeah, my husband and I,
at the height of the "omi," we said, "Okay.
Let's get in the car and drive across country."
And we did, and it was okay.
-Uh-huh. [ Laughter ]
-Yeah, I mean it was really nice, actually.
I will say, though, like, in New York, I feel very cool.
-Mm-hmm. -And the second I get
out of town, I drop into, like, who I'm naturally born to be,
which is, like, kind of like a mom in, like,
a pumpkin vest, you know? [ Laughter ]
Like, I'm just like, "Look at that!
Well, hey!" [ Laughter ]
And, literally, we would be driving,
and I couldn't stop myself from just saying
what I was seeing, where I was like, "Cows!"
[ Laughter ]
"Look at those hay bales!" [ Laughter ]
And I really got my ass handed to me
because, at a certain point, we'd been in the car
for like three days, okay?
Nothing left to talk about. -Right.
-We're approaching, like, an overpass.
And finally, something interesting --
there's, like, a horse hauling ass across the overpass.
And it's like a beautiful "Black Beauty" horse, you know?
And I'm like, "Oh! Look at that horse!
He's running!" And then we see
there's a man behind the horse, chasing.
[ Laughter ]
And I'm, like, "This is the best thing
that's ever happened to me."
But then, he's not, like, bouncing.
He's gliding. And I'm like,
"Oh, my God, he's on a skateboard."
Now, I'm saying this all out loud.
I'm like, "Oh! The horse is running!
He's on a skateboard!
The man chasing him is skateboarding!
No! He's going so fast,
he must have a rope on the horse with the skateboard!"
And then we got a little closer,
and it was a man with a horse and buggy.
[ Laughter ]
My husband has been roasting my ass.
[ Laughter ]
Everywhere we go, he's like, "It's on a skateboard."
[ Laughter ]
Hell for me. Hell.
-It's always -- yeah.
Yeah, 'cause the thing is, you've heard --
when you said horse and buggy, I immediately thought,
"I've heard that combo before." -Sure.
-Horse and skateboard? -Horse, rope, and skateboard?
[ Laughter ] No.
-"I'll take the horse and skateboard
down to the grain store." [ Laughter ]
We -- I want to ask you this question.
Very tragically, we lost Bob Saget.
-Yes. -Who was --
I was lucky enough to have met the sweetest guy in the world.
But you met him when you were very young.
-I met him when I was a child,
and it was a totally formative experience.
I mean, I'll just give you, like, a little context,
which is, I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona --
not exactly showbiz headquarters.
Okay? More lizard headquarters.
[ Laughter ]
And so, as a kid, you know, I loved TV.
I was obsessed with "Full House."
I loved the Olsen twins.
I just thought it was, like, so funny.
I loved the show. So, I'm, like,
obsessed with showbiz, and my closest
showbiz connection that I had was,
my mom's friend was a nail technician,
and on the side, he was in the Phoenix Gay Men's Choir.
Okay? So we would go to these shows
where like 50 gay men are singing their hearts out,
and I would be like, "I should be up there."
[ Laughter ]
"I should be up there singing a solo!"
But I was, like, obsessed with him, because he had showbiz.
-Yeah. -And then, as a side gig, later,
he started -- he was the voice of the news.
So he would be the one who would go in and record voiceovers,
being like, "Tonight at 10:00..."
-Oh, wow. That's a big job.
-So cool -- to me. -Yeah.
So, I was like 7, and he was like,
"If you want, you could come watch me record
the news voiceovers."
I was like, "Yes, I want that." [ Laughter ]
So, I go with him. We're in the news station,
we're crossing the newsroom,
and there is Bob Saget, from "Full House."
He's there to promote his stand-up in Phoenix.
But I'm like, "He's here to take me on the show."
[ Laughter ]
And I will tell you, he was so kind to me.
He took 5, 10 minutes, chatted with me about TV,
how it works, about "Full House."
You know, I'm like a dummy.
I think I maybe had like one tooth, you know?
[ Laughter ]
He was so generous and kind to me, and I always feel so --
I mean, for years, I thought about, like,
my brush with fame, my brush with celebrity.
And I'm so grateful that it was so nice.
-Yeah. -Because then, when I wanted
to get into entertainment, I was like,
"Well, that's how nice everybody is."
[ Laughter ]
"They're all like him."
So, I'm forever grateful to him for that.
-Ah, that's a lovely story. Thanks so much for sharing it,
and thanks for being here. -Yeah.
-It's always so great to see you, Aidy.
-Come on. -Aidy Bryant!
"SNL" airs live this week with Will Forte.