Like all new cast members of “Saturday Night Live,” Molly Kearney faced a creative challenge last season in trying to find a breakout moment on the powerhouse sketch-comedy show.
They achieved it in memorable fashion, when the first non-binary cast member in the series’ history descended by ropes from the rafters into the middle of “Weekend Update”.
Kearney had arrived to deliver a monologue that was funny while making a surprisingly serious point as well. They comically railed against the wave of over 400 anti-LGBT bills that have been introduced in state legislatures across America just this year and their impact on trans kids, but kept it entertaining with a ridiculous string of physical comedy moments.
“My comedy is not based off being not binary. It’s part of who I am,” Kearney said. “But I basically just go for what I think is the funniest and it’s definitely like if I feel very seen and heard and welcomed at ‘SNL’ and people are getting the {they/them] pronouns right. I can fully equally play men and women and that’s really fun. I can put on a wig and be [Irish actor] Brendan Gleeson one week and then I’m a pageant queen the next. My favorite part about ‘SNL’ is you can really be anybody.”
They’ll be bringing that fearless energy to the stage at Zanies in Chicago this Thursday through Saturday, delivering sets that will focus on Kearney’s personal side with plenty of material about their family and the drinking stories they first made their mark with in stand-up.
Kearney grew up in a blue-collar Catholic family in the suburbs of Cleveland, and recalls their house being filled with laughter “because they’re all funnier than me.” The child of an ER nurse and a construction laborer who became a town councilman, Kearney always knew they wanted to make people laugh, and their parents and two brothers happily cheered them on.
They came to Chicago for a semester studying in the college-level Comedy Studies program at Second City, but quickly made a splash on the city’s stand-up comedy scene and followed that path instead. Kearney is most proud of their years as a regular at the esteemed alternative-comedy venue Lincoln Lodge, performing in the long-running “Blackout Diaries,” a showcase for drinking stories.
“I just think the Midwest loves comedy and it’s always the best, best crowds,” said Kearney, who counts locally trained Amy Poehler and Aidy Bryant among their favorite “SNL” stars, along with Maya Rudolph.. “I think that the Chicago weather pushes you inside a lot. I think going to a comedy club, people are looking to have a good time indoors and, yes, Chicago starts with really great local comics, which not every city has. So it’s pretty special.” .
Kearney was an opening act last summer for “SNL” featured player Sarah Sherman, who suggested they submit a video to the show’s producers. They were soon invited to audition at top Los Angeles comedy venue Dynasty Typewriter for “SNL” creator/executive producer Lorne Michaels, and then again at the show’s famed Studio 8H in New York.
They arrived to start the season amid a seismic shift in the cast, as veteran stars including Aidy Bryant and Cecily Strong had left the previous spring and viewers were asked to embrace a new set of talent.
”It was a very unique opportunity to just come out of the gate trying to be in as many sketches and try to get a big win each week, and I know I’m sure it was a little nerve-wracking for everybody who’s worked there before us, that it was going to be all new kids,” they recalled. “But we all meshed together pretty quickly. I think, for a new crew, that we crushed it and we all got along. So it’s really nice.”
Yet the greatest moment from their time on the show took place recently in the real world.
“I was at the writers’ strike at NBC holding a sign and another guy said, ‘My kid is non- binary and they look up to you,’ and that meant the world to me,” says Kearney. “I got into comedy in the beginning not expecting to be someone kids could look up to, but it’s a privilege to be on TV and show what it’s like to be non-binary to someone who otherwise wouldn’t get it in the middle of Iowa.”
