-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.
