Saturday Night Live favorite Cheri Oteri gave audiences a brief glimpse of her feature film comedic prowess with her performances in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and Liar, Liar. With Oteri's newest screen effort, the horror-film parody Scary Movie, audiences get a much better look at the amazing talents of this petite comic powerhouse. She plays Gail Hailstorm, an overzealous and cutthroat TV news reporter, loosely based on the farcical Courtney Cox character in the Scream trilogy. "I spend more time berating my camera operator, Kenny, than actually getting the story," said Oteri of her character. Oteri offers a smart-mouthed, sardonic, angst-ridden portrayal of Hailstorm, similar to that of Rita, the self-appointed mayor of her street, one of the many popular characters she portrays weekly on the long-running sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live.
Oteri has spent six seasons as an SNL cast member. One of the mainstays of the current cast, Oteri's irresistible charm often inspires audience members to break into awed appreciative applause and wails of laughter when she pulls out such characters as the perky Spartan Spirit Squad cheerleader Arianna, Cass Van Ry (the female half of the hyperactive hosting team of the fictional talk show Morning Latte), as well as the outrageously dead-on impersonations of Barbara Walters, Judge Judy, and Mariah Carey, among others.
Prior to SNL, this Philadelphia native was a member of the renowned Los Angeles-based improv/sketch comedy group the Groundlings. Oteri is among a celebrated group of current and former SNL cast members who began their careers at the Groundlings, including Ana Gasteyer, Chris Parnell, Will Ferrell, Laraine Newman, Jon Lovitz, and the late Phil Hartman.
In addition to her role in Scary Movie, Oteri will soon be seen in theatres playing the role of best friend Mary in Valerie Breiman's Love & Sex, co-starring Famke Janssen and Jon Favreau.
Back Stage West recently sat down with Oteri to discuss the inspiration behind her characters, the challenges of comedy, and the fate of the cheerleaders.
Back Stage West: I understand SNL rep Marci Klein saw you while you were performing at the Groundlings and flew you out for an audition. Can you talk about that experience?
Cheri Oteri: Well, first of all, I was told that they were there to see a specific person at the Groundlings. That person had a showcase around them, and that meant that the show was mostly their material and I only had one thing in the show. And I thought, "Well, if it does go well, maybe they'll remember me for next time." My bit was a monologue.
That Monday, I was temping at Disney. (I wasn't making any money as an actress at that time, I was just temping.) My manager called me and said, "What are you doing next Monday?" And I said, "Very funny. Looking for work. What do you think?" And he said, "No, you're flying to New York to audition for SNL."
They flew out four people, not just the guy that they were supposedly there to see. I found out later that the casting director was there to see everyone, but this guy had his manager fix it to where it was kind of his thing-kind of devilish. But the four of us got flown out and I thought, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to be able to tell my kids I auditioned for Saturday Night Live." There were 36 people flown in overall. Twelve got called back and then two from that got cast. That was Will [Ferrell] and me.
BSW: That must be a comedienne's dream come true.
Oteri: It was truly, truly a dream come true. Will and I just couldn't believe it. But you know, when something like that happens, it reminds me that there's this inner voice that all your life is telling you what you should be doing. We ignore it, because it's too scary. You think, I don't know why I feel like I should do this. Plus, some people tell their kids, "Hey, you can be anything." Mine were like, "You're pretty limited the way we see it, so you might want to try one of two fields at best." I joke about that, but it's not like I grew up thinking, You can be anything you want, Cheri. I got into the record business and I worked for A&M Records for a lot of years while I was training at the Groundlings and that was a great career. But we hide behind what we really want to do.
BSW: So this is not necessarily what you've wanted to do since you were young?
Oteri: No. It's what I loved but I never dared to dream that big.
BSW: Are you still a member of the Groundlings?
Oteri: Actually, I do go back there during the summer sometimes and I'll do an improv show. I never know who's going to be doing it, but some of my favorite people-like Will, I love to improvise with him. Some of the writers from SNL are from the Groundlings, such as Mindy Sterling, who was in Austin Powers. I love improvising because it's still scary for me to get onstage and not have anything planned. It's very good psychologically, because you have to let go and trust yourself. I'm better at knowing that I can plan something and create it first and hone it. But it's very cathartic to get up there and to create on your feet and learn that you can trust yourself; that it's not a fluke.
BSW: What's the most important thing you learned while training with the Groundlings?
Oteri: That it ultimately doesn't go away-the ability. Your creativity has its ebb and flow. You think, Oh, I'm never going to come up with a funny sketch again, or I'm never going to have that great an improv again. That's all that self-doubt that you grew up with, which doesn't go away. But there's a good side to that-I mean, if there's any good side to doubting yourself-and that is, it always keeps you on your toes. You never think, Oh, I'm there, I'm just great, I can just phone this one in. In everything I do, I don't take it for granted that I'm going to be funny. It's still scary for me. It's just as scary to get on the stage at the Groundlings as it is at SNL, and I can't explain why.
BSW: Is there a distinct difference between creating a character for SNL and creating a character for the Groundlings?
Oteri: There are some things that translate live-the audience has to be right there-and there are some things that don't translate if you're not in a small theatre. And there are things that translate better on television than they do right there in the small theatre. That's always interesting to learn. It's always interesting when we're doing our read-through and everyone is cracking up in the room, and on the air there's not a peep.
BSW: Do you recall a specific idea or character you created for SNL that failed miserably?
Oteri: No. Never happened to me.
Yeah, it has. And it's like, Didn't they get that? Weren't they at the read-through? But there's always a reason, and doing stuff on SNL has been such a learning experience in so many ways because you really are given a lot of free rein in terms of creativity. We write and then we cast and you have to see your sketch through from beginning to end. You have somebody who oversees it, but you're going down and approving your set. You start to learn camera blocking and what role that plays and how it's received at home.
BSW: Where did you find the inspiration for your popular cheerleader characters?
Oteri: When we first got to SNL, we met the rest of the cast and we decided to go down to 8H, the studio, and stand on the stage to see what it would be like. And it was a wooden stage, just like at the Groundlings, only bigger. And we started improvising, all of us, together. Whenever I got on a wooden floor, it went back to my high school years of being a cheerleader. You pound it and you get that beat.
And I wasn't improvising at the time. I was off to the side, just waiting for my turn. Then Will comes over and he starts doing it with me. We were both acting really serious and we just made each other laugh and it was like, We should do a cheerleading scene where they take it real seriously. Then we didn't talk about it and two weeks go by and he meets me in the office and it's like, What do you want to write? A baby scene or those cheerleaders? And we wrote the cheerleaders-not knowing what it was going to be. But you never do. It's so exciting when you don't know what you have and you think, We're going to make complete fools of ourselves in the read-through. We have to stand up and do this-you can't do it sitting down-and everybody sits in the read-through!
But the one great thing that the Groundlings teaches you is commitment. And I admire that in other people, too, when I see them perform. To have that commitment, no matter how it's being received, is so important. And one thing that I'm really proud of, with the people that come from the Groundlings now, is that there's such a sense of commitment no matter what they're doing. And I admire that.
BSW: Many SNL character spin-off movies have been made and I notice you have not gone that route yet. Is this something you are wary of?
Oteri: If I were to do it, it should've been done already. And I've got to be honest, I could look back and regret it. I do love my characters, but it was so much work writing them for those seven minutes. Of course, a film would be different, because you can explore things you can't explore in the sketch. [With the cheerleaders], we used to talk about what their home life was like. That is what's always so much fun to explore. So, I guess we could've done that, but they were so difficult to write-and we wrote so many sketches-that it was too daunting a task.
BSW: What's the main challenge of comedy besides keeping it fresh?
Oteri: You have to do it for your own sake. When the audience likes something and they tell you, then you bring it back. Sometimes I think they bring things back that don't necessarily need to come back, but I think that sometimes the audience doesn't really appreciate it the first time, so you have to do it again because some things get better as you go along. You want to give them what they want, but then you've got to make it different each time and that's what's such a challenge, giving them what they want and also make it interesting for us and maybe exploring these characters a little more.
I'm always looking for a reason to do the cheerleaders, rather than looking for another premise. We only did them twice last year and I don't know if we'll do them again next year. Something's really got to spark, like, Oh, I never thought of this. This would be fun! It's got to grab our interest. Like our last show with Britney Spears, it was so perfect for a cheerleaders sketch, but Will and I sat in the room and were like, "Do you feel like doing one?" "No. Do you?" "No." "Let's just do Morning Latte." "All right." Even though we had that demographic and you almost feel you're cheating them, you don't want the audience to say, "It wasn't as good as..."
BSW: What scares you most about this business?
Oteri: What scares me most is that I'm not going to get the chance to do the kind of films that I would really like to do. Scary Movie, to me, is funny, and it was even funnier than I thought it was from the script and I'm very proud of the job that everyone did in that film. When I do a comedy, I want to think it's funny. And I've done maybe a film or two before that I didn't think was really funny, but I thought that the role was something that maybe I had the opportunity to do something with.
But what I do on SNL is not necessarily how I see myself in film. Going back to Bill Murray, I love his film career because he not only has done the really funny comedies, but he has done some great drama. He's had a very, very interesting career in terms of the roles he has done. And he is one person in my whole life, especially watching SNL, that has made me laugh out loud. I'd like to have his career. I like the way he lives his life. He's a family person; he's private. He does his work, but it doesn't seem like he lives and dies by Hollywood and what the film is going to do. And I hope I get that opportunity.
It's going to be tough. I don't fool myself. For any great roles that are out there for females, let alone funny roles, it's really, really competitive. That's why so many people are writing their own vehicles. And I can see why, especially people who do comedy. And if you do come from a writing background, it does behoove you to at least try. I think I probably may do that somewhere down the line. I don't know if it'll be based on an SNL character or something completely different, but it seems that a lot of people have to do that.
But I'm still looking for those kinds of films that I would go and see, like Rushmore or Election. There are a lot of really cool films out there, but it's just getting the opportunity to have that part, especially when you're coming from SNL where the comedy is so big and broad-it's got to be.
BSW: What advice would you give to the young sketch comedian who aspires to be the next Cheri Oteri?
Oteri: I'd say, you want to be taller. No, I would say, how I got to SNL and hopefully beyond is because I truly loved what I was doing. I never did standup, because I didn't see myself doing standup. That scared me. I admire standups, but I see myself doing sketch and improv. And I did it because I loved it.
I had a regular job. I started it as something that was just fun to do when I got to L.A. and didn't know anybody. Then when I got into it, I could not believe how much I loved it. And I failed a lot. But someone said to me, "Remember, you're in class. You're not supposed to know it all. You're supposed to fail in class so you don't fail when you do get the opportunity." I even repeated a class when I was at the Groundlings.
And some of the funniest people didn't make it into classes at the Groundlings. There are different avenues for comedy. It's always interesting to see how everyone got there. I happened to get there by theatre, but not because I ever wanted to be famous or because I ever thought I was going to be on television. But, I could not believe how much I enjoyed it, and I just thought, Could you imagine if I made money doing this? If you could want anything for your career in your life, even as a kid, it's to enjoy going to work.
I don't think kids realize how much time they're going to spend at work. You don't realize as a kid that you're going to spend a lot of time there-so you'd better enjoy it. I say, go for it, even if it sounds like it's untouchable. That's what I thought, There are so many people funnier than me. That's for other people. Somebody said to me one time, "Dream big. If you're gonna dream, dream big. Then go for it." Does that sound cheesy?" BSW