Ana Gasteyer Quotations

I'd like to say that parody is a celebration of a person's specific characteristics, as opposed to mockery.

I was inspired more by early Bette Midler. I do wear a fancy dress and very high heels - and extra high hair. My goal is to obliterate all earnestness.

It's definitely like being in some weird sorority. I'm friends with a lot of actresses, but my 'SNL' friends are my closest.

I'm friends with a lot of actresses, but my 'SNL' friends are my closest. The experience of working there is something of a battleground, a great one, but complicated. I think there's a deep connection for having survived that workplace.

I love people who try to keep the world in control - because the world is inherently not in control.

Be tenacious. Get as much stage time as possible.

I've always lived in a city. I'm very social, and in a place like New York, even if you're alone on the subway, you never feel lonely.

I'm very social, and in a place like New York, even if you're alone on the subway, you never feel lonely.

I always loved comedy but I didn't start formally until I was in college.

Losing yourself in the character opens you up in a way that no amount of precise preparation can.

I'm not a standup, but I play one on TV.

It's funny, there are so many women who are former executives and have taken all that stress and anxiety and transferred it onto their kids.

It's so easy in these cabaret venues to get earnest.

You know, once somebody knows you can sing Elphaba, it's like being able to sing Evita - people shut up about it already.

I played Liddy Dole last year and met her as well. From the artful way she phrased it, I still don't know if she had actually seen me play her. She made it sound like it was good, but that's just a gift they have.

I'm not much of a famous-person friend. I've hung out with Brooke Shields and I don't think I've ever seen that kind of pure face recognition, but I keep a low profile.

I'm pretty earthy; I nursed forever because I liked it and my kids liked it, but at the same time I'm very laissez-faire about stuff like bedtimes and food.

It's fun to watch a true-blue movie star at work. They're really unbelievably charismatic. They understand camera angles...

I like anything with a live audience. I love sitcom work. I hope it comes back in fashion because I really love it. I love single-camera work, too, but in a different way than that live-audience thing, which is really exciting.

I've done a ton of theater work and dramatic work, but nobody really knows me that way.

I'm so bad at spontaneous impressions.

I've always lived in a city.

I always tried not to be too mean, but my problem is that the people I tend to find hilarious don't usually have senses of humor. So interacting with them is a little bit of an awkward engagement, because I can't really make them laugh, on top of which I've been doing an impression of them.

I actually like character work, so for me, generally speaking, I enjoy it. It's a little bit more of a comfortable suit you put back on. You can explore it and have fun with it and push the limits of it.

I like playing the same person over and over again. I've done shows for over a year on Broadway, and I never get bored.

Writers tend to hate recurring characters; there's this writer snob thing about it. But I don't have that. I feel like the challenge is always to find a cool and innovative way to do it and, obviously, to not repeat your jokes.

I'm a liberal inside a liberal's body.

There are different kinds of actors, and movie actors tend to be exceedingly precise and mechanical in a way that's really admirable for me to watch. You always learn from them.

Comedy's been really liberating for me because I've been able to sneak the singing part in through the back door.

I'm married but the special man is my dog, Henry.

I'm happier than I've ever been. SNL is one of the only places you can both act and create characters for a living.