Sasheer Zamata: One of Brooklyn’s Funniest People Is Not Ready For Prime Time
Illustration by Alex Konsevick
No. 16
Sasheer Zamata
One of Brooklyn’s Funniest People Is Not Ready For Prime Time
There’s a pretty firm policy at Saturday Night Live that forbids new cast members from giving interviews right after they’ve been hired. And so while we really, really wanted to interview Sasheer Zamata, we couldn’t do it. Luckily though, we can still write about her. And even luckier, we already interviewed her late last year, because we’ve known for a long time that Zamata is one of the funniest people in Brooklyn. (No word on whether Lorne Michaels read that interview, but we like to think he did.)
Since Zamata was a mid-season addition to SNL and became the first black woman in the cast since Maya Rudolph left the show five years ago, all eyes were on this Upright Citizens Brigade alum when she premiered on the January 18th Drake-hosted episode, and she didn’t disappoint audiences in that episode or the ones that followed. Zamata has been off to a strong start, nailing her Rihanna impression (hint: it’s all about the walk), and we look forward to seeing what she’ll do moving forward. “I feel like I have to be my own cheerleader,” Zamata told us last fall. “It’s hard to quiet that little voice in my head that says, ‘Why should anyone care about what you have to say?’ I have to keep reminding myself my work does matter, because it matters to me.” And while that’s always true for any creative professional, we feel pretty confident that a whole lot more people are now there to cheer her on.
