Sarah Sherman | |
|---|---|
_(52315003398)_(cropped).jpg) Sherman in 2022 | |
| Born | Sarah Nicole Sherman (1993-03-07)March 7, 1993 (age 32) Long Island,New York, U.S. |
| Other names | Sarah Squirm |
| Education | Northwestern University (BA) |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 2013–present |
| Television | Saturday Night Live |
| Website | sarahsquirm |
Sarah Nicole Sherman (born March 7, 1993),[1][2] also known professionally asSarah Squirm, is an American comedian, actress, and screenwriter. Sherman is known for usingsurreal andbody horror comedy.[3][4][5][6][2] She became a featured player on theNBCsketch comedy seriesSaturday Night Live starting with its47th season in October 2021,[7][8] and was promoted to repertory status in October 2023.[9]
Sherman was born and raised inGreat Neck,[10] Long Island, New York, in aJewish family.[11][12] She toldVariety, "I grew up liking, you know, crazy cartoons, and I loveJoan Rivers andThe Nanny andGarbage Pail Kids andRen & Stimpy and stuff like that."[10] She told another interviewer, "I hadRaggedy Ann dolls. Thinking about it now, Raggedy Ann has heavily influenced the way I dress. I had a bunch ofLamb Chop dolls, too. I'm a huge Lamb Chop freak becauseShari Lewis was a Jewish comedian, and I have a giant Lamb Chop tattoo on my leg."[13]
She attendedGreat Neck South High School, where she was on the improv team andran track,[14] graduating in 2011; then attendedNorthwestern University and graduated in 2015[15] with a degree in theater.[2][16][17]
Sherman developed an interest in stand-up comedy after she did not make theimprov team at Northwestern. After graduating, she decided to stay inChicago, befriending the comedianMegan Stalter, and had a monthly show calledHelltrap Nightmare along with Luke Taylor, David Brown, Wyatt Fair, and Scott Egleston.[18][14] Sherman began performing under her stage name "Sarah Squirm", which was inspired by a high school nickname. She was also getting booked as a comedian alongsidenoise musicians as she had friends who ran a record label.[14]
In 2018, she made her television debut in anAdult Swiminfomercial titled "Flayaway."[3][14] In 2019, Sherman opened for fellow comedianEric André on hisLegalize Everything tour.[12] She was also a writer forThe Eric Andre Show,Three Busy Debras, andMagic for Humans.[19]
Sherman was asked to audition for the long-runningNBC sketch-comedy showSaturday Night Live after doing a stand-up set at theJust for Laughs festival. She had previously been asked to perform some showcases forSNL producers and attempted some character-based work which, according to her, "fucking sucked."[14] She initially auditioned forSNL in 2016, as part of a showcase at theiO Theater in Chicago that also featuredAlex Moffat, who would be hired as part of the cast that year.[20] In 2021, she auditioned again.James Austin Johnson was directly ahead of her in line, and she expressed her nervousness, but "I went into the audition with good vibes because of James and, LOL, we both got it." In the interview, she added, "I did standup. I didn't have any impressions or characters. It was disgusting, I'm talking about genitals."[21] She was subsequently cast as a featured player for its47th season, alongside fellow newcomers Johnson andAristotle Athari.[7][8] Before being hired bySNL, she had had trouble finding employment because hergross-out videos turned hiring managers off.[22] Sherman found a limited audience in her first season because ofCOVID-19 restrictions, and the end of her second season was cut short by the2023 Writers Guild of America strike.[13] In 2023, Sherman was promoted to a repertory player.[9]
AtSNL, Sherman frequently collaborates with writer/film producer Dan Bulla, who joined in 2019 forSeason 45,[10][23] and with whom she shares an office.[24] Among their sketches together are "JewishElvis," "My Best Friend's House," and "Shrimp Tower".[23][13] The latter, starring hostJosh Brolin, earned aPrimetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Production Design for a Variety or Reality Series.[25] Of their Christmas sketch "Pongo," featuring a "wonderfully creepy" synthetic pet,Bleeding Cool writes, "With all due respect to co-writer Bulla, this sketch had Sarah Sherman's brand of humor all over it – and it was brilliant."[26] About a black-and-white pre-taped video suggestive ofThe Hunchback of Notre Dame, Sherman toldStyle Weekly, "I was so lucky to have immediately linked up with amazing writers who totally got it. You know, like Dan Bulla, who I write with a lot. We did this sketch called 'The Anomalous Man,' where I play this mythical creature beast withDua Lipa, it was kind of anElephant Man parody. When we were writing it, Bulla was like, 'Oh and by the way, you need to have a hunchback with an eyeball on it."[27][a]
Asked about her favorite experience with any performer, Sherman refers to her twisted, goryScooby-Doo sketch inSeason 49: "This past finale,Jake Gyllenhaal was the co-host. He's such a good actor and just willing to go there and be aggressive and crazy and chaotic and high energy... The first time he hosted, we did that sketch where I playChucky and I appreciated anyone willing to go there."[27] Also that year, Sherman posted on Instagram "Severed Head Count: 3." The Late Nighter website added them up in the article "Sarah Sherman's 'Severed Head' Makes ThirdSNL Appearance." The first time is in the parody documentary sketch "UNTOLD: Battle of the Sexes" in a critical tennis game. "That beheading came at the hand of hostJason Momoa, who knocked off her head with a (literal) breakneck serve." The second time is in the Scooby-Doo sketch, in which Sherman (playingVelma) is clotheslined by a piano wire. The third was "My Best Friend's House," in which Sherman appears as a plastic-wrapped severed head stored in the refrigerator by her best friend's dad, who turns out to be a savage serial killer.[29]
Sherman's segments onWeekend Update are popular among the cast and viewers, as she tormentsColin Jost, who is willing to be the butt of the joke. Sherman has said that Jost urged her to create segments for them, and she says, "I took his kindness and used it to just bully him. And it worked great, but it only worked because he's having fun."[27] Her first foray, "Sarah Sherman Roasts Colin Jost," was listed byMashable at #6 in their ten favorite sketches of 2021, concluding, "She nails it."[30] She designs her own wacky over-the-shoulder graphics for the segments. Among her jokes in that roast, she asks him why there are no Jews in the cast. When he replies that thereare Jews on the show, including her, she turns to the camera and yells, "In other news, local wet blanket Colin Jost is keeping track of the amount of Jews atSNL. He's making a list and he's checking it twice."[14][31] In "Sarah Sherman Roasts Colin Jost Again" (2022), the premise is that she will explain how to remain cozy in the winter, but then embarrasses Jost by segueing into pubic hair, the cost of living in New York (she lives in his doghouse), and his relationship withMichael Che ("It's always will-they-won't-they with you two!"),[32] each joke turning the topic into an extended insult to Jost.
At times, Sherman portrays other characters: television journalistNancy Grace;[33] the widow ofPeanut the Squirrel;[34] an alarming meditation guru in aMorgan le Fay-type wig, Genesis Fry, who reveals Jost's darkest secrets; J.J. Gordon, Jost's Hollywood agent, who suggests humiliating film projects for him, such as aJurassic Park-themedporn film or abiopic entitledJost the Two of Us: My Summer withEpstein; and CJ Rossitano, who is revealed to be very likely Jost's son. Wearing clothes identical to Jost's and clutching a pencil as he habitually does, CJ says: "Me and my mom live right over on 47th and Fifth." Jost: "That's funny, that's where my former housekeeper lived." CJ: "What a coincidence, Colin! Mymom's a former housekeeper."Harry Chapin's father-son song "Cat's in the Cradle" rises in the background.[35]
Sherman has been praised by critics for adapting her unusual and surreal comedy style toSNL without losing its impact. Luka Katic ofCollider wrote, "Sherman certainly isn't the first unconventional comedian to be featured onSNL (i.e.Tim Robinson,Kyle Mooney, etc.). However, what makes her remarkable is her success in spite of that fact. Where actors like Robinson often felt they had to tone down their material forSNL, Sherman finds inventive alternative ways to channel her deranged sensibilities into the show."[36] Jesse Hassenger ofVulture listed Sherman's "Meatballs" sketch from theOscar Isaac/Charli XCX episode as one of the best of the season, writing, "In a crowded season, it was especially refreshing to come upon a sketch that feels like such a clear expression of its star's sensibilities."[37]Style Weekly wrote, "With her loud clown wear and freakish, squirrel-next-door-vibe, Sarah Sherman is hands down the funniest, most unpredictable cast member."[27]
Sherman has introduced new materials to the costumes and props departments. Sherman enjoys wearing weird outfits, raiding the show's 50 years' worth of costumes and devising new ones. "I playedRFK Jr.'s brain worm, and the costume department made me a couture worm [outfit]," she told an interviewer.[38] Looking back at earlier sketches in whichDan Aykroyd andJay Mohr faked vomiting, she developed "an advanced vomit rig that's handsfree, kind of likeBluetooth style," as she describes it.[10] She once asked Louie Zakarian, the show's multiple-Emmy-Award-winning special-effects makeup chief, to devise a fake seagull that could be impaled in her torso while moving its legs.[10]
In 2022, for her sketch "Eyes," Sarah delivered her performance wearinggoogly eyes (or wiggle eyes) which, her character explains, were "supposed to be refrigerated" but were left in the character's pockets. Zakarian adapted them so that they would allow Sherman "to see through the big eyes, readcue cards, and match it all to [her] skin." He "drilled one big hole in the back and a smaller one in the pupil part;" yet her body heat fogged up the surfaces. Zakarian said that, during the COVID pandemic, he'd discovered a fixing liquid good for certain surfaces, so he used it on the googly eyes. The fogging problem was discovered during thedress rehearsal, so he had only a few minutes to solve it.[39] When an interviewer asked why so many of herSNL sketches feature eyeballs, she credited her grandmother: "It's an exposed organ on your head, and it's not that deep. I also have a pathological neurosis about eyeballs because growing up, my grandma had one of her eyeballs removed and I was morbidly obsessed... I have herprosthetic eye. ... She would play these practical jokes on me with it when I was 8 years old. I would wake up and come down into the kitchen for breakfast, and she would turn around with no dentures or lens in. So she just had a white orb in her face and do a jump scare on me. And that was obviously very formative!"[13]
During an interview in which the two were experimenting with makeup effects, Zakarian said, "There are certain actors that you could put whatever you want on them and they don't transform. She just transforms." Sherman agreed: "I have kind of a 'no' face. I don't have crazy-distinct features."[14]The Guardian listed "Eyes" as one of "the 10 best sketches from the48th season".[40] Since the people who write a skit also produce it, they also figure out set design and props, according toVariety. Dan Bulla says, "You talk to every department and a lot of people are like, 'Well, what should the wardrobe be?' Sarah never doesn't have an answer for those questions. She can cut to it from the germ of an idea. She can visualize every aspect of it. She's on the phone with the people who build the puppets." Bulla says Sherman talks about visual effects and color palettes: "It's that granular for her, and all of her ideas start like that."[10]
Sherman was credited as a screenwriter for the reality comedy film sequelJackass Forever (2022).[41] She co-starred in theAdam Sandler comedy filmYou Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah (2023)[42] and was cast as a character indownloadable content for the video gameHigh on Life (2022).[43] She voice acted as "Coriander Cadaverish" in the animated filmNimona (2023)[44] and in a cameo for season 2 ofSeverance (2025).
Since October 2023, Sherman has hosted theNTS Radio showFreakradio Emergency Hotline.[45] Among the artists she has played on the program areMacula Dog,Doug Lussenhop,Johnny Pemberton,Clownvis Presley,Negativland, andThe Residents.[46] On September 5, 2024, Sherman began her guest starring role as dialect coach Robin Finch—for Lois Cerillo, played byRena Sofer—in the daytime soap operaGeneral Hospital.[47] In 2024, she debuted as a host for theHBO Max game showHuman vs Hamster.[48]
Sherman has said her comedic influences include television shows such asSeinfeld,The Nanny,The Golden Girls,Pee-wee's Playhouse, andThe Ren & Stimpy Show.[2][12] She told an interviewer, "I'm obsessed withJerry Lewis... I look like Jerry!"[13] She has citedNorm Macdonald as an influence on herSNL work: "He was a little troublemaker. I relate to him because he was never not himself."[22] She has also said, "I am obsessed with Norm MacDonald... can you imagine being on a show with Norm MacDonald, someone who's so fearless every week, saying the craziest shit on TV and getting in trouble for it?"[21]
When she started performing stand-up comedy, she took influences from comedians such asTodd Barry,Maria Bamford, andKristen Schaal.[49] InSNL history, she lovesDana Carvey's iconic sketch "Massive Head Wound Harry" (Season 17), in which Carvey wore a bloody, mangled head prosthetic which is tugged and chewed by a dog.[10][50]
OnLate Night with Seth Meyers in 2025,Meyers asked, "Were you somebody at a young age who was intoDavid Lynch stuff?" Sherman answered, "I feel like he taught me, like, how to think, basically. And I'm indream analysis and stuff because of him... I'm 15 [seeing Lynch'sBlue Velvet for the first time] and I'm going, 'I guess there's, like, a dark underbelly to Americana suburbia'."[28] When asked whether filmmakerDavid Cronenberg is an influence, she answered, "Yeah, one billion percent."[13]
Sherman supportedBernie Sanders in the2020 United States presidential election.[12] She is a member of theDemocratic Socialists of America.[51] She endorsedZohran Mamdani in the2025 New York City Democratic mayoral primary election.[52]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Magical Girl Friendship Squad | Lulu (voice) | 3 episodes | |
| 2021–present | Saturday Night Live | Herself / various | Main role | |
| 2022 | Three Busy Debras | Sarah | Episode: "The Great Debpression" | |
| 2022 | Tig n' Seek | Arcade Employee / various (voice) | Episode: "Wack E. Doodle Dandy" | |
| 2023 | Hamster & Gretel | Crimson Haste (voice) | Episode: "Crimson Haste Makes Waste/The Break-Stuff Club" | |
| 2023 | Star Trek: Very Short Treks | Mucara (voice) | Episode: "Worst Contact" | |
| 2023 | Chucky | Annie Gilpin | Episode: "Dressed to Kill" | |
| 2024 | Primos | Carmela (voice) | Episode: "Summer of Imi-Tater/Summer of Ignacio" | |
| 2024 | General Hospital | Robin Finch | 2 episodes | |
| 2024 | Human vs Hamster | Herself (host) | 8 episodes | |
| 2025 | Severance | Water Tower (voice) | Episode: "Hello, Ms. Cobel" | [53] |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Savasana | Yoga Girl | |
| 2019 | Holy Trinity | Miffy | |
| 2019 | Mister America | Angry Woman | |
| 2022 | Godkrusher | Minka | |
| 2023 | Nimona | Coriander Cadaverish (voice) | |
| 2023 | You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah | Rabbi Rebecca | |
| 2024 | Rap World | Sports Authority employee | |
| 2024 | Boys Go to Jupiter | Miss Sharon (voice) |
