The ice was broken long before the cameras started rolling at THR’s annual Comedy Actresses Emmy Roundtable at The Georgian Hotel. “Your cleavage is remarkable, and I mean that respectfully,” Keke Palmer (The ’Burbs) tells I Love LA’s Rachel Sennott, just as the conversation is set to begin. She adds, “You know fashion, head-to-toe. You’re that girl.” “You’re that girl, as well,” Sennott replies. It was a true convocation of those girls. Also present: ascendant Saturday Night Live player Ashley Padilla, returned sitcom queen Lisa Kudrow (The Comeback), network comedy savior Quinta Brunson (Abbott Elementary) — she has thoughts on that label, by the way — and Hacks breakout Hannah Einbinder. Over the course of an hour, they all swapped stories about experiences in the industry that have amused, annoyed and flat-out shocked them.
What is the most amusing or interesting feedback that you’ve gotten trying out for a part?
RACHEL SENNOTT So, I did Accutane. Everyone probably knows because I talk about it every second of every day.
HANNAH EINBINDER She actually made it possible for me to do Accutane, and I just want to recognize the people who came before me.
KEKE PALMER And I did it before both of you.
QUINTA BRUNSON What is it?
SENNOTT It’s a really intense acne medication. I had bad acne, and I was very self-conscious about it. I feel like I would often audition for parts where they would be like, “And we can keep all of this.” (Motions to her face.)
ALL Oh, no!
SENNOTT I would do so much makeup and cover-up before an audition, look in the mirror and be like, “They can’t tell … No one knows.” Then the first thing you hear is, “We’re keeping all of that.”
PALMER The worst feedback I’ve gotten is no feedback — when it’s just, “It ain’t you.” Can I know? Was it the age? Is it the vibe? Was it a different role? “You’re great.” But I wasn’t! I would have gotten the role.
EINBINDER One of the notes that I received on season one of Hacks the most was, “Less sad.”
LISA KUDROW I was very excited to audition for Garry Shandling for The Larry Sanders Show. He was doing something funny before we started the actual scene, and I was just playing along — really dry, too dry. I said something that made them go [imitates a car screeching to a stop]. I thought I was being funny, then we read the scene, and he went, “OK, thank you.” I walk out, and it’s a really long hallway to the elevator, and I hear the door open and I turn around, I’m miles away, and there’s Garry Shandling just [waving] and says, “OK, we’ll call you.”
BRUNSON The first pilot that I auditioned for, I did not want to go. But I went and I read the lines off of the paper — no actress or actor should do this ever. I didn’t do a good job. And the feedback I got from a very prominent producer named Rob Thomas was, “I want you to come back tomorrow. Could you know the lines?” That feedback really stuck with me. And I did wind up getting that role when I came back. But don’t show up and seem like you don’t care.
ASHLEY PADILLA On SNL, I tested once, I even celebrated after — like a total jerk. My manager and I had a drink at a bar, like, “We did it!” Then I got a call a week later: “Lorne [Michaels] wants you to come back and test again. All new characters. Brand new five minutes.”
KUDROW Did you have that?
PADILLA No, I didn’t have another five minutes. I did the thing I had and worked hard on. I just sobbed. I said, “Well, what should be different? Can I know?” “No wigs.”
SENNOTT No wigs?!
PADILLA “No wigs. He wants to see you.” I’m used to hiding behind a character and putting on a funny voice. It was scary. But I showed up — no wigs, just my hair — and did funny stuff and it brought myself into the audition. Then I booked it.
BRUNSON And she’s a star!
People talk a lot about bombing in stand-up, but many of you got your start in improv and sketch. When was “Yes, and” an “Oh no”?
BRUNSON Bombing in improv to me was the most fun and freeing because you had to get yourself out of it. You learn lessons in those moments that you can’t get anywhere [else]. You’re in front of an audience, making up stuff, really fighting to get the crowd back on your side. You do it in stand-up, too, of course; but improv, it’s like four idiots up there talking about some made-up scene from some suggestion from the crowd. So, the rush of actually getting everyone back in, there’s nothing better.
PADILLA There’s less pressure, too. Whereas, if you write something and it bombs, it’s like, “Oh no. I worked on that.”
SENNOTT This is a stand-up bomb because I started in stand-up. I did a lot of college shows, and I did one in Florida that was not my crowd. I had 30 minutes of what I thought was really good stuff, and I tore through it in like seven. I was looking at the clock, thinking, “If that was my best, what am I going to do now?” It was really rough. “So, what’s everybody’s major?”
KUDROW I don’t acknowledge bombing. I mean, I acknowledge it, but it doesn’t feel bad. If you stay in the moment of what’s happening and go with it, then you’ve just got to be OK. The audience just wants to know you’re OK.
Keke, you’ve spoken a lot about how you’ve taken the flamboyant aspects of yourself to create a persona and a career out of that persona. A few years ago, you characterized it as, “I’m Walt Disney, that’s Mickey Mouse.” At this point, do you feel like the industry is coming to you for Mickey or Walt?
PALMER It’s both, and I’m in a phase of really knowing which one speaks to me at which time in the conversation that I’m trying to have as the architect of my career. For me, Keke Palmer, the character I was able to create digitally — especially coming from being a child entertainer when everybody was like, “You’re a has-been!” — was about finding my voice in comedy through sketch. I was able to create a new voice [for myself], but it’s also just one of my voices. I want you to see the person that created that voice.
Similarly, Hannah, you’ve said your stand-up act is how you want to present yourself to the world — the voice that you wish you had. Given all that’s happened in your career these past few years, is that happening?
EINBINDER My stand-up is highly stylized, so there’s an element of it that will always be separate from myself. What I was portraying in my stand-up was highly, highly confident. And I think that I have come into that more naturally. I got into comedy because I was really not OK, and I really, really needed other people to validate that I was OK. That was what I was after, completely. Over the years, I’ve been so lucky to have the experience and do the work to actually build self-esteem, which is not something that I used to have. That confidence is something that I actually manifested in real life.
A few of you are very online. Who reads comments, and what have been some of the wilder things said about you or your work?
PALMER One time, somebody said, “Keke Palmer is too Keke Palmer at this point.”
EINBINDER That’s a compliment.
PALMER I was gagged because I’m like, “I think I love this, but I’m not sure.” And, also, “Yes!” I love to engage with the folks.
SENNOTT It really depends on the mindset you have going in. I started on Twitter, and then I left …
PALMER Whew! Brutal out there.
SENNOTT I had to just go completely clean, like, not look at anything. Then I toe-dipped back in when I was checking in for a friend, who was like, “What are they saying about me?” I said, “I can look for you,” and then I started swimming around. I’m also in a group chat with my sisters, and they always send me things where they’re like, “This is funny and not going to destroy you.” Every now and then, I think you have to check in.
PALMER I mean, if they’re not saying anything, then …
SENNOTT Then you’re in trouble! People also get really creative.
PALMER What I’ve started to realize is that they want to be comedians.
PADILLA Oh, yeah.
PALMER They’re trying to get some likes or a little repost.
What was it like when you were working at BuzzFeed, Quinta? Did you engage?
BRUNSON My relationship to the internet was different back then. It was my job. It’s not me that they’re engaging with, it’s my work. Even then, I wasn’t too big on comments because … How do I say this and not get in trouble?
EINBINDER You got this.
KUDROW Why would you get in trouble if it’s the truth?
BRUNSON I just don’t feel like comments are actually valuable in the space. I want to know how you feel. Did you enjoy it? And I’m not even sure I want to know that.
SENNOTT Actually … no.
BRUNSON I don’t. I went to a museum two years ago, and I was sitting there thinking about painters. They did the painting. The painting is done. They don’t know what I think about it when I walk through the museum. If I look at the painting and I get something totally different from it than the artist intended, then that’s my business. So, I’ve really tried to approach things like that. Transparently, I don’t even have my main Instagram account on my phone. I have a social person who runs that now because I don’t need to see it.
SENNOTT I’ll stop DM-ing.
KUDROW I think that’s the most respectful thing you can do with an audience. You produce art. It’s up to the person experiencing the art to have their own experience. It’s like a Rorschach test.
Lisa, you recently said that, in the late ’90s, some of your representatives referred to you internally as “the sixth Friend.” They had no faith for your career, even though you were the only Friends castmate with an Emmy at that point. Why did you stay with these people?
KUDROW That was what the talk among the business folk was. But I really didn’t care because it didn’t matter. I did a movie right after the first season, an Albert Brooks movie. Yay! And then the next season, I did two movies: Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion and Clockwatchers. I just thought it doesn’t matter, does it, what anyone thinks? I have to do what I do.
PALMER Period.
Is there a moment where you felt it shift, like the business got you?
KUDROW I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention to it. Remember, I’m never bombing. (Laughter.)
Rachel, when you were making I Love LA, you would take walks on the Warner Bros. lot and run into Quinta, another creator-slash-star. What were your conversations like?
SENNOTT We would lock eyes, and Quinta would just be like, “You OK? Like, what’s going on?” There’s something about having people [in it with you], especially other women around your age. We talked about how to be taken seriously but also still be fun and yourself — still be funny and do the thing that got you the show.
PALMER It’s a lot of hats!
SENNOTT A lot. Having someone who was doing all of that and doing it so well that I look up to … it was nice to just check in and feel like, “You get it.” Do you remember when we met at that little garden thing where they have the piece of the …
BRUNSON The Berlin Wall?
KUDROW I don’t remember seeing that. I took walks, too.
BRUNSON It’s [a piece of] the Berlin Wall on the Warner Bros. lot. It’s in front of the Starbucks.
SENNOTT So we met outside the Berlin Wall, and I was talking about trying to prove myself in the writers room. You were talking a little bit about your experience and [how] every season is a new challenge. Because I said something like, “Well, once I get through the first season, then it’s smooth sailing?” Quinta was like, “My love, no.”
BRUNSON And I really value Rachel being there. There are not many shows shooting on the lot. For a while, it was just like us and Young Sheldon. Then Young Sheldon went, and The Pitt came, and that was nice, but it’s a whole different vibe.
SENNOTT They’re bleeding! (Laughter.)
Over the course of the five seasons of Abbott, I’m sure there have been lots of offers that you’ve probably had to say no to — including opportunities to collaborate with people who really excite you. How good are you at saying no?
BRUNSON Unfortunately, very good. I don’t have a choice. I’d love to do more things. I was so happy for the opportunity to be able to come to SNL [in May 2025] and work with Ashley and get to know her. But that was only because Abbott wrapped in time. But it doesn’t really end for me when it wraps. It ends after the finale airs [in late April]. And then we go back to the writers room at the end of May. So, it’s really just a month.
KUDROW End of May!? It’s single-camera, so it takes longer to shoot?
BRUNSON Because it’s a mockumentary, it’s actually more similar to a multicam. It’s not four days a week, but it’s quick. And we have kids, so there are a lot of reasons why we’re quicker to film.
PALMER Those kids will keep the day tight. I miss those kid days for myself.
BRUNSON You’ve got that kid [actor] survivor card.
EINBINDER You should get to board the plane first.
PALMER Thank you. Cheers to that!
Ashley, the internet has deemed you the MVP of SNL this season. You have broken all kinds of onscreen time records. Robert Smigel, one of the more famous writers to come out of the show, recently called you “a miracle.” How does all this attention impact the way you navigate the most infamously competitive workplace?
BRUNSON Thank you for asking. I really want to know this.
PADILLA It’s funny, because I do not see the show as competitive. That sounds so silly to people. It almost feels disrespectful to people. I remember someone saying to me, “There are sharks in the water there.” That was what I was going into. But I see it as a collaborative place to be funny with wonderful friends. And if your thing gets on, that’s awesome. If not, you’ve got to help your teammates and their sketch. You’ll try again next week. At the Groundlings, you have to write for yourself to get on that stage. So, I had that tool with me going in. I empathize with my peers who maybe came from the stand-up world or don’t write sketches [because] they’re like, “I need help!” But I’m having a good time. The online stuff is surreal to me.
How would you describe your role in the cast?
PADILLA Marcello Hernández called me his big sister, and I was like, “Oh, that feels right.” Some would probably say that. Maybe someone’s like, “She’s the bitch!” (Laughter.)
KUDROW They’re scared of you! That’s why everyone is so nice.
PADILLA There we go.
KUDROW But it’s not competitive? It used to be very competitive.
BRUNSON (To Einbinder) Your mama [Laraine Newman] was in it. Do you feel like she thought it was competitive? Can you speak on behalf of your mother in front of all of us?
EINBINDER I think that cast is perhaps different from all the others. In the ’70s, they were just launching it. They didn’t know what was going on.
KUDROW Listen, Groundlings was ridiculously competitive when I was there. And it’s like SNL boot camp.
PADILLA It was pleasant?
KUDROW It was unpleasant.
PADILLA Oh!
PALMER (To Kudrow and Padilla) Did you guys feel that you had this experience at Groundlings, that it was very competitive?
KUDROW Well, I was there a hundred years before she was.
PADILLA I tend to mind my own business, in a way. I submit my sketch before bedtime [at SNL]. And then everyone’s like, “I was up till 4.” And I’m like, “Oh, no.” Maybe minding my business sounds horrible …
BRUNSON No, it doesn’t.
PALMER It’s a job. A lot of times in our industry, everything becomes about that networking. Look, man, [the work] is what y’all hired me for. I’m coming here to do that. If we say “hey” and get coffee in the morning, we make a little vibe, that’s great. Otherwise, I’m going home. You can’t get caught up.
KUDROW So you don’t do the overnight, up-all-night thing?
PADILLA I do not.
KUDROW See? You don’t have to and you’re the best.
PADILLA I feel like I got the job at a point in my life where I went, “I don’t care anymore.” I was not booking stuff, and I was just like, “I don’t care.” I got tired of not living my life for myself. And that’s when everything came. To lose that would be silly now. It doesn’t mean I’m not turning in my work and being a hundred percent. But to be a hundred percent, I need sleep.
PALMER That’s right. I went to bed last night at 9 p.m.
BRUNSON 10:30 for me is an accomplishment.
EINBINDER I was fighting sleep at 9:30. I didn’t win that battle.
Hannah, Hacks is over …
EINBINDER WHAT!?!
This is a huge show that has, in many respects, defined your career thus far. How are you approaching what’s next? And how are you feeling?
EINBINDER I feel total liberation. I’ve had an experience that has modeled the intersection of community and quality, which is all I’m after. Hacks has set the bar and created a precedent for me. I view whatever comes next as just abundance. I feel excited and proud of our show. Hacks is over, I guess technically, but it has changed me forever. The people I work with have changed me fundamentally as a human being. Like I said earlier, I was able to come into myself on that show because I was supported by people who I admired. And I was like, “Well, if they think I’m OK, I’m probably OK.”
KUDROW You are!
PALMER It’s really so good to hear that you had a community around you [on set]. That’s not always the case.
EINBINDER I know that it’s very toxic when people say, “It’s like a family.” (Laughs.) It’s hard to say that about a work environment, but I have those feelings for my people.
Quinta, even after five seasons, you are still being referred to as the woman who saved the network comedy. What do you think of that label? Do you even identify with that?
BRUNSON Those kinds of labels are cool and all, but I just wanted to make a show. I made the show, and I’m happy that people enjoy the show. But it’s reactive. It ignores that there have been other shows holding it down. So that’s why I have a hard time with it because I don’t think it’s 100 percent true. And I think it ignores the work of many other people around me.
KUDROW But what if it was true for a moment? It was true and maybe is still true. I don’t know why I don’t like you saying that. It’s just that you did revitalize [the network sitcom] with your show and your voice and your humor. I think that is true.
BRUNSON Thank you. I appreciate it.
KUDROW And I know everything.
BRUNSON You do.
KUDROW I don’t know anything! (Laughs.)
BRUNSON We’re all here because of each other. Because Keke has done things, I’m able to do things. Everything is just puzzle pieces.
SENNOTT And it’s always morphing and changing. Sometimes that’s what’s hard about being given a title. I’m trying to think about what they could say for me. “You’re showing butt in a different way!” (Laughs.)
PALMER They put that stuff on you, too, where it’s like, “She’s the new …”
BRUNSON I was over here just making this show.
SENNOTT Then other people go, “Is she really even the new …?” “Wait, I didn’t even say [that]!” It’s pressure.
PALMER The publicists have to be stopped! (Laughter.) They’re setting us up. Tone down. “She’s the first! They’re the only! She’s the one! They revived!” You’ve given us a death sentence.
PADILLA Those are the comments that I need to ignore. “She’s Kristen Wiig. No, she’s Kate McKinnon.” Because it’s the same show with different people, they’re trying to label. That is the hardest part. I’m like, “I promise you I have something else to say.”
EINBINDER Well, it’s dripping in misogyny.
PALMER Are we going to open up that box?
EINBINDER I have a key right here. And I have a spare.
BRUNSON For us in the Black girl spaces, we get compared in such a way that is so crazy. It’s just not fair to us. Keke and I are two totally different individuals, and there are so few of us in this space. And you’re already getting compared to other actresses. It hurts what we actually are capable of.
Ashley, you got a pretty viral fart sketch on air this year, and Lorne Michaels famously doesn’t love fart jokes. How did he react to it? Was it difficult to get on?
PADILLA That sketch I used to do at the Groundlings. I just love someone taking something small very seriously. That’s what comedy is. And it’s like, what is dumber than a fart? If you have that contrast of someone who’s very serious and then they fart, it’s playing with that. So, it’s not the fart itself.
SENNOTT It’s the concept around the fart, if you will. (Laughter.)
PADILLA Exactly. I think Lorne respects when something is just done well. We’re not just throwing farts in, and he’s like, “Put it on television!”
To that point, what’s everybody’s appetite for potty humor?
PADILLA [There’s] a show they do at Groundlings where everyone [in the audience] has to put their phones in a bag and you can do gross-out humor. It’s really intense. I was like, “Oh, I got one. Snot comes out of her nose!” They were like, “You’re not going to be a part of this show.” I don’t have that in me.
SENNOTT It’s like … gruesome.
PADILLA Yeah, Sarah Sherman [Padilla’s SNL castmate] kills it. She finds a way to do all that.
PALMER It must be on some “2 Girls 1 Cup.” Taking it back to the table. [Editor’s Note: “2 Girls 1 Cup” is the unofficial name of a clip from a Brazilian fetish porn that went viral in 2007. Google a more thorough explanation at your own peril.]
EINBINDER (Guffaws.)
BRUNSON Keke!
PALMER They should have protected us. They should have protected us!
EINBINDER I need you on the Senate floor.
PALMER That was the start.
EINBINDER It was the beginning of the end.
SENNOTT We should watch “2 Girls 1 Cup” at the Roundtable. (Laughter.)
OK, we have to move away from that. What is the most bizarre fan interaction each of you has ever had?
KUDROW I have my favorite. It was during Friends, and I was going to Jerry’s Deli or something and the hostess had an accent. She was from somewhere in Eastern Europe and just went [whispering], “I know who you are.” I went, “Aw, yeah.” And she said, “You are Dionne Warwick.” I just went, “No, I’m not. I am not.”
BRUNSON No.
KUDROW I kind of felt this, “She doesn’t know who I am?” And then it was, wait … Dionne Warwick?
BRUNSON I love that. Just face blindness. American face blindness.
PALMER Girl, if you’re Dionne Warwick, I’m Stevie Nicks. [Starts singing] “I took my love, and I took it down …”
KUDROW OK!
PALMER I have a group of fans that are like my aunties. “How that baby doing?” “When is Password coming back?” When I had my album come out, because it was all about women empowerment, they were like, “Girl, I had to let his ass go, too! Ten years I’ve been divorced. Happier than I ever been.” They just breathe so much life in.
BRUNSON Those are beautiful.
EINBINDER My ideal is “gay person in motion.” We’re walking and they give me something along the lines of (subtly points in recognition). I’ll throw it back, like (raises eyebrows, nods). It’s unspoken. I’ve had that happen a couple of times. It’s always awesome. Gay person in motion, that’s what I’m after.
SENNOTT I do love when people ask you to list your credits …
PALMER “Where do I know you from?”
SENNOTT Then you’re just frozen in space with them.
BRUNSON “You were in I Love Boosters.” Nope, that’s Keke. Literally, all the time. It happened to Niecy Nash recently. She was signing autographs outside of Jimmy Kimmel or one of them, and she signed it and they were like, “We love you on Abbott!” So, Niecy’s like, “Which one do you think I am? Do you think I’m Sheryl [Lee Ralph] or Quinta or Janelle [James]?” But those are hilarious, too. I’ve also gotten it where it’s like, “I know you, but I don’t know where from.” So, Dionne Warwick? That’s going to make me feel better.
This story appears in the June 3 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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