How Lauren Lapkus ‘Let Go’ of Her Lifelong SNL Dream

Lauren Lapkus grew up with one goal in mind: someday joining the cast of Saturday Night Live. Now, nearly 20 years into a comedy career that has included scene-stealing roles in everything from Orange Is the New Black to Jurassic World, she has finally been able to “let go” of the way she thought things would go and fully embrace her unique place in the comedy world.

It helps, Lapkus explains in this episode of The Last Laugh podcast, that she has now landed lead roles in both broad comedies like 2020’s The Wrong Missy and her latest, the darkly comedic postpartum depression dramedy Another Happy Day. Lapkus also discusses how the Comedy Bang! Bang! podcast opened new doors for her and what it was like to go up against Kate McKinnon for that coveted spot on SNL.

Lapkus first got the script for Another Happy Day in 2018, but then four years passed before production ultimately began. During that time, the world experienced a global pandemic and Lapkus gave birth to her first daughter (she now also has a 5-month-old baby girl). She ended up being thankful for the long delay because by the time they started shooting, she was able to draw on her own postpartum experience.

“I didn’t have postpartum depression, but I knew what it was like to have a newborn, and that informed my performance so much,” she says. “I’m so grateful, actually, that it took the amount of time that it did to make the film because I was able to bring much more to it than I could have before.”

The new film is much darker—and contains much more crying—than anything Lapkus, who is mostly known for more absurdist comedy, has done before. “I had to cry a couple of times in other things,” she says. “But it's usually like watching a dinosaur eat a person or something.”

Another Happy Day’s tone is just about as far removed as possible from her previous breakthrough movie role in Netflix’s The Wrong Missy, in which she delivered a gonzo performance that Howard Stern likened to a cross between Jim Carrey and Chris Farley opposite straight man David Spade. “It was my dream,” she says now of that project, which probably would have led to bigger things if it hadn’t come out right at the beginning of the shutdown in May of 2020. “I would be happy if I just did that kind of thing forever,” she adds. “I very rarely get any auditions or anything that comes my way that looks anything like that. But it was a real, real dream come true in many ways.”

Before that, Lapkus’ one and only dream was SNL. Starting around fourth grade, she recalls thinking, “That’s what I want to do. And it became my goal.” She started taking classes at the iO Theater in her hometown of Chicago and before long landed an audition for the show in 2012.

“Kate McKinnon got it that year, which makes total sense, she’s incredible,” Lapkus says now. “You see someone [like that] and you go, oh yeah, obviously, you’re gonna get it. She crushed it.”

“Of course I felt sad, but the experience of testing on the stage was so affirming and amazing, just to be in that space was the coolest thing ever,” Lapkus adds. Looking back, she says she doesn’t know if it was “the best audition” she’d ever done, but she still feels “so proud” that she got to do it.

Lapkus “held onto” the SNL dream for a while, but as she started getting more opportunities on TV—including as one of eight alternative comedians to get her own half-hour sketch special on Netflix in 2016 as part of The Characters series—she began to “let go.”

“I was getting my dream fulfilled in a way that I didn’t expect,” she says. “The dream kind of shifted. And it was like, oh, I’m actually really happy with what my life is and I don’t feel too bad about it. I was able to let go of it at a certain point. But yeah, it's hard to let go.”

Lapkus is also aware that not everyone who makes it onto SNL gets to be Kate McKinnon. There are plenty of stories about cast members who only lasted a season or two before getting unceremoniously fired. “It’s not your dream to get on and then be fired really quickly, or be let go after the first season,” she says. “So it’s not a total loss. You just don’t know if you’re gonna be Kristen Wiig or if you’re gonna be like, ‘That was weird.’”

As for what she wants to do next, the 39-year-old Lapkus says she’s open to playing more mom roles, something she resisted for a long time. “Before I had kids, I was like, I don’t want to be cast as a mom. I’m only 35!” she says with a laugh. “I was just not in that category in my head. But now, I’m totally into it.”

When I jokingly ask if she is now officially in her “mom era,” Lapkus replies, “Yeah, I think I am,” before openly worrying that catchy phrase would become the headline of this article. We’ll spare her that embarrassment, but she’s ready for anything.

Listen to the episode now and follow The Last Laugh on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get your podcasts to be the first to hear new episodes when they are released every Wednesday.

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