Hello, Molly!: A Memoir

by Molly Shannon

There is no way to know exactly what happened that night, though my gut tells me he fell asleep at the wheel. But would he have fallen asleep without the drinking? It still keeps me up at night sometimes but, in the end, all that is relevant is that it changed our lives forever.

There was no way I could understand or accept they were not coming back. My whole life changed in an instant.

I wanted her to do things exactly as my mom had. It upset me that she didn’t. I felt that I wasn’t coming home to the life that I’d left. I would plead, “No! Mommy always cuts the crusts off!” She would just patiently say, “Show me exactly how your mom does it.”

IN SCHOOL I MISBEHAVED around female teachers—out of fear that I’d disappoint them the way I must’ve disappointed my mom. And I must have disappointed her. I must be defective. Otherwise, why would she have left? All I could think was I did something bad to make her leave. So I acted bad around teachers to keep from getting close to them. That way I’d never get hurt again. I’ll be bad first. I’ll leave you first. I could be in control and they wouldn’t surprise me by leaving. I would disappoint them first. I expected them to leave. And that continued all through grade school. I didn’t get close to female teachers. But the truth was I felt like these teachers couldn’t really see how hard I was struggling. There wasn’t anybody who was really thinking, Hey, this little girl lost her mom, so she’s acting out.

I was four years old, my mother was dead, my sister Katie was dead, my father had just gotten out of the hospital, my whole world had collapsed, and there I was, trying to sing “The Wheels on the Bus.”

Also, Aunt Bernie had never told my uncle John what my mom had said about the rough ride home. Because if she had, he’d have asked why she’d let their daughter get in the car and ride home with my dad driving. That tension was always in the air.

If you ever feel stuck, just go into a completely different atmosphere with different kinds of people and see how stimulating it is. There’s nothing better.

The main reason for this was that I never wanted anyone to feel the way I did—left out, forgotten, not included—so I was good to everyone.

I remember thinking, I do have a mother. Yes, I do! And she loves me. Okay, she’s not here and she can’t pick me up from school like all your mothers because she’s in heaven. But I have a mom. I wanted to get him to understand.

When you lose a parent, you don’t want anybody to treat you differently. You want to blend in. At that point I didn’t want anybody to bring it up. I was just embarrassed about the whole thing. But it made me realize how vulnerable I really was.

Molly, you’re naturally good at that because you’re so interested in people, and that’s why you have a lot of friends.” Which was the same thing my mother had noticed about me.

There was always so much drama. A lot of my childhood was spent listening to my dad talking about how he had lost his wife. Not how we had lost our mom! How he had lost his wife.

SINCE MY DAD HAD the role of both mother and father, he sometimes was overwhelmed. I see this even more being a parent now and wondering how he possibly did it all by himself. He was 24/7 with two little girls. There was no wife. He had no help. He had to pick us up from school, keep the house clean, take us to piano, cook us dinner, make money—he didn’t have a day job but was managing rental properties and appraising houses to make ends meet—all by himself. It was a lot for a single man.

A FEW YEARS AGO someone asked me what lesson I learned from hopping the plane. I said the lesson I learned is that I could get what I want with a break-the-rules, everything-is-an-adventure, people-are-mostly-good mentality. The world seemed open to me.

Terry taught sense memory, which was a popular acting technique. During what she called a “private moment” exercise in class, she asked students to get up and recall an emotional, personal experience from childhood. The exercise was designed to help actors feel they were in private while in a public space—to shed the self-consciousness that sometimes inhibits an actor’s performance. For the exercise, we had to be very detailed and specific in reconstructing our memories, answering all sorts of questions for Terry. She gave us ten minutes to “experience

With that Arlecchino I found myself as an artist and a performer. I learned I could make people really laugh. I learned to trust myself. That somewhere deep in my gut I knew not to over-rehearse but to just let it rip. Know the basic beats but then let yourself be free within those parameters, which is what I ended up doing years later on SNL.

This was the first time I ever tried out for something comic—and I got cast. It was a very small cast. And Adam Sandler got cast as well. He was unknown to the public but at NYU he was already famous. He would do stand-up shows in the cafeteria at Weinstein, the dorm where he lived—just get up and do a set. And people loved him.

NOW, THIRTY YEARS LATER, that’s still my spiritual/business philosophy. Struggle itself is meaningful. You never know where anything is going to go. You don’t know. I didn’t know if I would ever make it. But I have a positive attitude and I think people always see that in me. And I still pursue show business that same way.

“You know,” he said, “comedy is king.” I said, “Is it? Is comedy king?” “Yes, it is. The best way to get into show business is through comedy.” “Ooh, but I’m a dramatic actress.” Then I mulled it over and realized I believed him. Okay, I thought. Comedy is king.

I thought the show should focus on you because you were something unique. Not a lot of women at the time were really willing to let their guard down. You could be dark and edgy, lewd and crude, totally outrageous. You didn’t care about how you appeared on stage, because it wasn’t you. You weren’t playing a part; you became the character.

But I always felt like there was an ache in my heart. Like someone was missing. My mom. There was this longing. A terrible ache. I couldn’t quite be happy. I couldn’t take it in that people liked it. I was driven to keep doing the shows and to work harder.

After each show the next day, I’d walk around the block and review the whole performance in my head, revising according to how the audience had responded to every joke, and I would keep adjusting it—going through each beat. A process I think of as oral writing. Then I’d actually write out notes and follow them for the next live show.

“Thank you, Ibrahim,” I said. After that, I drove to Pan Pacific Park and listened to “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel over and over again on my Sony Walkman. It was really windy. I kept rewinding the song. I could feel that change was in the air. There was a kind of magic in the night. One of those nights. It was a very profound moment. I knew it was time. I’m gonna take a chance and get out of here. I really embraced the unknown. That was the spirit. Not knowing what lay ahead. I could feel that my life was going to change.

the montage played. George Clooney was the host of my first show. I was in the opening monologue, playing the part of his assistant, and I remember thinking, Oh my God, this is so cool. Saturday Night Live has an amazing band, and I don’t have to pay for it myself with my waitressing money. I had Gilda Radner’s old dressing room. Lorne sent me flowers and a note that said, “Welcome to Saturday Night Live. I’m really glad you’re here.” It made my head explode.

It was sort of one of those times when everyone was on the same wavelength.

So you have to think of an idea and then pitch it to the host on Monday. Tuesday night you write until the sun rises. People are working till 6:00 a.m. I always felt like I had to apologize to Mike Shoemaker, one of the show’s legendary longtime producers, if I stepped out at 4:00 a.m. to go home to sleep.

Lorne, the head writers, and the producers selected what was going to go into the show after the table read. If your piece got picked, you were elated. And you were the producer of that sketch—working with art directors, costumers, set designers, hair designers. Crews began building the sets Thursday and Friday while you rehearsed.

plain Jane. The sketch is a story of somebody who against all odds succeeds. The character is a survivor. She struggles to rise above the wreckage. A girl who trips. Who breaks things. Who’s nervous. Who’s in her head. Who obsesses. Gets crushes. Fucks up. But gets back up. It’s an emotional character. I wrote from my heart.

The one person I wanted more than anyone to tell me I was good was my mom. She was really the only one I wanted. I had thought if I could just be good enough, funny enough—do back flips and make everyone laugh and cheer—then maybe she would come back.

The longing had kept me connected to my mom since she’d died. I realized I’d been running for years, driven to work so hard, on this track, trying to make it, to achieve, and when I finally got there . . . there was still that ache. But it was a relief to realize fame doesn’t fix anything—including having to pay back your student loans: busted. It was a profound revelation.

Every week I had friends in the audience who were excited to see me. And after the live broadcast, in the big black stretch limo on the way to the after-party—each cast member had their own stretch limo to go

At that time, they were all unknowns, all up-and-coming, which is why I believe so strongly that you need to build your relationships with the people you click with.

It felt like women were suddenly at the center of the show again. It had been a boys’ club for a while, and a very funny one, but women had taken a back seat. These articles marked a sea change for women. Suddenly our sketches started being at the top of the show again.

When Jennifer Aniston hosted SNL, I never told her I had seen her at Cravings. She was in a sketch with Sting and me, and she was a pro. So easygoing and fun and game for anything. The best hosts are the ones who are open and willing to do anything and just go with the flow. The hosts who trust Lorne and the writers. Lorne and the producers always want to make the hosts look good. Jim Carrey was another one who just came on and would try anything—elevating every sketch he was in with ideas. And I had waited on him, too.

THEN, LITERALLY FIVE SECONDS before Ana was about to go on, all dressed and ready to do Whitney’s part, Whitney appeared like a vision. “Oh my God, Whitney’s here—swap them!” I thought, Yes! And Whitney delivered. She was fantastic. It’s now a famous sketch that they replay all the time at Christmas. After the show, in the hallways of Studio 8H, with all these fans surrounding her, Whitney spotted me and, with the biggest smile on her face, said, “Girl—you are so crazy! That was so fun!” She was so happy and excited and sweet, and I could tell she had a good silly sense of humor. Silly—I knew that.

After read-throughs, on Wednesdays, Adam McKay, Dennis McNicholas, Chris Kattan, Matt Piedmont, Will Ferrell, Harper Steele, Tim Meadows, and Paula and I would all go out for drinks at McSorley’s to unwind, and celebrate if our sketches got picked.

And I think it’s a good sign when someone laughs during a sketch. It shows that you’re open, you’re really listening, and your instrument is relaxed. The audience likes it, too. It gives them license to laugh. And they feel in on something happening live.

When I travel I like to study people waiting for their planes at airport bars. I think about their lives. Where are they headed? I wonder. How long is their layover? Oh, interesting, he’s drinking a Heineken. It’s only noon. In the sketch Will asks my character some innocent

I INITIALLY LIKED COMEDY because I felt like an outsider, so I hate when comedy becomes too cool for school. That’s not my thing. Comedy groups that are too cliquey or culty. Comedians are the outsiders, the odd ones, the freaks, the geeks.

It was an affront to Mary and me what babies some girls got to be. There’s a big difference between losing a grandparent as an adult versus losing your parent when you’re a kid. It was our reaction to girls who could take for granted having a mommy and a daddy. Girls who didn’t struggle much, for whom things came easily, but who still want to be rescued from their pain irritated my sister and me. The types of girls who got diamond “push presents” from their hubbies, after pushing their babies out, when there was just no struggle.

“You talk about yourself—that you lost your wife,” I said. “We lost our mother! Do you ever think about that? You lost your wife—but Mary and I lost our mom. Does that ever dawn on you?”

He said, “Molly—Molly. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about the accident. Not a day goes by when I don’t think about that and replay it.” It broke my heart. He’d never said it so openly before. We had never talked about it directly because it was so heavy. But now we had broken through. And it was a very big moment of understanding and forgiveness and compassion. It. Was. Huge. “Not a day goes by.” I never knew this. When you are living in a house where guilt is alive, it leaves a mark. My dad was coping with guilt as an adult, but we were coping with it as children. And when you are living in an atmosphere of daily, ever-present guilt, what does that do to children? It changes their souls.

I shouted, “Yippee!” all by myself. A woman from SNL hadn’t been nominated in over twenty years. Not since Jane Curtin in 1978.

All the cast mothers would be performing with their kids. And my mom for the night would be my dad. I would’ve stayed and finished out the season if I couldn’t have come back for this show. That’s how important it was for me that my dad got to be on the show. Maya Rudolph, whose mother, the singer Minnie Riperton, had died when Maya was six, was going to have her dad there, too.

Before we could clean it up, the happiness in seeing our labors make for a more beautiful home with the main ingredient love apparent in our communication with one another.

and a white sweater with a shamrock stitched on it. When she told him he’d had to play both parental roles, mother and father, he liked that a lot. “I never thought of it that way,” he said.

Death brings up so much. All the love and truth can pour out at the end.

And they were. It’s good to be responsible, but there’s no point in being so stressed that you can’t adjust or bend the rules a little when necessary. Particularly when dealing with your kids. I’d rather send them to school happy and relaxed than send them to school when they aren’t quite ready.

My character replies, “I get to see my whole world at dinner tonight. My kids, my family—that’s my whole world.” And that line takes my breath away, because it is exactly how I feel, too.

I FEEL SO LUCKY. I got four and a half years with my mom on earth. I’m grateful I got that time with her. It’s substantial and thank God I had that. Losing my mom at such a young age gave me this urgency—like, This is it: you are up to bat, baby! Because you never know how much time you’re going to have with someone. It gave me a sense of gratitude for the time on earth you do have with people. I don’t take any of it for granted. I love being a mom to Stella and Nolan. I truly feel like I hit the jackpot getting to be their mom. And some of the stuff that people complain about as far as parenting goes I can’t relate to. I just think, They are alive. We are all alive. Nobody is dead. I think that a lot: There is nothing to be upset about. We’re alive!