Cecily Strong of “SNL” via Chicago has launched “Schmigadoon” and written a memoir — but she’s still figuring it all out.
Cecily Strong of ‘SNL’ via Chicago has launched ‘Schmigadoon!’ and written a memoir
During the season finale of “Saturday Night Live” in May, Cecily Strong climbed into a large clear cube marked “boxed wine” and belted Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” lowering herself triumphantly into a pool of red wine as the song crescendoed. She was playing Fox News’ Judge Jeanine Pirro, a frequent highlight of “Weekend Update,” sloshing her booze onto co-anchor Colin Jost while rat-a-tat-tatting litanies of racist scorn. Strong, for nine seasons, had been “SNL’s” dependable, renewable energy source, the go-to cast member for all matters of outsized confidence masking outsized obliviousness. Think of her Melania Trump. Think of her Girl You Wished You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With. Still, a showstopper in a vat of vino — that played like somebody saying goodbye.
As bittersweet as it was funny.
She was leaving “SNL,” right? That night, there were hints of Pete Davidson (7 seasons), Kate McKinnon (9 seasons) and Kenan Thompson (18
seasons) leaving, too. But by midsummer, we didn’t know the status of any of them. I asked Strong myself if she was leaving, and the Oak Park native was still weighing her pros and cons, saying “SNL” is not the “SNL” of decades ago, that “SNL” can be a headquarters while you try other stuff, etc. She sounded sincerely conflicted. It would be a loss if she left: As large as “SNL” casts have grown (it’s up to 20 now), Strong has the designated hitter role in the lineup once held by Phil Hartman, Bill Hader, Dan Aykroyd — not the biggest star on the show, but arguably the most valuable.
On the other hand, she would go out on a high point: She was just nominated for an Emmy for “SNL,” she’s co-starring and co-producing “Schmigadoon!” a new series for Apple TV+ about a backpacking couple (played by Strong and Keegan-Michael Key) trapped in a musical. Most interestingly, she just wrote her first book, “This Will All Be Over Soon,” a memoir, decidedly less funny, about a cousin’s death, a relationship souring and a pandemic year spent adrift, anxious and, well, uncertain of what’s next.
Needless to say, that future is not in Oak Park. (“You can’t even fly in, the flights are always delayed by weather ...”) Her father (a former Associated Press bureau chief at the Statehouse in Springfield) still lives in Oak Park; her mother (a nurse practitioner) divides her time between Forest Park and