The Strongest Link: An Appreciation of Cecily Strong’s Outstanding ‘SNL’ Career

We almost didn’t get the chance to fully appreciate all of Cecily Strong‘s talents as a performer. That’s a weird thing to write about a person who just left Saturday Night Live after setting a record for the most episodes by a female cast member. And yet.

In Season 39, after only her first season as a featured player, Strong found herself stuck behind the Weekend Update desk, co-anchoring with Seth Meyers until Meyers left to host Late Night, and then with Colin Jost. She knew that’s not where she was meant to be. And we knew it, too.

Why have a woman in a suit reading jokes about headlines, when she could skewer it so much better in a cocktail dress as the “Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With” about the news?

Thankfully, Lorne Michaels freed her from Update anchor duties for Season 40 and beyond, allowing us to get to know Gemma, Cathy Anne, as well as Strong’s impersonations of Melania Trump, countless crazy politicians, and of course, her take on FOX News anchor and judge Jeanine Pirro. She earned back-to-back Emmy nominations in 2020 and 2021 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her efforts.

It would’ve been entirely reasonable to expect Strong and everyone else to be overshadowed by the scene-stealing star power of Kate McKinnon, who joined the cast a few months ahead of her. But take another look at this now-famous alien abduction sketch with guest host Ryan Gosling. Aidy Bryant and Bobby McKinnon can barely disguise their laughs, while Gosling has succumbed to his giggles. Everyone else is losing it. Everyone but Strong. She even manages to cover for Gosling, ad-libbing: “He’s crying.”

 

For the better part of 11 seasons, Strong exhibited more strength than we could comprehend upon first glance. She always could be relied upon to provide the backbone to a sketch, and sometimes more, committing to the bit like nobody else.

When Season 46 ended in May 2021, you would not have faulted Strong for saying goodbye then and there. After all, she stood onstage alongside the other cast veterans choking back tears during that episode’s cold open. During the season finale’s Weekend Update, Jost introduced Strong’s Pirro with the words: “Here to give her parting thoughts tonight.” And then she went out with a wine-dousing flourish, belting out “My Way.”

So why would she return after all that?

Perhaps because we needed to see her inner fortitude, too. Last November, as the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments over abortion, she showed up as “Goober The Clown Who Had An Abortion When She Was 23” to bravely talk about her very personal experience. A-honka-honka!

And last month, she returned to the Update desk as Tammy The Trucker to remind voters how important abortion is an issue.

But she was equally willing to show off her singing chops. Here’s an early example from 2015, in which she confounds her Christmas guests by breaking out into that song nobody knows, “Debra’s Time.”

If you wanted to add some tunes to a comedy sketch, Strong was always game. No wonder she’d go on to star in her own musical comedy series, Schmigadoon! for Apple TV+ (with Lorne as an EP). She’d miss some episodes in Season 46 for that, and then a few more in Seasons 47-48 so she could star off-Broadway in “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe.”

She didn’t have to come back any of those times, but we’re grateful she did.

Because as SNL has struggled at times during this transition period, they could always count on Strong to hold it together. This “Angelo” bit from last season stands out as an example. It’s a chance for then-rookie cast member Aristotle Athari to introduce a character, for guest host Rami Malek to get weird, and for special guest star Daniel Craig to act flummoxed. But it only works as well as it does because of how Strong sells us with her character’s sincere fandom for these supposed next big things in music and dance!

The show will go on, of course. SNL always finds a way to reinvent itself thanks to its revolving-door cast of fresh-faced comedians.

We’ll have a second season of Schmigadoon! to look forward to, too. And perhaps sooner than we think, we’ll see Strong back onstage inside 30 Rock, next time hosting SNL. Maybe then we’ll really be able to appreciate what she gave to this show during her 11 seasons.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.