Longtime “Saturday Night Live” writer Paula Pell believes she was never a cast member on the show because she’s a “big plus-size person.”
The 63-year-old shared her theory during Tuesday’s episode of “SNL” alum Amy Poehler’s “Good Hang” podcast.
“I don’t want to assume, but I’ve heard, here and there, little things,” she told listeners.
“And who knows because we’ve all been there when they’re picking people and it’s so random,” she added. “I mean, not random, but there’s reasons that you don’t think are the reasons and all this.
“But I do suspect that [it’s because] I was a big lady,” Pell continued. “I was a big plus-size person.”
The comedian noted that when she joined “SNL” in 1995, “there was just not that [representation] in any TV anything.”
She noted, “There were starting to be people like Roseanne Barr, like, people that had more real-looking bodies, but I was just not of the aesthetic of that place whatsoever.”
When Poehler asked the Emmy winner whether she “talked to anyone at the show about that specifically,” Pell replied, “I really was such a good Catholic girl, a rule follower. … I was so afraid to ever show any desire to perform.”
Pell, notably, didn’t audition for “SNL” but instead got a call to meet with the show’s creator and executive producer, Lorne Michaels.
She was working at Disney World at the time and flew to New York City for the meeting.
“I got there and [I] was terrified,” Pell recalled Wednesday. “He was, like, two hours late and I sat down with him. He started talking like we had been talking already. Like, he started in the middle of a sentence.”
Pell joked that despite not getting a formal job offer from Michaels, she somehow ended up on the writing staff.
Before joining “SNL” behind-the-scenes, Pell was “not a writer” and only had previous comedy experience doing live performances at theme parks and theaters.
“Even though I’d written short stories, I [didn’t] know how to do any of this,” she said of writing for the NBC show.
Pell, however, worked on “SNL” from 1995 to 2013 and created some of its most popular characters and sketches, occasionally making cameos.
She has also been a screenwriter on several major projects, including “Bridesmaids” and Kim Kardashian’s upcoming movie, “The 5th Wheel.”
Pell did pursue her original dream of acting post-“SNL” and scored roles in shows from “30 Rock” to “Girls5eva.” She is currently starring on Peacock’s “The ‘Burbs” series.
“It’s why I’m so gloriously happy to be able to perform later in my life because I finally let that out of the cage,” she gushed on “Good Hang.”
