They take that one thing [about you] and they wring it, she says.
They wring it because thats the machine.
So it was like a caricature of myself.
Leslie JonesPeggy Sirota/ABC
Not just the Black ones,' Jones says.
I look back and I was like, Oh, thats right, Taran Killam!
This is a machine.'
Jones also says she understands the pressures on executive producer Lorne Michaels to keep the machine running smoothly.
I used to always be like, hes the puppet master, she says.
Then he has to make a family in Omaha, Nebraska, whos watching the show happy.
Imagine the strings that have to go out to him.
So its a machine that has to work.
When I first startedcomedy, I thought I had to be sexy, she said.
I used to wear heels on stage.
But this is what happens: We walk on stage.
And then they look at their man and they go, Does my man think she cute?
All thats happened while youre trying to open up.
So I always say in your first couple of years: T-shirt, jeans, tennis shoes.
If you’re able to make it lovely and cute, do that.
Because you dont have to prove youre a woman.
And listen, you could do whatever you want.
[My mom] passed away six months after my dad passed away, she says.
I hadnt made it yet.
And they did not die with life insurance.
So I didnt go to either one of their funerals because I was working to pay for them.
…I was helpless.
I wasnt rich [enough] to send them money.
I think that might have been the first experience of me trying to perform under such pain.
Listen to the full NPR interview with Joneshere.
