Sue Galloway may not be a household name yet but you’ve most likely seen her splashed across your TV screen multiple times. Sue has a recurring role on “30 Rock“, where she and her co-writer character chums drive Liz Lemon to madness weekly. Or on “Saturday Night Live“, where you may very well be laughing at one of her jokes. Are you ever fast-forwarding during commercial breaks? Stop doing that! You are watching Sue in one of the many national TV commercial spots she’s done! Not convinced you know her yet? How about seeing her perform LIVE, in your face! You can pick up a seat at the New York UCB Theatre and catch her at a show there. Wait! I have an even better idea. Go ahead and pick up a pass to see her at the Women in Comedy Festival running March 21-25 in Boston. Read on for a truly funny conversation with Sue, including an audition story that will actually make you laugh out loud.
SO: Hello Sue! Are you multitasking at the precise moment you respond to this interview? Please describe your current mood.
Sue Galloway: My mood is fantastic! My husband and I just rode our bikes to the new (ish) Panera Bread in Chelsea for lunch. It’s a gorgeous day out. The rest of the day, I’ve been staring at the pile of papers that will eventually be my taxes and hoping they all make themselves into sense. Also, I’m doing my show tonight at UCB, and so I’m quite excited.
SO: How did you get your start in comedy? Who are your comedy heroes?
Sue: I started taking classes at UCB Theater in 2002. I had done some comedy before that — the wacky parts in plays and a sketch group on public access — but once you join the community of people working in comedy, things change a little.
My comedy heroes are Carol Burnett, Amy Poehler, Betty White, and Phil Hartman. I’d love to see them all flying through the air in colorful capes and/or turning things into wet ice. Wait, what do comedy heroes do again?
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SO: You have a recurring role on the ensemble comedy TV program, 30 Rock. Your character, Sue LaRoche-Van der Hout, is a writer for TGS. You are currently a freelance joke writer for SNL. Is writing in real life as crazy as the fictional one?
Sue: The writing I do for SNL is done at home in front of my computer for about an hour or two before my deadline. I don’t get the benefit of being in a sweaty room full of weirdos… wait a minute, maybe I do. I have two cats.
I do a lot of other writing for myself, but this is also usually kind of subdued in that it’s just me staring at a screen and resisting looking up stuff online. So yeah, pretty crazy!
SO: You’ve done several national commercials. I hear auditioning for commercials can be quite competitive and grueling. What is the worst commercial audition you ever had?
Sue: First off, I don’t really find auditioning for commercials to be competitive. It’s a hard attitude to go through your life as an actor with enmity. It’s really easier on everyone to be supportive, and almost all of the time when I’m at a callback, it’s with other people being supportive — they’ll come out and say, “The director’s a little quiet, try to listen hard,” or “He started goofing around with me right away!” or “They want you to improvise.” I think it’s always better to share intel and be friendly with your fellow actors. About 95% of the time when I see a commercial I didn’t get, I say, “That girl is way better than me at it. They made the right choice.” Obviously I still feel a little bad sometimes, but it’s way better to come at this career with joy and delight rather than something that’s constantly eating my insides up.
The worst callback of recent vintage, which I was warned about by the girl who came out before me, was a remote video callback. The director is actually in LA (or somewhere else) and they can see you on a video monitor, and often you can see them. Sometimes, though, they don’t want to be seen. So you have a monitor in front of you that shows a wall above someone’s head. And they can see you constantly. And they bark instructions at you. In this particular one, the director wanted me to act like “That actress. You know who. That one. She was with Tom Cruise. She was in that movie, All By Myself.” I said, “Wait, you mean To Die For?” He said, “No, it’s All By Myself. Natalie Kidman.” “You mean Nicole Kidman?” “Yes. Natalie Kidman. So, act like her in that movie, but not exactly, also read it really fast. And the last line, I want you to go up on the line, like la-la-la-LIII-la. Got it? Go.” So, that was fun. I didn’t get the job.
SO: Writing for SNL is a very prestigious gig. How did that come about? Was that always a show you dreamed of writing for?
Sue: Though I’m immensely flattered by that statement, it’s a bit of a stretch to say that I write for SNL. I send them a bunch of jokes to be considered for Weekend Update on the Thursday before the show. I think they have a group of people who do the same thing, though I don’t know who they are. I’ve gotten about 5 or 6 on in the few years I’ve done it. It is really an amazing feeling to have your joke read on TV. And to hear the laughs it gets. It’s mind-blowing.
It came about because my then-boyfriend, now husband, was a real bonafide actual writer for SNL and sometimes they would ask the writers for additional jokes for update. I saw a sheet of setups sitting around in his apartment and asked him if I could write a few punchlines for them. He made a slight change to one of my jokes, turned it in, and we got it on the first week I submitted. The rest of my life has obviously been disappointment since then.
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SO: You have your own dedicated YouTube channel. Do you find YouTube an effective way of promoting your work? Has your viewership expanded since its inception?
Sue: Yes! I channeled it up on YouTube. I suppose it’s an effective way of promoting my work? I have to admit I’m really terrible at the “marketing” side of my career. I just love to make videos. I was born to make videos. So I make videos. And I put them up there. And if people watch them, awesome. If not, that’s cool too. I think viewership has expanded? I don’t think it could get any smaller than “0”, though sometimes the universe has ways of proving me wrong.
SO: One of my favorite videos on your YouTube channel is “Susan and Her Instruments,” which brings me to my next question. How did the Stickerbook comedy band get started? You are quite talented on the guitar & drums. How long have you been playing? Did you always like music?
Sue: One night at McManus, the bar where UCB performers hang out, I was sitting next to my friend Jen Hammaker, who plays Theremin. I told her I thought it would be fun if we did a show where she played Theremin and I played guitar, and we wrote songs that sounded really heartfelt and honest and sad but she was doing goofy stuff the whole time behind me and playing her Theremin. We happened to also be sitting with Eliza Skinner, who said she played drums and let’s rehearse tomorrow. So, we did. We asked a few more girls to join, wrote some songs, covered others, and it was really an amazingly fun time. Jen used to have a loft-like space in the East Village where we’d get a bunch of pizzas and beer and rehearse for hours, maybe the way real bands do it? And we were sort of a real band, but we also retained that kind of serious/super weird vibe that kept us solidly in the “comedy band” world. Also, the fact that none of us were really that great at playing our instruments made it comedy-ish.
I started playing guitar when I was 12, just using a little book of chords and listening to the radio and trying to copy what I heard. I never had any lessons, and I really think that shows. But I love music and there’s nothing better than just playing at home if I’m in that weird mode where I’m feeling feelings. Eww, feelings!
SO: You are a lifetime member of he Actor’s Studio. Would you consider that your crowning achievement? Or is there far more hiding up your sleeve? What projects are you currently working on?
Sue: I am pretty proud of my Actor’s Studio membership. Yes. I hope to do a lot more things that make me feel proud in the near future. Please don’t make me start feeling feelings or I’m going to have to get my guitar out!
The biggest thing I’m working on now is my solo show, POSE Magazine. It’s the second solo show I’ve performed in, and it’s really fun. I love doing it. I performed it for some great crowds at the Charleston Comedy Festival in January, and then took it to LA last month where I performed for a sold out house. I’ll be performing it at the LAFF Festival in Austin in May. And I’ve been doing it at UCB Theater in Chelsea since December.
I’m currently doing a lot of writing. I’m also editing videos that I shot while I was in LA in February. I’m also working on some new characters, and I’m not sure if that’s going to be a new show or if it’s just a bunch of characters coming out of me. I can’t control this. I need one of my heroes to show up and turn me into an eagle in a bowler hat and heels! (Still not quite sure what a comedy hero might do…).
SO: Thanks Sue for some serious hard laughs!
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SO Note: Check out all things Sue at suegalloway.com, follow her @Suedgalloway, and find lots of laughs on her YouTube channel here!