During her tenure on Saturday Night Live from 1999 to 2006, Rachel Dratch became known for playing the relentlessly morose and deadpan Debbie Downer, and almost 20 years after she left the show, her creation remains one of the most popular and frequently referenced sketch comedy characters.
Dratch recently reprised her signature role (opposite Robert De Niro, no less!) for SNL’s 50th anniversary, and the actress and comedian has also been keeping busy as a spokeswoman for American Home Shield, appearing as a character named Warrantina in amusing commercials for the home warranty company’s new app.
“I love playing Warrantina, because she seems like an SNL character to me,” Dratch says. “I don’t feel like I’m doing a commercial. It feels organically funny.” Given her role in the ads, you might expect Dratch to be a home improvement guru, but she admits, “I want to be the person who has everything in its place and an eye for design, but that’s something I don’t have. I’m not a Martha Stewart type. I’m not the person with scented candles when you walk in. Warrantina has scented candles, Rachel doesn’t.”
And while many fans remember her iconic SNL roles, Rachel Dratch’s movies and TV shows—like 30 Rock, Wine Country and Just Go With It—highlight the full range of her comedic talent. Read on to see what Rachel Dratch has to say about her favorite moments from Saturday Night Live, the life lessons she’s learned from comedy and more.
Rachel Dratch’s favorite ‘Saturday Night Live’ memories
Asked if she has a favorite character she’s played on SNL, Dratch observes, “It’s funny, because when you’re on the show, you’re just trying to make sure that you’re actually featured in it every week, so whatever character you come up with that hits becomes your favorite character of that the moment.”
“It changes over the years, but one of my favorite moments is the Debbie Downer at Disney World sketch where we all start laughing,” Dratch says. “Of course, you’re not supposed to start laughing in the middle of a sketch, but sometimes it happens, and that’s one that people seem to remember. The fact that I had to try to keep it together every time the camera came in for a close up made it extra funny, even though in the moment I was trying desperately not to laugh.”
Dratch says that one of the best parts of being on the show was “working with all those funny people year to year.” “The cast is always changing, but there’s just nothing like it in terms of all being in the foxhole together trying to write a sketch at 3 in the morning. You really bond with people through doing that,” she recalls.
Dratch also calls out how much fun she had working with fellow comedy icon Tina Fey. “We first worked together back in our Chicago days at Second City, and not only is she a great performer, she’s also always been a fantastic writer,” she says, pointing to the “Mom Jeans” sketch they appeared in together as “something she created that took off in and became part of the lexicon.”
Inside Rachel Dratch’s ‘Woo Woo’ podcast
Currently, Dratch hosts Woo Woo With Rachel Dratch, a podcast featuring tales of real-life supernatural events, as shared by an eclectic variety of celebrity guests, including Stacy London, Vanessa Williams and Julianne Hough.
“Over the years, I’ve heard some really crazy, woo woo stories about paranormal, supernatural and inexplicable events,” Dratch says, and her podcast reflects her longstanding interest in these stories. “We’ve had a bunch of SNL people on, and we’ve had people with legit ghost stories. We even had a real estate agent who talked about haunted house laws, like, ‘Can you sell a house that you know to be haunted?’” she says with a laugh.
While her podcast’s stories range from the spooky to the silly, Dratch says, “I have one foot in skepticism and one foot in full-tilt woo woo. The show is fun, and it’s definitely comedy-based.”
What Rachel Dratch has learned from a life in comedy
During her many years in the entertainment industry, Dratch has learned a thing or two about confidence and resilience. “When you choose to go into acting, it’s very up and down, and you have to adjust, since just because you don’t get a part, it doesn’t mean you’re not good or don’t deserve to be an actor,” she says. “You have to get used to that, and I think that helps in daily life, when something doesn’t go exactly how you want it to. You can get back up again, and defeat doesn’t define you.”
Dratch’s comedy work, meanwhile, taught her how to think on her feet. “Being on SNL and doing improv back in Chicago, it was all about knowing that the answer is going to come to you,” she says. “You can’t get precious about the schedule and the routine, and you have to become really comfortable with dealing with last-minute changes and working on the fly, even if it scares you. That’s really helped me”—and it seems that this free-spirited approach can inspire even the non-comedians among us.
