Bio
Ana Gasteyer is an American actress and comedian best known as a cast member of Saturday Night Live (SNL) in the 1990s and early 2000s.
During her six-year stint, she created some of the most famous SNL characters, including middle school music teacher Bobbie Moughan-Culp, NPR radio host Margaret Jo, Lilith Fair poetess Cinder Calhoun, as well as spot-on impressions of Martha Stewart, Celine Dion and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
She returned to SNL as Margaret Jo in NPR'S Delicious Dish and the now infamous Muffin Top sketch with Betty White, which Gasteyer created and wrote. She also appeared opposite Larry David in HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm.
On stage, Gasteyer made her triumphant Broadway debut as Columbia in The Rocky Horror Show. Since then, she has earned raves as Elphaba in Wicked on Broadway, and originated the role for the Chicago production, earning a Jefferson Award nomination.
Other New York theatre credits include the Tony-nominated Broadway productions of The Royal Family, directed by Doug Hughes; The Threepenny Opera, with Alan Cumming and Jim Dale; Eve Ensler's acclaimed Off-Broadway hit, The Vagina Monologues; and Manhattan Theatre Club's hit production of Kimberly Akimbo, by celebrated playwright David Lindsay-Abaire.
Gasteyer starred as Fanny Brice in Funny Girlat the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera; as Fosca in Gary Griffin's production of Sondheim's Passion at The Chicago Shakespeare Theater, earning a Jefferson Award nomination for her performance; and co-starred in the one-night-only, star-studded Actors Fund benefit concerts of Funny Girl, Hair and A Centennial Celebration of Frank Loesser.
In additon she can be heard on the Actor's Fund Recording of Hair and the Reefer Madness Soundtrack.
Other theatrical credits include the national tour of The Real Live Brady Bunch, as well as productions of The Odyssesy and The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, both directed by by Mary Zimmerman.
Prior to joining SNL, Gasteyer honed her comedy skills at The Groundlings, the famed Los Angeles improv-sketch comedy group. She can also be seen as a customer in the famous Soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld, which was taped shortly before she secured her SNL gig.
On film she has been seen in Dare, Mean Girls, The Women, What Women Want, Woman on Top, Dick, and What's the Worst that Could Happen?.
Television credits include The Good Wife, Chuck, Showtime's Reefer Madness, Frasier, Just Shoot Me!, 3rd Rock from the Sun, NYPD Blue, Mad About You, Law & Order, Party of Five, as well as guest hosting The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, Live with Regis and The Rosie O'Donnell Show.
Gasteyer can also be seen in Sean Anders' I Hate You, Dad, co-starring Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg and James Caan; the Tyler Perry produced film We the Peeples, opposite Kerry Washington, David Alan Grier, Melvin Van Peebles and Diahann Carroll; the Lionsgate film Rapturepalooza, with Anna Kendrick and Rob Corddry; and Paramount's Fun Size, with Johnny Knoxville, Victoria Justica and Chelsea Handler for director Josh Schwartz.
Born in Washington, D.C., Gasteyer graduated from Sidwell Friends School and Northwestern University. She got her role on SNL due to her experience with the famed Los Angeles improv-sketch comedy group called The Groundlings.
She starred as Sheila Shay in the television sitcom Suburgatory, from 2011-2014.