Ashley Padilla Is Potentially the Most Normal-Sounding SNL Cast Member of All Time

Normally, when Saturday Night Live cast members talk about the show, they sound like haggard veterans describing their time deployed — just look at Andy Samberg’s “Anxiety” digital short for SNL 50. Not Ashley Padilla. The breakout star of season 51 participated in her first Hollywood Reporter roundtable this year, and she answered all the typical questions about how difficult SNL is with the gentle acknowledgment that it’s not like that for her. “I don’t see the show as competitive at all,” she said. “And that sounds so silly to people. It almost feels disrespectful to people.” She, instead, has an outlook that is abnormal in its normality. “I see it as a collaborative place to be funny with wonderful friends, and if your thing gets on, it’s awesome,” she explained. “And if not, you have to help out your teammates in their sketch, and you’ll try again next week.”

Her tablemates looked on with admiration. Hannah Einbinder nodded sagely; Quinta Brunson “mm-hmm”ed multiple times; Lisa Kudrow muttered, “That’s great.” Padilla herself chalked it up to her experience with the L.A.-based sketch group the Groundlings. “You have to write for yourself to get on that stage, so I had that tool going in,” she said. “I empathize with my peers who came from the stand-up world and don’t write sketches. They’re like, ‘I need help,’ but they’re too new so the writers aren’t gonna … That’s where I think that stress might come from.” Basically, she’s built herself different.

Padilla doesn’t even stay up late to get her sketches in. “I submit my sketch before bedtime,” she said. “And then everyone’s like, ‘I was up till four.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, no.’” She simply focuses on her work and then … gets it done. “Maybe minding my business sounds horrible,” she said. “It doesn’t mean I’m not turning in my work and being a hundred percent. But to be a hundred percent, I need sleep.” It’s almost like she’s treating it like a normal job. How does that work?