Credit: Far Out / NBC / Peacock
Sat 1 August 2026 18:15, UK
“Trauma”, “survival”, “mistakes”. Nora Dunn made it sound more like she was on the set of Saving Private Ryan than she was doing Saturday Night Live.
You could criticise her for banding some strong words about and making a bit of a dramatic comparison, but in a lot of ways, being a young comic actor thrust into a limelight as massive as that must feel like a bit of a warzone. Think about it: you’re being forced to fight for your place, shrug off the bruises and battle scars from people who don’t like what you’re doing, and keep pushing on.
This was exactly the conditions Dunn was faced with when she was hired on the show, essentially in her first professional job, back in 1985. Yet to be deemed good enough to handle the calibre of a comedy institution like that, there is no gentle onboarding or probationary period. You’re fed straight to the lions, and have to prove your worth.
The experience would be character-building for anyone, to say the least. Yet as Dunn later put it herself, “SNL is a traumatic experience. You don’t go camping once a year with your cast. It’s kind of something you have to survive and you really have to learn. I made a lot of mistakes. That was my first job in showbiz. I had never been in front of a camera. I didn’t know showbiz. And to do a show live like that and follow these great people that had performed before a live camera — it was real hard.”
Indeed, matters probably weren’t helped much by the fact that her inaugural season was an unmitigated disaster. The show was a mess, and by some miracle, Dunn was one of only five cast members who were given a second shot. But with everything that had come before still ringing in your ears, the pressure was on, and the need for survival was incredibly present.
That undoubtedly gave the actor a tenacity and stamina to face the industry in a way that she wouldn’t have learned about otherwise, and whether she was making impressions of Liza Minnelli or Joan Baez, the cutthroat culture of SNL was, for better or worse, the key to making her the feisty performer that she remains today.
Yet possibly as a consequence of its own actions, the show also made Dunn headstrong at the most important moment in her tenure there. The year was 1990, and she was the only cast member to boycott the show over its decision to platform the comedian Andrew Dice Clay, known for his misogyny, as host.
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
She obviously found Sinéad O’Connor, who was meant to be serving as the musical guest, as a kindred spirit in that respect, but the forthrightness of Dunn to truly stand up for what she believed in put her in a cut above the rest. It may have been “traumatic”, to use her own words, but it was also worth every second of hardship.
Dunn’s stint on SNL may have only lasted five years, and she may not look back on the time with any particularly fond memories, but there’s no question that the show made her into the person she is today. It was Saturday night, and she was live from New York: it was make or break time.
