Meet Sarah Sherman, who has a new HBO Max comedy special – and just played a drunk raccoon on SNL
The New York-born comedian took a jab at Donald Trump on SNL’s Weekend Update, and her surreal special Sarah Squirm: Live + in the Flesh was just released
If you want to see more of Sherman, you can tune into her new comedy special, Sarah Squirm: Live + in the Flesh, which just hit HBO Max on December 12. The special, in which legendary filmmaker John Waters makes an appearance, is best described as a psychedelic body horror circus. Sherman told Interview Magazine that it explores the “horrors of having a female body” and is “very sex-negative”.
Keep reading to learn more about Sarah Sherman.
What’s Sarah Sherman’s background?
Sherman hails from Great Neck, New York, where she grew up in a “loud, Jewish, outrageous family”, she told Variety. In a twist of serendipity, Sherman’s bat mitzvah coincided with April Fools’ Day, and she called it a “gift from God”, sending invites through cans filled with snakes, reports Vulture. She did improv and track in school before attending Northwestern University, where she studied theatre.
How did she get into comedy?
“There was never a minute in my life where I didn’t want to be a comedian,” Sherman told Interview Magazine. She got her first open mic gig at The Hog Pit in New York City when she was 16. After graduating from Northwestern, she moved to Chicago.
“I was doing basement shows with bands literally called Piss Piss Piss Moan Moan Moan. I was like, ‘It can’t be Blood Licker, Piss Piss Piss Moan Moan Moan, and Sarah,’” she recalled to Vulture. She eventually launched her own show, Helltrap Nightmare, and later moved to LA. She was discovered by SNL at one of her shows and eventually landed a spot on the iconic programme.