Vanessa Bayer (born November 14, 1981 (1981-11-14)) is an American actress and comedian, best known as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, for which she earned a Primetime Emmy nomination as well as for supporting roles in the films Trainwreck (2015), Office Christmas Party (2016) and Carrie Pilby (2016).
Video Vanessa Bayer
Early life
Bayer was born and raised in Orange, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, to a Reform Jewish family. She is the daughter of Carolyn (née Polster) and Todd Bayer. She has a brother, Jonah, who is a music journalist and the drummer for the punk supergroup United Nations.
At the age of 15, she was diagnosed with leukemia. Bayer stated that while battling the disease, she discovered the meaning of "comic relief". "I don't know if it made me funnier, but it was so amazing, how it made everything be O.K.," she said.
Bayer graduated from Orange High School in 2000 and attended the University of Pennsylvania, where she majored in communication and French, graduating in 2004.
Maps Vanessa Bayer
Career
She currently collaborates with her brother Jonah on the web series Sound Advice for Above Average. Bayer stars as Janessa Slater, a media coach who helps famous musicians change their image.
While attending college, Bayer interned on the television shows Sesame Street and Late Night with Conan O'Brien and participated in the cast of Bloomers, an all-female musical and sketch comedy troupe. Bayer was part of the all-Jewish cast of Second City's stage show Jewsical: The Musical, a musical that presented a comedic take on Jewish life and culture.
Bayer played the role of Kate Clark in the Chicago-based feature comedy Off the Cuff.
Bayer performed improvisational comedy at Chicago's ImprovOlympic, where she trained with SNL castmate Paul Brittain as well as the Annoyance Theatre and Second City.
Saturday Night Live
Bayer joined the cast of Saturday Night Live as a featured player on September 25, 2010. Beginning with the 2012-2013 season, Bayer was promoted to repertory status. She has been praised for her performance on the show, with HitFix calling her "one of the strongest members of the ensemble" and Rolling Stone calling her "Saturday Night Live's secret weapon". In 2014, she was nominated for an American Comedy Award for her work on the show. Bayer departed SNL on May 20, 2017 after seven years on the show and currently holds the record of the show's longest-serving female cast member, with 149 episodes (Maya Rudolph, who had been a cast member for 9 seasons, stayed for 146 episodes). She was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for that season.
Her recurring characters include:
- Laura Parsons, a child actress always performing roles originally played by adults, including from Forrest Gump, The Wolf of Wall Street, Brokeback Mountain, and Dallas Buyers Club
- Breckie, a former porn star who creates homemade commercials to obtain free luxury items alongside Cecily Strong
- Rebecca Stern-Markowicz, a co-host of J-Pop America Fun Time Now which celebrates Japanese culture alongside Taran Killam and Jason Sudeikis
- Miss Meadows, an unrealistically perky poetry teacher trying to connect with her delinquent students
- An unnamed director of talk show Mornin' Miami
- Jacob the Bar Mitzvah Boy, who appears on Weekend Update to perform a rehearsed speech (complete with forced jokes) about a given subject
- Rachel Green from the sitcom Friends (and other characters from the show)
- One of two workshop elves who perform their jobs poorly in the hope that their master will "punish" them, alongside Kenan Thompson
- An unnamed housewife who makes Totinos for her "hungry guys".
- Dawn Lazarus, an inept meteorologist who appears on Weekend Update and struggles to discuss the weather.
Philanthropy
Bayer suffered from leukemia as a teenager. The Make-A-Wish Foundation granted her wish to send her family on vacation to Hawaii. As a former "Make-A-Wish kid", Bayer continues to do work with the foundation. In 2015, she hosted the foundation's "Evening of Wishes Dinner" to help raise funds for wishes for children with life-threatening illnesses.
Filmography
References
External links
- Vanessa Bayer on IMDb
- Vanessa Bayer at Rotten Tomatoes
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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