Heidi Gutman/ABC via Getty Images
Sasheer Zamata was one of the resident comedians in last summer's ABC hidden-camera series "Would You Fall for That?"
Live from New York, it’s ... who ?
The New York comedy world has been buzzing for months about whether “Saturday Night Live” producer Lorne Michaels would again hire a black woman for the cast of his creaky sketch show — and when he finally did this week, he ended up choosing a performer with a familiar pedigree.
Sasheer Zamata, 27, is a graduate of the University of Virginia and has been a performer with the Upright Citizens Brigade — two institutions that helped propel Tina Fey to superstardom.
“She’s very much like Tina,” says UVA Prof. Richard Warner, who taught both Zamata and Fey. “She’s a social critic, and she’s a feminist. She says, ‘This is what we think, but we don’t have the gumption to say it.’ ”
Some of that gumption — and her positive outlook on life — was the result of a horrifying accident that Zamata, who at the time still used her last name, Moore, suffered during college.
“A car sped around the other cars and through the turning lanes and struck me,” Zamata, who declined to speak to The News, wrote in a 2010 essay. “I bounced off the hood, spun in the air, and landed on the asphalt. ... I could see my bloody arm in front of my face.”
She recovered, more or less intact, and said she even “found happiness” as a result of the accident, discovering “what the human spirit can do.”
Afterwards, she embodied that spirit, taking it upon herself to revive the college’s African-American theater company, which had been defunct for a decade since the graduation of “Save the Last Dance” star Sean Patrick Thomas.
“She was at the center of a group of very gifted African-Americans,” says Warner, who wrote a recommendation for Zamata to attend New York University for a postgraduate M.A. in performance studies. Zamata didn’t wind up applying, but was able to move to New York after graduation thanks to a small settlement from the accident.
She caught a big break when she began performing regularly at the Upright Citizens Brigade, a one-time home of former “SNL” cast members Fred Armisen, Will Ferrell, Rachel Dratch and Fey, plus stars like Sarah Silverman, Zach Galifianakis and Aubrey Plaza.
“As an improv artist and comedian, she is hysterical, bold, quick,” says UVA Associate Prof. Theresa Davis, who worked with Zamata in the drama department. “A brilliant performer.”
Zamata’s exposure increased when she appeared on Comedy Central’s “Inside Amy Schumer” sketch series, playing one of many black employees at a clothing store that Schumer had trouble telling apart.
But her sense of humor and personality really came through in a web series. Zamata and fellow comic Nicole Byer star in “Pursuit of Sexiness,” sketches about best friends described as looking for “good men, easy money and free meals, but would be satisfied to break even and find a guy who doesn’t prematurely ejaculate.”
Director Paul Briganti, who worked with Zamata on College Humor Originals sketches called “HBO Should Show Dongs” and “Second Cheapest Wine,” sees her as the total package.
“It’s rare that a performer is hilarious, kind and hard-working all at once, but that’s Sasheer,” he says. “She has the ability to run with characters and scripts in a way that adds to the joke, but never overrides it.”
Her growing profile coincided with the “SNL” casting controversy. There hadn’t been a black woman in the show’s cast since Maya Rudolph left in 2007. Briganti, though, feels that hiring Zamata amounted to a simple test: Is she funny or not?
“I’ve heard that a part of the ‘SNL’ hiring process is based on if the person seems like they’d still be enjoyable at 3 a.m.,” says Briganti. “I honestly can’t think of anyone who would be more fun to see at 3 a.m.”
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