Cecily Strong

Cecily Legler Strong, born February 8, 1984, in Springfield, Illinois, is an American actress and comedian best known for her decade-long tenure on NBC's Saturday Night Live and her subsequent work in television, film, and on Broadway. Raised in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, she is the daughter of William "Bill" Strong, who worked as an Associated Press bureau chief and later ran his own public-relations firm, and Penelope Strong, a nurse practitioner. Her parents are divorced. As a child, Strong was an avid fan of Saturday Night Live, regularly reenacting sketches with friends and watching old SNL commercials on VHS, citing Phil Hartman as a particular inspiration. Her uncle's work as a Broadway producer gave her frequent access to Broadway shows during her childhood, including opportunities to meet cast members backstage.

Strong attended Oak Park and River Forest High School until her sophomore year, when she was expelled for bringing marijuana to school. She subsequently enrolled at a private Catholic school before transferring for her senior year to the Chicago Academy for the Arts, where she graduated in 2002. She then pursued a BFA in theatre at the California Institute of the Arts, graduating in 2006. After completing her degree, she returned to Chicago to study at the Second City Conservatory and iO Chicago, where she also worked the box office. She performed regularly with the Second City touring company, including a four-month run on a cruise ship, and appeared at venues and festivals including the Chicago Sketch Fest, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Goodman Theater, and the Mercury Theater, as well as with the all-female improv troupe Virgin Daiquiri.

Strong made her Saturday Night Live debut as a featured player on September 15, 2012. The following season she was elevated to repertory player and began co-anchoring the Weekend Update segment alongside Seth Meyers, starting with the season 39 premiere. She later co-anchored with Colin Jost before stepping back from Weekend Update at the start of season 40 in September 2014, partly at her own request, to concentrate on sketch work. Over the course of her run, she developed a wide range of recurring characters, including the Girl You Wish You Hadn't Started a Conversation with at a Party, Cathy Anne the drug-addicted neighbor of Michael Che, Kyra from The Girlfriends Talk Show alongside Aidy Bryant, and Gracelynn Chisholm of the morning show Right Side of the Bed with Taran Killam, among others. In 2020 and 2021, she received Emmy nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series at the 72nd and 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards, respectively, and was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series at the 12th Critics' Choice Television Awards.

During the November 6, 2021, episode of Saturday Night Live, Strong appeared in a Weekend Update sketch as Goober the Clown Who Had An Abortion When She Was 23, which followed Supreme Court oral arguments related to the Texas Heartbeat Act. Strong later confirmed via Instagram that the sketch referenced her own abortion. She revisited the subject a year later in a November 5, 2022, Weekend Update appearance as Tammy the Trucker, aired ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Strong returned for season 48 and, with the December 17, 2022, episode, surpassed former castmate Kate McKinnon to become the longest-tenured female cast member in the show's history, a record she holds as of her departure in 2022.

Beyond Saturday Night Live, Strong hosted the 2015 White House Correspondents' Association dinner, where she addressed news organizations, politicians, President Obama, the U.S. Secret Service, and figures including Brian Williams and Sarah Koenig. She has appeared in films including Ghostbusters, The Meddler, and The Female Brain, and provided voice work on the animated series The Awesomes from 2013 to 2015. In 2016, she guest starred as Samantha Stevens in TBS's Angie Tribeca and as Catherine Hobart in Fox's Scream Queens, and joined the climate change documentary series Years of Living Dangerously as a celebrity correspondent. In 2021, she appeared in HBO Max's six-part comedy series That Damn Michael Che. That same year, she starred in and co-produced Schmigadoon!, a musical parody series on Apple TV+ developed by Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio and produced by Lorne Michaels, in which she and Keegan-Michael Key play a couple stranded in a 1940s studio musical town. The series ran from 2021 to 2023.

Strong's memoir, This Will All Be Over Soon, was published on August 10, 2021. The book grew out of an essay she wrote about the death of her cousin Owen from brain cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic, first published on Vulture.com in 2020, and addresses grief, relationships formed during the pandemic, and formative personal experiences.

On Broadway, Strong has performed from 2018 to 2025, with credits including Celebrity Autobiography and All Out: Comedy About Ambition.