Cecily Strong is an American actress and comedian who is best known for being a cast member of Saturday Night Live from 2012 to 2022. Strong has been on the show longer than any other woman in its history.
She was hired by SNL while doing improv at The Second City in Chicago, where she had moved after graduating from CalArts. She is currently the main character in the musical comedy show Schmigadoon!, which airs on Apple TV+ and was made between 2021 and the present.
She also had small parts in movies like Ghostbusters, The Meddler, and The Female Brain. She did voice work for The Awesomes from 2013 to 2015. In 2015, she was in charge of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. The memoir This Will All Be Over Soon was her first book. It came out in 2021.
She was nominated for an Emmy twice during the 72nd and 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards, for her performance as an outstanding supporting actress on Saturday Night Live.
Before Fame
Cecily Legler Strong was born in Springfield, Illinois, on February 8, 1984. She grew up in Oak Park, Illinois, which is an inner-ring suburb of Chicago. She is the daughter of Penelope and William “Bill” Strong, who used to be the bureau chief for the Associated Press and now runs their own public relations company.
Penny Legler Strong is a nurse practitioner who has spent a lot of time at hospitals in the area. His parents are no longer together. As a child, Strong loved SNL. She and her friend would act out sketches and watch old SNL commercials on VHS. “I had a tape of the best ads, and I listened to it every day until it was worn out.” She has said that Phil Hartman gave her ideas.
Strong mentioned that her uncle is a Broadway producer in a 2021 interview with Terry Gross on the NPR program Fresh Air, thus she was able to see several Broadway productions as a child and even go backstage to meet the actors.
She went to Oak Park and River Forest High School until her sophomore year when she was kicked out for bringing marijuana to school. She went to a private Catholic school until her senior year when she switched to the Chicago Academy for the Arts and graduated in 2002.
She then went to the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) to study acting. She got her BFA in theatre from CalArts in 2006. Strong went back to Chicago after she graduated from college to study at the Second City Conservatory and iO Chicago.
What is Cecily Strong’s Net Worth?
As of December 2022, Cecily Strong Has an Estimated Net Worth of $4 Million (Source: Celebrity Net Worth). Strong makes a lot of money from “Saturday Night Live.” Because she has been on the show for so long, she is one of the people who makes the most money. Her salary from “Saturday Night Live” is discussed below:
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Cecily Strong’s “Saturday Night Live” Salary!
There are usually 21 “SNL” episodes in a season. Cast members in their first year make $7,000 per episode or $147,000 for the whole season. Cast members in their second year make $8,000 per episode or $168,000 for the whole season.
When a show is in its fifth season, a cast member makes $15,000 per episode or $315,000 per season. People who have worked at “SNL” the longest or are the most important to the show can make the most money.
She gets $25,000 per episode, which adds up to $525,000 a year. Because Cecily has been there for a long time, it is likely that she is in that higher pay level.
Where Does Cecily Strong Live?
A 2018 article in “People” magazine said that Cecily spends most of the year in New York City, where she lives in an apartment with “A Bed in The Kitchen.” She also owns a home in Los Angeles. She hired designer Nicole Palczynski to help her fix up the two-bedroom, two-bathroom house. In the spring of 2018, she moved into her new home.
Cecily Strong’s Entertainment Journey!
Strong did shows at The Second City and iO Chicago on a regular basis. Strong and other Second City members did shows on a cruise ship for four months. She performed at the Chicago Sketch Fest, Chicago Just for Laughs, the New York Sketchfest, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Goodman Theater, the Bailiwick Theater, the Mercury Theater, and with the all-female improv group Virgin Daiquiri.
On September 15, 2012, Strong made his first appearance on Saturday Night Live. Starting with the season 39 premiere, Strong became a regular player and co-hosted the recurring Weekend Update segment with Seth Meyers.
Strong later co-anchored with Colin Jost. When season 40 started in September 2014, she was replaced on Weekend Update by writer Michael Che, in part because she wanted to spend more time doing sketches with the regular cast. Strong was nominated for her first Primetime Emmy award in 2020 for her work on the show.
The award was for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. In 2021, she was nominated again. At the 12th Critics’ Choice Television Awards, she was also in the running for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.
Critics liked Strong’s performance as “Goober the Clown Who Had an Abortion When She Was 23” on the November 6, 2021, episode of “Weekend Update.” The sketch was based on oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in two cases about the Texas Heartbeat Act. On her Instagram account, Strong later confirmed that the sketch was about her own abortion.
Strong followed up on the comments a year later in a “Weekend Update” sketch on November 5, 2022. She was “Tammy the Trucker on Gas Prices and Definitely Not Abortion,” and she talked about gas prices and whether or not abortion should be legal. This sketch was shown before the midterm elections in 2022.
Strong came back to SNL for season 48. She will pass former castmate Kate McKinnon as the show’s longest-running female cast member, even though she missed the first three shows of the season to play the same role in the play The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe in Los Angeles. She came back on the show on October 29, 2022. Strong beat McKinnon’s record in the episode that aired on December 17, 2022, which was also her last.
Personal Life
Owen Strong, Cecily’s younger cousin, died of brain cancer in January 2020. They were close. She wrote about how she was feeling after Owen’s death in an essay for “Vulture” in April 2020 and in her book “This Will All Be Over Soon” in 2021. At Owen’s funeral, Strong gave a beautiful speech in which she called him her hero and said that while he was sick with cancer, he taught his family and friends how to fight, smile, and “stay full of love.”
Cecily wrote about her relationship with a man named Jack in both the essay and the book. She met Jack at a Christmas party in 2019. Early on in the pandemic, Jack got COVID-19. Strong wrote about how she felt during that time “I’m afraid of Jack. I’m very worried. He’s been sick with a high fever for a week. Yesterday, he didn’t answer his phone.
I send a text message to a doctor friend, who suggests that the police do a welfare check. Since high school, I’ve been anxious and sad. I take Wellbutrin. I’ve been to therapy for years. When I need it, I take Xanax. Things are really bad for mental health right now.”
In November 2021, Cecily went on “Weekend Update” as Goober the Clown to speak out against Texas’ “Heartbeat Law,” which would make abortion illegal as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. This was because Cecily had an abortion herself. Strong later said in an Instagram story, “I didn’t tell my own wonderful and supportive mom for years, and I told live TV on Saturday.”
