Rachel Dratch
Rachel Dratch is an actor, born 1966.
Rachel Dratch graduated from Dartmouth, moved to Chicago to study improvisation at The Second City and ImprovOlympic, and joined Saturday Night Live in 1999, where she stayed until 2006. Her signature creation there was Debbie Downer, a sketch with no jokes in the conventional sense: a woman announcing statistics about feline AIDS at a theme park while the rest of the table dies inside. The comedy is entirely other people's discomfort, and Dratch never once winks at the audience to let them off.
That refusal to soften is the through line, and it also explains a frustrating film career. The parts she was offered by studio comedy in the years after SNL are listed in the credits by function rather than name: Benefits Supervisor, Phil's Wife, Kirsten Brant. She is very funny in about ninety seconds of each. The exceptions are worth seeking out, particularly Kelly in Sisters and the ensemble work in Wine Country.
Television has treated her better. Greta Johansen in 30 Rock, the recurring Wanda Jo on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and a run of animated parts that suit a voice this distinctive: Nora Freeze in Harley Quinn, Negative Girl in Teen Titans Go!, Ms. Weber in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. She published the memoir Girl Walks Into a Bar... in 2012, made her Broadway debut in POTUS in 2022 and was nominated for a Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Play, and still returns to SNL to play Senator Amy Klobuchar.
Movies (28)
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
- Just Go with It (2011)
- Click (2006)
- That's My Boy (2012)
- Sisters (2015)
- I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (2007)
- Down with Love (2003)
- Little (2019)
- The Week Of (2018)
- Saturday Night Live: The Best of Amy Poehler (2009)
- Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star (2003)
- My Life in Ruins (2009)
- The 4:30 Movie (2024)
- Hurricane Bianca (2016)
- Wine Country (2019)
- Plan B (2021)
- Saturday Night Live: 25th Anniversary Special (1999)
- Spring Breakdown (2009)
- Winter Passing (2006)
- I Hate Valentine's Day (2009)
- Hurricane Bianca: From Russia with Hate (2018)
- Love n' Dancing (2009)
- Syrup (2013)
- Salem Rogers (2015)
- Her Minor Thing (2005)
- Martin & Orloff (2002)
- The Women of SNL (2010)
- Saturday Night Live: The Best of Will Ferrell (2002)
TV (23)
- Late Night with Seth Meyers (2014)
- Teen Titans Go! (2013)
- Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (2014)
- Saturday Night Live (1975)
- 30 Rock (2006)
- The King of Queens (1998)
- Harley Quinn (2019)
- Fish Hooks (2010)
- Broad City (2014)
- The $100,000 Pyramid (2016)
- Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (2009)
- Duncanville (2020)
- Great News (2017)
- Mr. Mayor (2021)
- Difficult People (2015)
- Royal Crackers (2023)
- Mulligan (2023)
- Grimsburg (2024)
- Billy on the Street (2011)
- Celebrity Jeopardy! (2022)
- That's My Jam (2021)
- At Home with Amy Sedaris (2017)
- Game Over (2004)
Where to start with Rachel Dratch
Everything starts with Saturday Night Live, and the Debbie Downer sketches are the ones to find, ideally the original, where the cast corpses so badly the sketch stops working and becomes better for it.
For a film that actually uses her, Sisters is the pick: a house-party comedy with a deep bench of Chicago-trained performers, and her Kelly gets a proper arc rather than a cameo. Wine Country is the warmer companion piece and the closest thing to a lead role on this list.
30 Rock and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver are the television detours worth taking, the second for a recurring character who exists purely to be interviewed badly. If you want the voice work, Harley Quinn is the best of it and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a very short but well-placed appearance.