by Katherine Spafford

After three seasons, Cheri Oteri and Will Ferrell have cheered their way to being two of the most popular cast members on "Saturday Night Live." Their goofy, over-zealous Spartan spirit is so appealing, special guests want to have parts written into the cheerleaders' skits. Jim Carrey, Neve Campbell and even the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders have graced the stage with Craig and Arianna.

Although they make a great pair, Cheri and Will's talent go way beyond their red and white uniforms. Cheri's portrayal of Collette Reardon, the ragged, lipstick-smeared, old-before-her-time woman hooked on prescription drugs or Rita, the nasty neighborhood watchman who polices the children on her street, or her hilarious impressions of Barbara Walters are all examples of her comedic talent. Will, who has been compared to Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd is well known for his shockingly similar impressions
of Janet Reno, the Unabomber, and the first half of the Roxbury Guys, a party-hard nightclub swinger along with Chris Kattan who can't seem to stop moving.

Were they blessed at birth? I don't think either would agree with that, but I did gain some insight on what they think worked for them and what kind of people they really are on Sunday.

UniverCity: Did you always know that you wanted to do comedy?

Cheri Oteri: I didn't know I wanted to do comedy for a living. I was the class clown, but I also knew people who were a lot funnier than I was. I got a real late start. I moved from Philadelphia to LA to get into the music business. I worked in promotions for A&M Records for four years, and that's what I thought I wanted to do as my career. I wanted to be a singer, but I can't sing that well, so I worked behind the scenes. My father is a music publisher in Nashville, and I thought it would be a really exciting field to get into. While I was working there, people always told me, "You're so funny­you should do comedy or improv," but stand-up never appealed to me, but while I was working at A&M, a woman said, "Cheri, you should audition for the Groundlings."

UniverCity: What are the Groundlings?

CO: "It's a comedy theater group that does improvisation and sketch comedy." I was like, what's improvisation? I knew nothing about it. But, I went and auditioned, and I thought, if I make a fool of myself, no one is going to know me. But it worked out and I started taking classes and I thought, I'm the luckiest girl in the world. I've got a great job and the best hobby. I could work at A&M Records and take comedy classes at night. I pictured myself getting married and then my life would be perfect.

UniverCity: What changed your mind?

CO: I took two years of classes and I've never had anything in my life that meant so much to me. Really. It was so much fun and so fulfilling. Nothing has made me feel this way, other than falling in love. I felt so lucky to have found this! After three years, I was asked to be in the Sunday company where you perform every Sunday night. That's when you start writing your own material. You write sketches and monologues and you put your stuff up in front of an audience. We also did improv there, where we came out and took suggestions from the audience. Lots of people from work would come to my shows and they were so into it. They thought the whole thing was hilarious. I did that for two years
and every six months they review you, and people either get dropped or go on. It's a really hard time, if your goal is to get to the main company. The Groundlings can take you so many different places, but the work is so hard that you really want to go on and do well.

UniverCity: Have a lot of famous comics come from the Groundlings?

CO: Yes, a lot of people have been dropped from there as well and still have become very famous. You've got to use the experience there all you can. If you get dropped for whatever reason, there are so many people who go on and they use the education and have a fabulous career. But finally, I got into the main company and what used to be this really great job at A&M, wasn't so great anymore. There were a lot of signs pointing that it was time to move on. So I started temping and I was doing the Groundlings every Friday and Saturday night. It was actually a really difficult time in my life for a lot of
reasons. I was lonely and I wasn't making much money. I lived on Progresso soup, tuna fish and Lean-Cuisine. Even though I had made the main company, everything around me was falling apart. This went on for about a year and a half. I finally just prayed saying, "God, I won't even be specific, but I will take anything wonderful!" I think everyone reaches a point like that in their lives. It's a good thing, because you give up trying to make things the way you think they're supposed to be and just let things happen. I've always been a spiritual person and I finally said, "You know what God, whatever, but I
need something."

UniverCity: Then things started turning around?

CO: Yeah, well I had been going on auditions and getting very close, and then I heard that someone from "SNL" was going to be in our audience one night. I only had one piece in the show that night and I thought, if it goes well, maybe they'll remember me. Well, it went well, and the next day while I was temping at Disney, my manager called me and said, "What are you doing next Monday?" I told him that I was looking for work as usual. He said "No, you're flying to New York to audition for "Saturday Night Live." I screamed! Me! Me! I couldn't believe it. Ever since I was a kid I never knew what I was going to do with my life, but I wanted to be on SNL. I had this feeling always that I would.

UniverCity: Was it always meant to be?

CO: I think there was a plan for me and I was guided to L.A. and I was guided to the Groundlings. I would never accept that something like this was meant for me, that it was for other people, not me. I'm not a writer, but I became a writer. Some people say, "I could never write." I never thought I could write either.

UniverCity: Now you write a lot of your material for "SNL?"

CO: Yes. The training I got at the Groundlings prepared me for this and so did the auditions that I didn't get. I really had to hone my characters and the work just got better and better.

UniverCity: What was the audition like?

CO: There were thirty-six people flown in from all over. When my audition was over, I didn't know how I rated, so I went back to L.A. but I got a call-back. There were twelve people at the call-back and Will Ferrell and I were the two people picked. It was great because I had such a need to feel good about myself at that time.

UniverCity: What kind of things did you have to do at the audition?

CO: We had to do an impression and I didn't really do impressions, but it was when Diane Sawyer had done that whole interview with Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie, so I did Lisa Marie, and made her over-the-top tough.

UniverCity: I guessed they liked it.

CO: I guess so. So I got the job. Then I started doing Barbara Walters and Ross Perot on the show and I really enjoy doing impressions now. I actually got to meet Barbara Walters for our April Fool's Day show. I've always been a fan of hers so it was really an honor to meet her and to play her. (At this point, Cheri goes into an explanation of how she plays her in her best Barbara Walters dialect.)

UniverCity: How did the Spartan cheerleaders come about?

CO: A bunch of us were just horsing around on stage, trying to get a feel of what it was going to be like. I used to be a cheerleader in high school and I was goofing around, stomping my feet on the floor. Will started dancing around with me, and I said, let's do a cheerleading skit, so we were sitting down writing one day and we decided to do it. First Will thought that his character could join the cheerleading squad because he always wanted to cop a feel of my character. I told him, "Will I love you, but I don't
think I could handle you coppin' a feel all the time." So then we came up with the idea of Craig and Arianna who had too much spirit. And the characters develop more and more as we go along, like the turn we do at the end, and "Okay, call me!" They're a lot of work though compared to other skits, because we have to choreograph the whole thing.

UniverCity: You also work with Will in Morning Latte?

CO: Yeah. I think Morning Latte and Collette Reardon, the woman addicted to prescription drugs, are my favorite characters to play. I love working and writing with Will. We wanted the Morning Latte characters to always look like they're having a blast. They're really phony and clueless, but their real personalities, who they really are, always come out in some way. Like Kathy Lee is always talking about her children, my character is obsessed with not being able to have children. "It's barren in there." We kind of just make up quirky things as we go along like, "Case closed."

UniverCity: What would you be doing if you weren't acting?

CO: The music business is cool and exciting. It would be a fun job and you get to work with great people, so I guess I might be doing that.

UniverCity: Do you have any words of wisdom to all the struggling actors or college students out there?

CO: Life isn't mapped out for anyone, but don't panic. I believe you're guided through your experiences to where you are supposed to be in life. Most of us are too scared to do what we really want sometimes. Things may look and sound good, but you think it's too big of a dream for you, whether it's acting or banking or whatever it is you want to do. But you have to do what makes you happy. I didn't move to LA until I was twenty five. I was miserable, but misery is sometimes the best motivator. I believe that God wants us to be happy in life. I'm an old-fashioned romantic. Do what you really want. You'll feel screwed up a lot of the time, but you learn a lot through pain.
 

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