This year’s milestone 50th anniversary celebration of Saturday Night Live likely felt like a family reunion for Abby Elliott.
After her four-season run on the NBC sketch comedy show from 2008 to 2012, the Golden Globe nominee recently opened up about her family’s legacy on the show, which includes dad Chris Elliott‘s 1994-’95 run and her uncle Steve Higgins‘ was co-head writer from 1995 to ’97, having since served as a producer on SNL.
“I mean, it’s wild,” she said on SiriusXM’s The Julia Cunningham Show, noting that Higgins is “my mom’s sister’s husband. … I mean, something in the Niedert women. I mean, they must just like funny men.”
Abby’s cousin and Steve’s son John Higgins has been on the show since 2021, appearing as part of the comedy trio Please Don’t Destroy. The group frequently pokes fun at their own “nepo baby” status, with Martin Herlihy, who is former SNL writer/producer Tim Herlihy’s son.
Admitting that holidays with the family are “really fun,” Abby said, “We like to party and have fun. And it’s a time where no one’s trying to, you know, do bits ’cause it’s like chill time. It’s family time to chill. But we dance, we have dance parties.”
Abby Elliott as Rachel Maddow on the Nov. 20, 2010 episode of ‘Saturday Night Live’ (Dana Edelson/NBC/Courtesy Everett Collection)
Chris has previously noted he had a “terrible time” on the long-running Lorne Michaels show after he was first offered a spot in 1985 but turned it down due to his job on Late Night with David Letterman, where he met Abby’s mom, talent booker Paula Niedert.
“I always have to preface this by saying that all the cast, they really liked me, they were all really nice,” he told Salon in 2012. “I think I just went there when I was too old. I had already done Get a Life, Cabin Boy and nine years working for Dave, and I was amazed that people like Chris Farley and Adam Sandler were still competing for airtime on the show, which is the process there.”
Chris added, “It’s a really unhealthy process. You’re doing comedy but you’re competing with your fellow cast members for airtime. I had never worked in an environment like that.”
