IT WITS The Women Of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE
AGES (L.-r.) Maya Rudolph, 28; Ana Gasteyer, 34; Beth McCarthy Miller, 37; Tina Fey, 31; and Rachel Dratch, 35 WHY THEM? Saturday Night Live's mythic boys' club is officially over thanks to this clan of X chromosomes: Dratch, Gasteyer, Rudolph, and Fey deliver trenchant comedy and flawless impressions on camera (Fey was SNL's first female head writer for two seasons prior to the "Weekend Update" gig); McCarthy Miller is the show's third-ever director. SECRETS OF THE TRADE In comedy, "you kind of have to neuter yourself," says Dratch, who finds glory in the supremely freakish (see her drooling love child of Angelina Jolie and her brother). "It's maybe why I don't have a boyfriend." CAREER LOW "I played an old schoolmarm who doesn't sing in a movie-of-the-week musical," says Gasteyer of Drew Carey's 2000 Geppetto. "A real nadir." CAREER HIGH "Getting the phone call that I got SNL--even though Lorne [Michaels] was very subdued," says Dratch. "He was like, 'Um, someone will be calling to set up the deal.'" BEST ADVICE For Rudolph, it was a tip from Molly Shannon: "No part is small. If you've got one thing in the show, be happy about that." CLOSEST BRUSH WITH CAREER IMMOLATION Rudolph skipped her first SNL audition to join the doomed CBS series City of Angels. "I was worried if I didn't take the job I wouldn't work again." She got another tryout after she left the series. INFLUENCES "I learned a lot from Jon Stewart," says McCarthy Miller, who helmed the comedian's talk show on MTV. KNEW THEY'D MADE IT WHEN For Gasteyer, it was popping up in a New York Times crossword puzzle. "I probably got 15 phone calls about that." DREAM COLLABORATORS Fey: "Joan Jett, Julianne Moore, and Loretta Lynn.... And I'd like to meet Oprah--if you want to print my phone number, she can call me." ULTIMATE AMBITION "I'd love to direct an episode of The Sopranos," says McCarthy Miller. NEXT More SNL; Gasteyer will appear in Broadway's The Rocky Horror Show; McCarthy Miller may direct MTV's Video Music Awards for the fifth time.
IT COMARE Annabela SCIORRA
AGE 37 WHY HER? As simmering Mercedes saleswoman Gloria Trillo, the neurotic other woman with a nearly fatal attraction to James Gandolfini's Tony Soprano, Sciorra lusciously tread a thin line between victimhood and villainy. And not for nothing, she made a very mean London broil. PROUDEST SOPRANOS MOMENT Heaving that steak at Tony: "I hit him pretty much every time I threw it"--10 times, to be exact. "They wanted me to use a fake sponge steak, but it didn't throw the same way." INFLUENCE "My grandmother. The first time I remember realizing that you can create something with just your attitude was watching her...the way she folded sheets, the way she prepared food, the way she put flowers in a vase." DREAM COLLABORATORS "Bob Fosse and Fred Astaire.... I grew up watching Busby Berkeley musicals, and I wanted to be Cyd Charisse." NEXT Naturally, we have to ask: Is more Sopranos an offer Sciorra could refuse? "We're thinking and talking about it."
