SNL's Rachel Dratch Reveals Why a Debbie Downer Movie Never Happened

Rachel Dratch has a good reason for never writing a Debbie Downer movie.

By Jamie Jirak

Rachel Dratch is best known for her years as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, and she had some beloved characters during her time on the show between 1999 and 2006. However, no character quite matched up to the iconic Debbie Downer, the sad sack woman who first made her debut in 2004. Dratch has even returned to SNL to reprise the role over the years, but she's never gotten the opportunity to play the character on the big screen. Many SNL characters have gotten movies over the years, but Dratch has a pretty good reason why Debbie didn't go the way of Mike Myers and Dana Carvey's Wayne and Garth (Wayne's World), Molly Shannon's Mary Katherine Gallagher (Superstar), and more.

"No," Dratch replied when asked if she ever wrote a Debbie Downer script. "I used to get asked that a lot about the Debbie Downer movie, but the thing about Debbie Downer is she's best in small doses, I think. I think with a whole movie – even a sketch, like the first couple were great and then people are on to you after, you know, they know what to expect – So I think a whole movie might not work. I think some things are best in teeny tiny little snippets."

"We never did because she barely could make it the seven minutes sometimes," she added. "So 90 minutes would probably be a snooze fest. But anyway, thank you for bringing it up though."

You can watch our interview with Dratch at the top of the page.

What Is SNL 1975?

Dratch's time at SNL began 24 years after the series first debuted on NBC, and now a film is being made about the show's early days. It was announced last year that Ghostbusters: Afterlife director Jason Reitman was set to helm a new movie about SNL's first broadcast. It was previously announced that Gabriel LaBelle (The Fabelmans) had been cast as SNL's creator and longtime producer, Lorne Michaels. 

The cast also includes Cooper Hoffman as Dick Ebersol, Rachel Sennott as Rosie Shuster, Dylan O'Brien as Dan Aykroyd, Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris, Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, Matt Wood as John Belushi, Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner, Emily Fairn as Laraine Newman, Kim Matula as Jane Curtin, Nicholas Braun as Jim Henson, Kaia Gerber as Jacqueline Carlin, J.K. Simmons as Milton Berle, and Finn Wolfhard as an NBC page.

Stay tuned for more updates about the upcoming film.

ComicBook.com's interview with Rachel Dratch was done in support of her American Home Shield commercials. Learn more here or watch the ads here.

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