Reality Doesn’t Bite for Garofalo

Janeane Garofalo’s patience has paid off. Four years ago, the bold and brainy stand-up comic auditioned for Lorne Michaels, executive producer of “Saturday Night Live,” with a half-hour set at a New York comedy club.

Michaels was impressed enough to offer Garofalo a writing job on the show, but she turned it down, preferring to craft her comedy onstage rather than behind the scenes.

Now, Michaels is finally ready to welcome Garofalo’s brusque charms and barbed point-of-view to the “SNL” set. When the show begins its next season Sept. 17, Garofalo will be a member of the cast.

The 29-year-old New Jersey native is excited about moving back to the East Coast, but the new job does create some new worries. “I don’t have any fears about living in New York. But there are some fears about the show. It’s live TV. What if I blank out in my first sketch? What if I vomit? It’s a whole new kind of pressure.”

“SNL” sketch work won’t mark the first time that Garofalo has departed from her stand-up material. She has proved herself to be a strong comic actress with her work as a featured player on “The Ben Stiller Show”; as Paula, the cool, capable talent booker on Garry Shandling’s “The Larry Sanders Show,” and as Winona Ryder’s glibly good-natured pal in the film “Reality Bites.”

But even with a successful film career under way and “Saturday Night Live” in the immediate future, Garofalo remains devoted to her stand-up work, which she now regularly brings to alternative comedy settings, including a recent appearance at a benefit for the cutting-edge art space, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions.

“I always wanted to increase my visibility for the sake of the stand-up as opposed to using stand-up to get on TV. I was hoping that being on TV would help sell more tickets to stand-up shows. It hasn’t really been the case for me yet, but we’ll see what happens.”

Garofalo took the jump into the stand-up world during her senior year at Providence College in Rhode Island. The idea of working her way up to an appearance on “Letterman” sounded more exciting than anything her history major might lead to.

“I liked it immediately,” she recalls. “I didn’t do well, but I liked it anyway. I knew I was going to keep doing it. It was the first thing in my life I’d ever approached with at least a notch above apathy.”

From the start, Garofalo concentrated on presenting comedy that was intense and personal. And she often found it easier to speak openly to a club crowd than to friends and family. “I think I’m much stronger on stage than in life. I don’t know where I get whatever courage I have up there, but I’m more open with a roomful of strangers than I am with people I’ve known for years. Maybe it’s easier because there are no strings attached. It’s hit-and-run confession. You can say something, bolt out of the room and go home.”

Occasionally, Garofalo speaks too honestly and directly for some audiences’ tastes.

“I don’t think I’m obsessed with myself, but I really don’t know what else to talk about. I can’t speak for others. I say, ‘This is what happened to me, and this is what I think about it.’ When you do that out on the road, you’re going to meet with some resistance. I’ve run into actual violence and a lot of hostility at my shows, but other comics were always very supportive and there’s always been a little pocket of each audience that really liked it.”

Presumably, those pockets of Garofalo-watchers will tune in to “SNL” to see how the comic’s edgy talents are put to use. She says the prospect of weekly national attention hasn’t gone to her head yet. “I’m still so low on the celebrity totem pole, changing my life isn’t even an issue.” Garofalo did experiment with changing her hair color recently, but was unhappy with the results. “I wanted to be a blonde, but I was just a yellow.”

Garofalo, who will continue with “Larry Sanders” when the “SNL” season wraps, says she won’t be fazed by meeting and working with the celebrity guests at her new gig.

“I’ve already completed my celebrity checklist. Albert Brooks once called me up to tell me I was funny, which was probably the most amazing moment of my life. And I got to meet Elvis Costello on ‘Larry Sanders.’ They’re the only two people I felt I had to meet. But I will say that, even though I’m not a Republican, I really like Mary Matalin, and I love the Matalin-Carville duo. If being on ‘Saturday Night Live’ puts me in a position to have dinner with the Matalin-Carvilles, I’ll be very happy.”