Admiring women in entertainment: Leslie Jones Graphic by: Maddie Bataille | Photo Editor
Leslie Jones is my all-time favorite comedian. She is just so perfect with her timing and delivery, and everything she says normally makes me laugh too.
According to Biography.com, Leslie Jones started her career off playing basketball in high school in Lynwood, California, and then receiving a basketball scholarship. She went to Chapman University in Orange, California, and then transferred to Colorado State University.
At Colorado State, she discovered that she had a love and passion for performing, specifically comedy. One of her friends signed her up in secret for a comedy contest claiming that she was hilarious.
I can’t remember what interview she said it in, but she talked about how she won the contest too. She mentioned that she used to hear Richard Pryor on the radio or his tapes and fell in love with his voice and jokes. However, her father wasn’t on board with her being a comedian.
Even though her father didn’t approve of her comedic endeavors, she continued to do stand-up because she loved doing it. Although, she didn’t have good acts to begin with. She went to Los Angeles and performed at the Comedy store, and her act did not go well.
Jones didn’t let the deflating experience stop her, and she went on to open for Jamie Foxx. She bombed again and this time the audience even booed her. Foxx’s advice was that she had to live her life.
“He told me, ‘You’re like 18. You don’t have anything to talk about,’” Jones said in an interview with People magazine. “‘Go get a job, go get fired, go get your heart broken and go break some hearts.'” (biography.com).
She did just that. She got a job at UPS and continued to work on her comedy in Los Angeles. All of this eventually led up to her joining the cast of Saturday Night Live (SNL) in 2014.
She was a part of the cast of SNL from spring of 2014 until spring of 2019, and those five years were the best years of SNL to me. Her skits were so funny and every character she played was absolutely hilarious and perfect.
My favorite thing she did on SNL was when she was on the “Weekend Update” skit with Colin Jost and Michael Che. She had no character and played herself, which was so perfect and so amazing. She would constantly make jokes with Colin and would sometimes cover serious topics. I died every time she started screaming or making fun of Colin because she just had such good jokes and content.
During her time at SNL, she also participated in the remake of the “Ghostbusters,” to which she received some backlash for. The whole drama and controversy behind was people being racist and misogynistic for her role in the movie. She received massive support from multiple celebrities, and she was praised by her fans for the way she handled the situation.
I personally have never seen the movie, but her along with Kate McKinnon, Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy sounds to me like a funny movie. All four of those women are so funny and talented, so this movie must be a good one in terms of comedy.
One of my favorite projects that she has done is her Netflix special called “Time Machine.” That comedy special was one of the best comedy specials I have ever watched, along with Wanda Sykes’s one. She went over her life in decades starting with her 20s and ending with her 50s.
All the stories she told about her life from 20-50 made me laugh so hard and I fell in love with her comedy and personality even more. She told a story about how she met Prince at a club and was trying to impress him with her dancing. She ended up dancing a little too hard and her ponytail that wasn’t securely attached to her head flew off and landed near him.
This comedy special aired after she left SNL, and she has gone on to do a lot of other projects in movies. She was a part of the “Angry Birds 2” movie, “Coming 2 America” and “Sing 2.” She even hosted the reboot for “Supermarket Sweep,” which was a hit for the first season and she even returned for season two.
Leslie Jones is such an underrated comedian and actress. She is so talented, funny and energetic in everything that she does. Every time that she is on an interview show, Jimmy Fallon to be exact, she is always so quick and unique with every joke she makes. I love her so much and I highly recommend watching all of her work.