‘Saturday Night Live’s Jan Hooks Had a ‘Particular Repulsion’ to Victoria Jackson
Saturday Night Live alum Victoria Jackson was at it again this week, showing up at her local city hall in Franklin, Tennessee to oppose an upcoming Pride parade. But it’s not only Jackson who’s against the festivities — it’s God who has the problem. “God hates sodomy. He hates homosexuality — he said it’s an abomination. And God hates sexual immorality, all kinds,” she protested. “And God hates pride. Like, one of the most things He hates is pride.”
Sure, everyone remembers the 11th Commandment: Thou shall not have pride.
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Pop culture journalist Mark Harris commented with a tweet about how SNL cast mate Jan Hooks held a lot of private anger about Jackson:
Hooks co-stars Julia (Designing Women) Duffy and Julia (SNL) Sweeney co-signed, confirming Hooks’ off-screen rants. But while Harris says that Hooks was “off the record” when she tore Jackson to shreds, the comic had no problem telling others exactly how she felt.
“Victoria Jackson? I thought she had a pretty good gig. I just have a particular repulsion to grown women who talk like little girls,” she said on the record in Live from New York: The Complete Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live. “It’s like, ‘You’re a grown woman! Use your lower register!’”
Jackson didn’t really get Hooks either. At a cast meeting to discuss improving the show, Jackson put Hooks and Nora Dunn on blast. “Victoria ended up standing on a chair and said Nora was a bitch,” remembered writer Terry Turner. “And she turned to Jan and said, ‘And you, you’re the devil.’”
Jackson tried to convert cast members while she was still on the show, gifting everyone audio Bibles for Christmas one year. That didn’t surprise that “bitch,” Dunn. “I don’t understand anyone who plays a character in real life unless they’re having an intellectual discussion, which I never had with Victoria. When I met her, I was surprised that there was not much difference between what she did in front of the camera and what happened off camera,” Dunn told Salon. “For me, it tried my patience.”
Al Franken told Jackson to knock it off with the airhead persona, complaining that he was offended by her ditzy act. “Maybe I’m overcompensating,” Jackson said, “because everybody here is dying and going to Hell, and I’m supposed to tell them about Jesus.” According to Jackson, Franken went white, and “he never talked to me again.”
Hooks didn’t have much to do with her either. “I never really got her,” Hooks said. “I don’t know, she was like from Mars to me.”
