Molly Shannon says losing her mother, younger sister and cousin in a car crash at age 4 inspired her SNL Mary Katherine Gallagher character

Los Angeles Times

Shannon, who's making a splash on TV this month with roles on The White Lotus and The Other Two, opens up for the first time in a Los Angeles Times interview about the childhood accident caused by her father, who was under the influence while driving the vehicle and who survived with horrible injuries. “I was very heartbroken and very sad and just trying to hold it all together as a kid,” says Shannon. “There’s no way that you could feel that type of deep pain about your mother and your sister being dead, so you just hold it all in, and it comes up later in life.” Mary Katherine Gallagher, she says, “was really based on me, how I felt after the accident — really nervous, accident-prone, wanting to please, f*ck up but full of hope,” she says. “I just exaggerated everything I felt as a little girl and turned it into a character.” But as a result of playing her iconic character, Shannon would hurt herself a lot. “Isn’t that weird?” says Shannon. “I didn’t care if I cut myself or I made myself bleed. I did not give a sh*t. I looked at it like punk rock. I was reckless, and because of what I went through, I just didn’t care about anything."