Rachel Dratch Reveals The Biggest Challenge Of Being Debbie Downer

“Saturday Night Live” alum Rachel Dratch is well known for her many hilarious character portrayals. One of her most recognizable characters, Debbie Downer, came with some challenges for the actress, who on occasional, uncontrollably broke character.

Dratch recently chatted with The Blast to share information about her partnership with American Home Shield and her portrayal of Warrantina, the character created for the company. She also shared some insight into “SNL 50,” some favorite moments on the show, her podcast, and what’s next for her.

Fresh off of some serious nostalgia with “SNL 50,” Dratch is bringing Warrantina back to life with her second year of partnership with American Home Shield, a Frontdoor, Inc company.

Warrantina, the company’s character that Dratch helped to create, reveals better home care solutions in American Home Shield’s newly debuted ads.

“The spirit and magic that Warrantina brings to American Home Shield and the warranty conversation stands out in a unique and special way,” said Kathy Collins, Frontdoor, Inc.’s Chief Revenue Officer, according to a press release obtained by The Blast.

“We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Rachel for a second year in a row and bring a new depth to Warrantina. We also get to show off video chat with live repair Experts so our members can experience help with home fixes over the phone.”

AHS’s campaign is to educate homeowners on the value of a home warranty while highlighting the ability to video chat with an expert in real-time through the AHS app when something breaks.

Dratch created the helpful character Warrantina last year with the creative agency, Fallon, and this year, she revamped the character by digging a “bit deeper” to show her in “home situations with families.”

“Warrantina is like a home warranty. It provides you this feeling of inner peace because you know that when anything breaks down, you have someone there to help you,” Dratch told The Blast exclusively. “As far as the character, I developed it with these amazing ladies from the ad agency and we just kind of tried to come up with what made us laugh at the same time of giving a sense of inner peace.”

Dratch also told The Blast about the new video chat feature AHS offers.

“You can get on kind of like FaceTime with an expert to sort of walk you through,” she said. “You can show them what’s going on with your whatever it is, washing machine, your oven, whatever you have. So that’s the sense of inner peace that you can have.”

The brand will have an ongoing presence in Netflix’s airings of WWE RAW on Monday nights, as well as DirecTV during March Madness’ men’s and women’s tournaments, with a spot in each game.

One of Dratch’s well known characters, Debbie Downer, makes it tough at times to stay in character and not giggle. The “SNL” alum said breaking character sometimes happens because “it’s hard to keep a straight face.”

“Sometimes it’s hard, especially that one was always hard to keep a straight face,” she said about Debbie Downer.

“You have to try to leave your body and just focus on nothing so you won’t laugh. But then something gets lost because you’re not really looking at your castmates, it’s not as fun, so it’s a constantly struggle to try to keep it together.”

Speaking of “SNL,” Dratch was recently part of the exciting “SNL 50,” where one of her favorite moments took place.

“One is probably getting throttled by Robert De Niro, which is something, as a comedy actor, was never in my…I didn’t think that was coming my way so it was a nice surprise,” she told The Blast. “That’s the thing about ‘SNL,’ you never know who you’re gonna be working with, and here I was, in a scene with Robert De Niro.”

She said another favorite moment was just the “nostalgia” having grown up watching “SNL.”

“Being there has always been a pinch me experience,” she continued.

When asked if she has a favorite moment from her time on the show, Dratch said she gets recognized the most for her Debbie Downer scene at Disney World, where everyone started laughing.

“That might have been a favorite moment because you try not to laugh when you’re on the show, but every so often, it is a live show, so when accidents like that happen, it actually makes it more fun. That one was definitely a highlight,” she shared. “You really try not to, but it’s still fun to watch for me.”

In addition to her acting and comedy, Dratch spends time as a podcast host on “Woo Woo with Rachel Dratch Podcast.”

“I have my funny friends on and we talk about all sorts of woo woo things like ghost stories or psychic things. The way it developed is cause I’ve heard some really cool stories from my friends over the years and I was like, maybe we should just do a podcast,” she told The Blast. “So it’s myself and a friend of mine from high school. Some people are really serious about the woo woo.”

When asked what’s next, Dratch said, “I’m not really sure. The life of an actor.” And when asked what she would love to do that she hasn’t yet, she said she “needs to set some goals” so she can “manifest.”

“Maybe I could be on the next ‘White Lotus.’ I mean, I don’t know if I fit into that vibe, but it would be fun because I love that show,” she said. “Just putting that out there. Why not?”