Please Rewind Talent Wall

Andrea Martin

Andrea Martin is the kind of performer who can take a sharply drawn character and make every detail count. Across sketch comedy, stage, film, television and voice acting, she has built a career around comic precision, physical commitment and a remarkable gift for transformation. Born in Portland, Maine, on January 15, 1947, Martin found steady work after relocating to Toronto in 1970. She appeared in a 1972 production of Godspell alongside Gilda Radner, Martin Short, Eugene Levy and Victor Garber, then took early film roles in Cannibal Girls and Black Christmas. Her performance in Cannibal Girls earned her the Sitges Film Festival Award for Best Actress. Martin’s range became especially clear on SCTV. As leopard-print-wearing station manager Edith Prickley, she created one of the show’s defining personalities, but the part was only one entry in a busy gallery that also included Pirini Scleroso, Edna Boil, Libby Wolfson and Mrs. Falbo. Her impersonations stretched from Barbra Streisand and Ethel Merman to Pauline Kael, Patti Smith and Indira Gandhi. Martin also won two Emmy Awards for writing on the series. That combination of character work and musical comedy carried naturally to Broadway. Martin won a Tony Award for her 1992 Broadway debut in My Favorite Year and another for playing Berthe in the 2013 revival of Pippin. Her stage credits also include Candide, Oklahoma!, Young Frankenstein, Exit the King, Act One and Noises Off, as well as her one-woman show Nude, Nude, Totally Nude. On screen, Martin may be most widely recognized as the candid, enthusiastic Aunt Voula in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, a role she reprised on television and in two film sequels. Her other credits range from Wag the Dog and Hedwig and the Angry Inch to Difficult People and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She has also supplied voices for productions including Anastasia, Rugrats, The Simpsons, Kim Possible and SpongeBob SquarePants. Whatever the format, Martin brings the instincts of a seasoned character actor: specific, fearless and always alert to where the joke really is.