Cecily Strong’s New Memoir “This Will All Be Over Soon”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: So, “Schmigadoon” this amazing series about the musicals, the sort of throwback to the past and particularly your book is really revealing. What — I guess when I said freedom to be yourself in my introduction, you have put yourself out in a very sort of new way trying, I guess, to tell people that it is not all laughs inside and that you have had a very difficult time. You’ve had your own depressions. Your brother has suffered with that. There’s been suicide attempts. And it’s all extrovertism (ph). How and why have you don’t that now?

CECILY STRONG, AUTHOR, “THIS WILL ALL BE OVER SOON”: I think when I wrote — I was unable to really process and write about losing my Cousin Owen in January 2020 to glioblastoma. It just felt it was so big and so heavy, and I really did feel like I have so much grief and I have so much love at the same time and didn’t really understand that until I was able to sit down and write. And I wrote an article — I just wrote and I sent it to a couple of friends, it became the essay for New York magazine. And the way people responded, it felt like maybe that had helped a couple of them or been helpful in some way or gave them some kind of peace and it thought, that’s the way I can now — that’s how I can talk about my cousin, if it feels like it is about helping other people, because that is so much his spirit and what he did for me.

AMANPOUR: And, Cecily, you are such a public person. And we have seen Simone Biles and we have seen Naomi Osaka and we can name any number of others who have taken the mental health aspect of the pressures on their life and decided to come out with it and saying, it is not all about winning. It is not all about pushing ourselves. We have to think of our emotions too. Did that crystallize for you during COVID unlike any other time?

STRONG: Yes. Absolutely. I mean, I think that everybody has been through a lot, to some level, and I don’t know that everybody even has recognized that. And so, I say I feel like my edges were softened or something and I’m a bit more vulnerable. And I think, you know, it is easy to be very snarky in comedy, and I sort of prefer when comedy has a heart. And I think now is a great time to share our hearts.