Annette Jones (born September 7, 1967 in Memphis, Tennessee), better known as Leslie Jones, is an American comedian and actress.
Jones is best known for serving as a cast member on the long-running NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live, starting with its fortieth season in 2014. Originally hired as just a writer, she made her on-camera debut during a segment of "Weekend Update", and was soon promoted to featured cast member on the strength of her initial appearance.
Jones grew up in Los Angeles, and played college basketball (appropriate for her 6' 0"/183 cm height), before dropping out of school to pursue a standup comedy career. After more than two decades on the standup circuit (with a few breaks), she was noticed by Chris Rock, who helped arranged an SNL audition for her. With her promotion, she became the oldest-ever person to join the SNL cast — aged forty-seven at the time — and also helped mark the first time the show had two black women in its cast at any point throughout its run (the other being Sasheer Zamata and, later in Jones' last season, Ego Nwodim) and more than three African-American cast members in their cast at any point throughout its run. Though Jones was more at home doing commentary on Weekend Update (where she would hit on Colin Jost in between rants about her tumultuous love life and the hardships of being a black woman in modern American society), she did have some recurring characters: Shanice (one of the contestants on Black Jeopardy!, initially replacing Jay Pharoah's Amir, but then replaced Sasheer Zamata's Keeley while Chris Redd's Rashad replaced Jay Pharoah's Amir), Malika Trump (a black take on Melania Trump on the Empire-esque poltical drama Them Trumps), Nurse Pam (the school nurse on the high school news show Fresh Takes), Shanice Goodwin (not the same Shanice from Black Jeopardy!; this one is a tall, black woman who trains to be a ninja), and Shelly Duncan (a seemingly bashful woman who, along with her badly battered husband [played by Mikey Day], appear on Weekend Update to discuss ways couples can spice up their sex lives — with her husband's injuries being from these attempts). Jones' celebrity impressions include: Aretha Franklin, Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott, Michelle Obama (replacing Sasheer Zamata, though Jones played a She-Hulk version of Michelle Obama one time), Oprah Winfrey (probably the one celebrity impression most critics and fans feel is her best one), Omarosa Manigault, Whoopi Goldberg, Gayle King (on the sketch parodying R. Kelly's infamous interview), two women related to Dr. Ben Carson (his mother, Sonya, and his wife, Candy), and Samuel L. Jackson (yes, really)
In 2017, she joined a select few SNL cast members to receive an Emmy nomination for their performance on the show.
She's also notable for starring in Ghostbusters (2016), opposite Melissa McCarthy and fellow SNL cast members Kate McKinnon and Kristen Wiig.
Selected filmography:
- Top Five (2014) as Lisa
- Saturday Night Live (2014 — 2019) as herself / various characters
- Trainwreck (2015) as Angry Subway Patron
- Ghostbusters (2016) as Patty Tolan
- Sing (2016) as Meena's mother (voice)
- The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019) as Zeta (voice)
- Coming 2 America (2021) as Mary Junson
- Our Flag Means Death (2022) as Spanish Jackie
- Hit-Monkey (TBA)
Leslie Jones provides examples of the following tropes:
- Game Show Host: Current host of ABC's revival of Supermarket Sweep.
- Promoted Fangirl: Her enthusiasm for things she enjoys has gotten her hired by them on more than one occasion. She's a massive fan of The Blacklist and was offered a guest-starring role in an episode because of it, while her obsessive following of NBC's 2016 Summer Olympics coverage led to the network inviting her to Rio as a guest commentator.
- Third-Person Person: One integral part of her standup routine, later ported into SNL, is her gratuitous use of "a bitch" in this context."CAN A BITCH GET A BEEF BOWL?!"
- This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: The other integral part of her routine.
