The Stunning Transformation Of Jenny Slate

Jenny Slate is an accomplished actor and stand-up comic, known for her voice work on shows such as "Bob's Burgers," as well as films like "Zootopia" and "The Secret Life of Pets." Slate's knack for comedy began in childhood when she realized the joy in making her family laugh. "I just remember making people laugh at the Shabbat dinner table as a five-year-old, and that it felt like an uncomplicated moment of receiving love that I had brought to myself," she shared with InStyle. The multitalented actor has come a long way from her roots in suburban Massachusetts, and she has undergone a stunning transformation to become the shining star is she is today.

From excelling in high school to getting fired from "Saturday night Live" and creating meme-able moments from a sitcom stint, Slate has had an interesting path indeed. Over the years, Slate has shown that she has range, and aside from acting she is also a writer who has penned multiple books, including two autobiographical collections, "Little Weirds" and "Life Form." Slate now boasts an impressive resumé, and she is able to look back on her trajectory with humor and insight.

Jenny Slate was born and raised in Milton, Massachusetts, the middle child of three siblings. Slate, who is known for her comedic prowess and voice acting skills, was a bit of a handful growing up. "I had really difficult moments in elementary school. I have always had an attention span issue," she shared with The Los Angeles Times. It was her fourth grade teacher who noticed her talent and helped give her confidence a boost. "I just remember her taking a good look at me and saying, 'You are smart, but you're also hyper. And hyper creative,'" Slate said.

The actor was also a bit eccentric, evidenced by one of her very first crushes. It wasn't a boy in her class, but rather former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis. She once ran into the politician while out with her father and couldn't hold back her excitement. "I flipped out and invited him to my birthday party," Slate told Boston Magazine, adding, "He did not attend."

Over the years, Slate came to embrace her "bouncing ball" personality and understand that being herself was a great asset to both her career and her personal life. "For better or for worse, the one thing I've learned for myself is to fly my flag," she told The Los Angeles Times.

Jenny Slate grew up in an affluent suburban town, but her childhood was not exactly normal. This was due in part to her parents, her mother a potter and her father a poet, whom Slate describes as artist hippies. They put a lot of emphasis on healthy eating, and fast food was forbidden. "Like, if you say 'McDonald's' you're saying the F-word almost," Slate explained on "Jimmy Kimmel Live." Instead of a drive-thru, the family made trips to a local food co-op in a church basement where they would buy grains and other health food staples. The experience was baffling to Slate, who was unfamiliar with the church setting seeing as how her family was Jewish. "I was just like what, in general, is this?" she said.

In addition to take-out dinners, soda was also a no-no in the Slate household. "It would be more appropriate for me to walk through the kitchen with like a glass of red wine as an eight-year-old than to somehow have found a can of coke," Slate said.

The family car was another source of weirdness for Slate, as her mother drove an old, noisy Volvo with no muffler, a faulty stick shift, and one of the windows stuck open. Slate just wanted normalcy — or at least a less embarrassing ride. "I was just like, I hate this, why do we not have a Dodge Caravan?" the actor told Jimmy Kimmel.

Jenny Slate attended the prestigious Milton Academy, whose alumni include poet T.S. Eliot, politician Ted Kennedy, and singer-songwriter James Taylor, among others. Slate focused on her studies, and wasn't exactly a social butterfly. "I was not at what you would call the heart of the social scene at Milton," she told Boston Daily. "I wasn't a total outcast, but I wasn't at any of the parties."

Slate had her memorable moments at Milton Academy, but they weren't all good times. She recalled a school trip to Montreal, during which she decided not to take medication for her lactose intolerance. "While we were there, I had a crazy vomit and diarrhea attack that I don't think I'll ever live down," Slate shared. "Who's the random girl who's exploding?"

But the actor must have made a positive impression at some point, as she was named valedictorian of her class, an honor bestowed upon her by her classmates. "It was voted on. The person who would best represents the class," Slate explained. "Probably the person who was the least drunk."

After graduating from Milton Academy, Jenny Slate attended Columbia University where she first began doing improv. Slate met her comedy partner Gabe Liedman while in college, and the two hit it off immediately. "We call our relationship a nonsexual romance because I swear I locked eyes with Gabe and we made each other laugh all the time," she told Boston Daily. Slate and Liedman went on to form the comedy duo Gabe & Jenny, and they held a weekly stand-up show in Brooklyn called "Big Terrific" alongside actor and comedian Max Silvestri.

Slate then began performing solo in her early twenties, which led to a lot of self-reflection. "I think that when I started doing stand-up ... I realized a lot of what I want to talk about is how I feel," she told NPR. "I started to be more aware of it and I also started going to therapy." But just because Slate liked talking about her feelings onstage, this didn't mean she saw everything in her life as fodder for her act. "I'm not one of these people that's going through her life and being like, 'Ooh, that's material!'" she explained.

In 2009, Jenny Slate thought she was finally getting her big break when she was chosen to be a cast member on "Saturday Night Live." Landing the gig was a dream come true for Slate, but the reality of the job itself was not what she had envisioned. "That experience was very intense ... everyone was really nice to me, but I was incredibly disappointed in myself" she revealed on "The Off Camera Show."

Slate was fired from the show after just one season, and many fans thought it was due to her accidentally saying the F-word during a live broadcast, but she later clarified that wasn't the case. "I just didn't belong there," Slate told InStyle. "I didn't do a good job, I didn't click," adding that she didn't know what show creator Lorne Michaels thought of her at the time.

The "SNL" experience took a toll on the actor, who suffered stage fright as a result of what she saw as a failing on her part. She told "The Off Camera Show" that she was unable to do stand-up without feeling like she was being judged harshly. "I was too sensitive, and when I got up on stage I just felt like everyone hates me," Slate shared. The comic also found she could no longer perform with the sense of happiness that brought her to the stage in the first place. "I couldn't do my stand-up joyfully. I was like a ghost of myself," she said. Slate briefly stopped performing, but ultimately decided she wasn't going to let this setback stand in her way.

In 2012, Jenny Slate married director Dean Fleischer Camp after several years of dating. There was a creative spark between the two, as well as a romantic one, and together they created one of Slate's most famous characters, Marcel the Shell.

Slate created Marcel by accident during a trip to a friend's wedding she had attended with Fleischer Camp. The accommodations were cramped, she was stressed about the "SNL" situation, and she began complaining, but in a sort of joking way. "I started to talk in this little voice and my husband was like, 'What is that voice?!'" she told Vogue. The tiny, squeaky voice Slate used became the inspiration for Marcel the Shell.

The idea for Marcel, a little shell with one googly eye, was conceived by both Slate and Fleischer Camp, and it led to a series of animated shorts, followed by a feature film in 2021. "Marcel the Shell with Shoes On" had a long journey to the big screen, which sadly outlived Slate and Fleischer Camp's marriage. The pair divorced in 2016, but the split didn't stop them from continuing to collaborate. "We met working together, we made tons of stuff before we started dating a million years ago, and we continue to make stuff today," Fleischer Camp told The New Yorker in 2022.

After her departure from "SNL," Jenny Slate made appearances on series such as "Raising Hope," "Bored to Death," and "Hello Ladies," but many fans remember her best as Mona-Lisa Saperstein on the hit show "Parks and Recreation." Slate played the twin sister of Ben Schwartz's character, Jean-Ralphio Saperstein, and the duo was responsible for some of the show's most hilarious moments.

One of their most iconic scenes involved them singing the phrase "don't be suspicious" while breaking into an impromptu dance. The clip became super popular on YouTube and even found a new audience years later on TikTok. It turns out the scene was improvised, and Slate and Schwartz truly loved playing off one another. "It really felt like we got onto just a turbo thing once we became those characters," Slate told Esquire.

It was clear that Slate had fond memories of her time on "Parks and Recreation" when she reunited with her TV dad on "The Drew Barrymore Show" in 2024. The beloved "Happy Days" star Henry Winkler surprised Slate, posing as an audience member, and Slate was moved to tears upon seeing him. "I didn't know that people really get surprised on TV ... My heart is beating so fast and I love you so much," she told him.

In 2014, Jenny Slate starred in the indie hit "Obvious Child." The film centers around Donna, a stand-up comic who gets pregnant after a one-night stand and chooses to terminate the pregnancy. Slate embodied the role perfectly, garnering an Independent Spirit Award nomination, a Gotham Award nomination, and winning a Critic's Choice Award for best actress in a comedy movie.

For all the acclaim the film received, there were some who dubbed it "the abortion rom-com," which didn't sit right with Slate. "Ugh, that is such a bummer, that term. An abortion romcom — that's not a thing!" Slate told The Guardian. "The movie isn't saying that abortions are funny. It's saying that people are funny."

Slate's own views on abortion helped make her character more relatable and believable, despite the film's somewhat controversial premise. "I feel I have to be totally cemented in my position, all: 'You can't tell me what to do with my body,'" the actor shared. She went on to explain that there was more nuance to her feelings, which she felt were reflected well in the film. "But there is another part of me that is ... vulnerable, with lots of doubts," the actor said. "I think our film shows that complexity."

In 2015, Jenny Slate began dating fellow actor Chris Evans while shooting the film "Gifted" together. They seemed an unlikely pair, and Slate didn't really think she was his type, possibly referring to Evan's past relationship with actor Jessica Biel, Kate Bosworth, and Minka Kelly. When Evans revealed his feelings for Slate, she was incredulous. "I was looking around like, 'Is this a prank?'" she told Vulture. "I understand why I think I'm beautiful, but if you've had a certain lifestyle and I'm a very, very different type of person — I don't want to be an experiment."

Slate was also unsure if Evans was the kind of guy she'd even want to date, initially feeling they wouldn't have much in common. Slate recalled thinking, "This guy's like a sports guy. He's the kid that likes P.E." But Evans won her over with his kindness and enthusiasm, something that she gravitated toward as their relationship coincided with her split from Dean Fleischer Camp.

Evans had lots of sweet things to say about Slate, gushing to People, "She's the best. I've never ever ever met someone in my life who has a mastery of the English language the way she does." And it turned out the pair did have a lot in common, such as growing up in Massachusetts. But despite all the fans rooting for the relationship to work, it just wasn't meant to be. The couple broke up in February of 2017, and despite giving the relationship another shot later that year, they simply couldn't make it work.

In 2019, Jenny Slate released her book "Little Weirds," a hybrid fiction book and memoir detailing some of her most personal experiences. Slate told "The Off Camera Show" that she was hesitant to name her book "Little Weirds" because she didn't want to play into what she saw as people's impressions of her. "There is the inclination to simplify me by like perceiving me as twee, which really bums me out," the actor explained. "Because I don't think of myself that way even though I know I am bubbly."

Understandably, Slate wanted to be taken seriously, especially since she wrote the book during a difficult period in her life. "I felt despair, powerless, and mentally, pretty unwell," she told Vulture. "I felt that my good points were buried, and that I didn't have the strength to unearth them." Slate also explained that writing the book involved having to pull herself out of a depression, and in the end her positive outlook won out. "I remembered to be an optimist, even if it felt totally foolish," she revealed.

Although Jenny Slate's first marriage ended in divorce, and her relationship with Chis Evans didn't stand the test of time, she found love again with Ben Shattuck. Slate got engaged to Shattuck — a painter, writer, and art curator — in 2019, and Slate was over the moon about it. "He took me to France and made a picnic and made me feel happy and free, and then he asked me to marry him and I screamed YES," she captioned an Instagram post to announce the happy news. 

But Slate and her fiancé's road to the altar was a rocky one. It had nothing to do with their relationship, but rather the COVID-19 pandemic that forced them to cancel three different wedding dates. Finally, the pair tied the knot in their living room on New Year's Eve in 2021. "We were planning on a [wedding] that ended up being almost 200 people, and then now, it's just our parents and siblings," Slate told Marie Claire, adding, "I like it better. I didn't realize how the large thing was making me feel uncomfortable, a little bit."

2021 was a wonderful year for Jenny Slate. In addition to getting married, the actor also welcomed her first child, a daughter named Ida Lupine Shattuck. Ida's birth came as a surprise to fans, as Slate didn't announce the big family news until just a few months before her due date.

It was during a 2021 appearance via Zoom on "Late Night with Seth Meyers" that she finally revealed she was expecting. Slate joked that she might have baked too much bread during the pandemic before standing up to reveal her baby bump — or a bun in the oven, if you will. "How have the exact last nine months been? They've been real pregnant for me," she joked.

A year later, Slate opened up to E! News about what motherhood was like for her, emphasizing the joy she experienced engaging in her daily rituals with her daughter. She spoke about bath time, singing, and getting to put her baby to bed every night. "That tenderness in that routine, I just love it so much," Slate explained. "I also am a silly mom. I guess that's to be expected, but there's a lot of dancing going on."

In 2024, Jenny Slate starred in the film "It Ends With Us," where she played Allysa, the best friend of Blake Lively's character, Lily. The two actors bonded while filming, but it was not their first time working together, which is one of the reasons why the cast of "It Ends With Us" may look so familiar. The pair first met back in 2009 when Lively hosted "Saturday Night Live" and Slate was still a cast member. "I very much remember you were very, very nice," Slate told Lively during a conversation with People. Lively recalled experiencing some wardrobe issues and Slate helping her out.

The women grew much closer while shooting the film, and part of their friendship included bonding over being working moms. "Going to work and still having our heart in our work but also with our children — that is a very big challenge," Slate shared. Slate has one daughter, Ida Lupine, with husband Ben Shattuck, while Lively shares four kids with her husband Ryan Reynolds.

Ultimately, the two just clicked and had nothing but sweet things to say about one another. "She's very authentic. There's no other side of Jenny," Lively told People. Slate said that her friendship with Lively was not unlike that of the characters they were playing. "Allysa and Lily have a true bond, human to human, and it's been such a gift that Blake and I developed that as well," Slate shared, adding, "I lucked out."