Natalie Palamides (born January 6, 1990) is an American actress, comedian and television writer.
Career
Aspiring to work at ''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (''SNL'') is an American Late night television in the United States, late-night live television, live sketch comedy variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Michaels and Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC. The ...
'', Palamides moved to
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
and joined the
Upright Citizens Brigade after college. She began voice-over and commercial work. She also took classes on clown performance at the Idiot Workshop and the Lyric Hyperion. Early sketches featured Palamides' characters: fantasizing about eating salad from a man's pants; complaining to the manager of sandwich shop Eggslut as an
anthropomorphic egg; and insisting on being literally objectified. Through her classes, variety shows and
open mic shows, she began developing longer-form performance from improvisations in unusual outfits.
Palamides took the egg costume from her sketch and used it to make her first hour-long show, ''Laid''.
Palamides developed the exaggeratedly masculine character Nate, from her work with the Pig Iron Theatre Company, into an hour-long performance, ''
Nate – A One Man Show''.
Members of the audience participate, such as by wrestling Nate, with audience consent and sexual consent as themes. After winning the
Total Theatre Award at the 2018
Edinburgh Fringe Festival
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as the Edinburgh Fringe, the Fringe or the Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest performance arts festival, which in 2024 spanned 25 days, sold more than 2.6 million tickets and featur ...
, it was commissioned by
Amy Poehler's production company
Paper Kite and released on
Netflix
Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...
on December 1, 2020.
Critics widely acclaimed ''Nate'' for its provocative performance, regarding it as an innovative break with "Netflix's mainstream comedy brand."
Palamides starred as
Buttercup in the 2016 reboot of ''
The Powerpuff Girls''.
She won Best Newcomer at the
Edinburgh Comedy Awards
The Edinburgh Comedy Awards (formerly the Perrier Comedy Awards, and also briefly known by other names for sponsorship reasons) are presented to the comedy shows deemed to have been the best at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. Establ ...
in 2017.
Palamides plays the character "Mara" in TV commercials for
Progressive Insurance.
She also co-hosts the Disney-themed podcast ''Hidden Mickeys'' alongside
Carrie Poppy.
Palamides played a horror movie–style clown, Funzo, in ''
Apocalypse Clown'' (2023). The low-budget comedy film won Best Irish Film at the Galway Film Fleadh. Though reviews had mixed opinions towards the humour and writing, Funzo was acclaimed. Simon Henderson of ''Blazing Minds'' lauded that Palamides "ranges from seeming innocence to apparent insanity, sometimes in the same scene". ''
Digital Spy
Digital Spy (DS) is a British-based entertainment, television and film website and brand and is the largest digital property at Hearst UK. Since its initial launch in 1999, Digital Spy has focused on entertainment news related to television pro ...
''s Ian Sandwell praised her "deranged and hilarious" performance, particularly for minor comedic details such as a scene in which her character removes her clown nose.
In August 2024, Palamides performed ''
WEER'' at the
Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The show, which has been described as a "one-woman romcom," received widespread acclaim.
Filmography
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Palamides, Natalie
1990 births
Living people
21st-century American comedians
21st-century American women writers
21st-century American writers
American sketch comedians
American television actresses
American voice actresses
American women comedians
American women television writers
American television writers
Place of birth missing (living people)
Comedians from Pittsburgh