Jeffrey Mayer/Getty ImagesLeslie Jones is everywhere these days.
A couple of years ago, however, she might have been just a blip on the comedy radar. The Ghostbusters star joined Saturday Night Live in 2014 when she was 46 years old—the oldest cast member the sketch comedy show had ever hired.
"I mentioned her to several managers and agents over the years. Everybody passed. Lorne [Michaels], because he's the best at what he does, is the one who saw it," Jones' longtime friend Chris Rock told The New Yorker. "I don't think he'd hired a cast member her age in a long time."
Prior to joining SNL as a writer before transitioning into on-camera talent, Jones bounced from comedy club to comedy club. At one point she thought about giving up because she hadn't made it in Hollywood yet. "I remember some nights where I was, like, 'All right, this comedy s--t just ain't working out,'" she told The New Yorker in her profile. "And not just when I was 25. Like, when I was 45."
But Jones has proven that age is nothing but a number because she began her highly successful career just one year later after begging Rock to help her out. While appearing on the Today show Wednesday morning, Jones told Kathie Lee Gifford and Nia Vardalos that she would ask the Top Five actor to help her get her name out there. "'I'm not going to make it unless somebody like you puts me on,'" she recalled telling her friend. "He'd always be like, 'You're not ready yet. You're just not ready yet.' Which I wasn't, and he was right. I wasn't ready."
A few years later Rock caught another one of her routines and determined it was "next level."
"He put me on this list of funny people to know," Jones explained on the morning show.
Another old adage Jones has proven to be true: patience is a virtue. After spending nearly 30 years trying to make it in the industry, she finally succeeded—and it was, without a doubt, worth the wait despite financial struggles along the way. "I would never quit comedy to make money. I've been doing it like 30 years," she said on Today. "I still love it. That's my life."
Jones credited letting "life just happen" to finding the majority of her material, which have helped her nab parts in Trainwreck, Top Five and now a lead role in Paul Feig's Ghostbusters reboot. In hindsight, Jones can admit that she's happier she found success later in life.
"I'm glad this whole success thing is happening now," she said in The New Yorker. "I can't even imagine a 23-year-old Leslie in this position. They would have kicked me off the set after two days. I would have f--ked half the dudes in the crew."
"I was a less confident person back then," she added. "And damn sure not as funny."
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