The youngest of five siblings, Silverman became interested in comedy as a teenager, and performed her first public standup set when she was 17 (a performance she's described as "awful"). Silverman dropped out of New York University to begin pursuing a comedy career full-time, and in 1993, she landed a prize gig as a writer and featured player on Saturday Night Live. Silverman's run on SNL was short, lasting just 18 weeks, with Silverman later saying she was too young at the time and a poor fit for the show. Silverman fared better as a featured performer on the groundbreaking HBO series Mr. Show with Bob and David, and later made guest appearances on Star Trek: Voyager, Seinfeld, Frasier, Greg the Bunny, Monk, and many others. Silverman also broke into movies, making her big-screen debut in the independent comedy Who's the Caboose, and playing supporting characters in Bulworth, There's Something About Mary, Heartbreakers, and School of Rock. Silverman continued working as a standup comic, and in 2005, she released a concert film, Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic, which combined her standup routine with musical interludes and comedy sketches; the film's soundtrack, released by Interscope, became her first comedy album. In 2007, Comedy Central debuted The Sarah Silverman Program, in which Silverman played a fictionalized version of herself; the show ran two seasons on Comedy Central, while the cable outlet Logo aired the third and final season; an album of music and dialogue from the show, Songs of the Sarah Silverman Program: From Our Rears to Your Ears, was released by Comedy Central Records in 2010. In 2011, Silverman played a major supporting role in the acclaimed independent film Take This Waltz, and a year later, she earned enthusiastic reviews for an uncharacteristic voice performance as a overly cute video game character in the family-friendly animated comedy Wreck-It Ralph. In 2013, Silverman returned to less wholesome form as she taped a comedy special for HBO, We Are Miracles; in 2014, Sub Pop Records issued a soundtrack album of the performance. ~ Mark Deming