Whoo-hoo! The comedy girlies have entered the roundtable chat.
Whoo-hoo! The girlies Keke Palmer, Hannah Einbinder, Quinta Brunson, Ashley Padilla, Rachel Sennott, and Lisa Kudrow have gathered for The Hollywood Reporter’s Comedy Actress Roundtable, and the lineup alone already feels like a group chat with better lighting and Emmy-season posture.
THR’s Comedy Actress Roundtable brings together sitcom legends, breakout players, scene-stealers, and sharp new voices right as Emmy chatter starts heating up.
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Held at The Georgian Hotel in Santa Monica, California, the roundtable brings together a beautifully chaotic little cross-section of comedy right now: network sitcom brilliance, sketch comedy breakout energy, HBO sharpness, cult-comedy royalty, and that very specific performer brain that can turn embarrassment into a punchline before anyone else even knows what happened.
The table includes Keke Palmer of The ’Burbs, Lisa Kudrow of The Comeback, Quinta Brunson of Abbott Elementary, Hannah Einbinder of Hacks, Ashley Padilla of Saturday Night Live, and Rachel Sennott of I Love LA.
That is not a table. That is a full comedy ecosystem.
What makes the THR roundtables work, when they work, is not just the career highlights. It is watching performers compare notes on what the job asks of them: timing, embarrassment, control, chaos, being underestimated, being over-managed, surviving the machine, and somehow still finding the funny when the room wants you to behave.
And with this lineup, the conversation already has range. Kudrow brings the kind of veteran comedy precision that helped define entire eras. Brunson brings creator-star intelligence and the rhythm of someone building television from the inside. Palmer brings charisma that does not wait for permission. Einbinder brings dry, beautifully sharpened chaos. Padilla brings live sketch-show reflexes. Sennott brings that anxious, modern, too-real comic edge that feels like it was born scrolling and panicking at the same time.
So yes, the girlies are chit-chatting it all — craft, comedy, performance, pressure, survival, and the public-facing weirdness of being funny for a living while everyone else gets to pretend they are normal.
Inside THR’s 2026 Comedy Actress Roundtable.
There is also something delicious about seeing Lisa Kudrow sitting next to performers whose comedy worlds were built in a completely different media climate. The path from Friends and The Comeback to Abbott Elementary, Hacks, SNL, and internet-era comedy is not a straight line. But the instinct is the same: find the wound, find the absurdity, then somehow make it sing.
Press play below and let the funny women talk.
Watch THR’s Comedy Actress Roundtable with Keke Palmer, Lisa Kudrow, Quinta Brunson, Hannah Einbinder, Ashley Padilla, and Rachel Sennott.
The roundtable brings six comedy performers together at The Georgian Hotel in Santa Monica for an Emmy-season conversation about craft, public image, pressure, and what it means to be funny on camera right now.
Sources: Roundtable details via The Hollywood Reporter; video via The Hollywood Reporter / YouTube.
