People from all over Iowa packed the Great Hall of the Memorial Union to see Ana Gasteyer, the mother of Martha Stewart parody, give a talk on the role of gender issues in the entertainment industry.

After a cordial introduction from her brother and Iowa State alumnus, Steven Gasteyer, the “Saturday Night Live” actress stepped up to the podium to talk.

The seasoned comedy veteran began her lecture with a brief history of her acting career, from her native Washington, D.C. to Northwestern University to the famous Groundlings (where many of the “SNL” stars get their start) to the show itself.

“When people from the Groundlings heard that I had made it on the cast of `Saturday Night Live,’ they would literally come up and be like `Good Luck,'” Gasteyer said.

One general theme she addressed was how women’s roles in entertainment have changed, and until the trinity of Gasteyer and her castmates Molly Shannon and Cheri Oteri, there had been no real successful actresses in the “SNL” cast.

Gasteyer showed a series of clips that were some of her favorites from the show, including Margaret Jo of the NPR radio show “Delicious Dish,” Martha Stewart, and the caddy news anchors of MSNBC covering the Clinton scandal.

“I guess I like to play characters that don’t seem to be aware of their situation, that could just keep talking and not know what they are getting into,” Gasteyer said.

Gasteyer addressed the way the show was written and the difference between “boy sketches” and “girl sketches.” Each actor on the show has a major decision-making role in what parts they will be playing in the show and how their character is written.

Though everyone gets a say in how the show runs, there are differences in how the men and women write their sketches. “Girl sketches,” as Gasteyer puts it, seem to be more character driven and more about the interactions between them, while “boy sketches” are more a take on the fractured fairy tale, focusing on plot.

One major part of the speech dealt with the major success of one of Gasteyer’s characters, Cinder Calhoun. Cinder Calhoun is the ultra-feminist stand-up comedian of “SNL.” After she performed the character with Sarah McLachlan, Gasteyer was asked to perform the character on tour with the Lilith Fair. To Gasteyer’s surprise, the character went over well.

Though not a stand-up comedian herself, Gasteyer never let the mood in the room get too serious. After her lecture, she opened up the floor to a Q&A session.

On a closing note, when a student commented on the portrayal of Iowa in movies, Gasteyer was happy to respond that everyone she has met from Iowa has been very funny, and that Iowans are the backward people related in those movies.