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Sasheer Zamata, Pike and SNL alum, is on Marvel series. Who is her character?


Sasheer Zamata, Pike and SNL alum, is on Marvel series. Who is her character?

The world will get to see the power of a Pike High School alum tonight with the debut of "Agatha All Along" on Disney+.

Sasheer Zamata, class of 2004, will star in the Marvel Cinematic Universe miniseries.

The show debuts at 9 p.m. ET on Sept. 18.

Sasheer Zamata, a cast member on "Saturday Night Live" from 2014 to 2017, plays Jennifer Kale, part of a coven of witches.

The actress, 38, was born Sasheer Zamata Moore in Okinawa, Japan, to Ivory Steward and Henry Moore, a lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force.

Her great-grandfather, Leroy Washington Mahon, founded the town of Fargo, Arkansas.

Zamata lived in Indianapolis from age 9 to 18, when she attended College Park Elementary, Lincoln Middle School and Pike High School.

"I was a huge nerd," Zamata told IndyStar in 2015.

She was vice president of the National Honor Society chapter, competed in Hoosier State Spell Bowl, wrote for the literary magazine, ran track, sang in show choir and played violin in orchestra -- "anything that could keep me at school because I just loved being at school," she said.

She stopped playing volleyball during her senior year at Pike to try out for her first musical, a production of "Working" based on Studs Terkel's book of the same title. Zamata stuck with musicals and plays while attending the University of Virginia.

Zamata has worked with the Upright Citizens Brigade comedy troupe in New York.

Zamata joined the cast during a season when the show faced criticism for its lack of diversity and not having any Black female cast members at its start. She was SNL's first black female cast member since bi-racial Maya Rudolph left the show in 2007.

She appeared on the TV series "Woke" from 2020 to 2022 and "Home Economics" from 2021 to 2023.

In the Disney+ series, Jennifer Hale, played by Sasheer Zamata, is a sorceress and potions expert who is member of Agatha's coven.

In the comics, Kale is believed to be a reincarnated Atlantean sorceress who fights demonic forces, who inherited her family's legacy of guarding a mystical Tome. She's trained under Doctor Strange, shared a psychic bond with Man-Thing, and assisted teams such as the Legion of Night, X-Force, and the Midnight Sons in fighting demons and zombies.

"Agatha After All" isn't Zamata's first go-round with Marvel.

Zamata stars in "Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur," an animated series that premiered in Disney Channel in 2023. She voices Adria Lafayette, the mother of superhero Lunella (Moon Girl) Lafayette, a 13-year-old genius who has a dinosaur companion.

The show, picks up with Agatha Harkness from Disney+'s 2021 "WandaVision," as she attempts to regain the powers she lost when Wanda Maximoff' trapped her in Westview. Mysterious goth Teen assists Agatha and travels with her and her coven along a road of challenges.

The first two episodes drop on Disney+ Wednesday at 9 p.m. Eastern.

New episodes stream starting at 9 p.m. on Wednesdays through Oct. 30 when the final two episodes will begin streaming.

The show has nine episodes.

Contact IndyStar reporter Cheryl V. Jackson at [email protected] or 317-444-6264. Follow her on X: @cherylvjackson.

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