Prior to Saturday Night Live, she had the struggling career inside films. She number 1 portrayed the supporting role when 1000000 in the present day sequences in the horror film remake of The Phantom of the Opera with Robert Englund and Jill Scholen. Shannon's major break come within February of 1995 when she was hired as a featured player in Saturday Nighttime Survive to replenish a departing Janeane Garofalo. She played various area on a comedy indicate & was especially known for swimming the character of Catholic school girl Mary Katherine Gallagher as well as her impression of Monica Lewinsky (alongside frequent host John Goodman's Linda Tripp).

Fallowing her departure from either SNL inside 2001 (she passed Victoria Jackson to become the indicate's longest-serving female cast member), Shannin has refocused on her film career. Around 1999 she revisited the role of Mary Katherine Gallagher for the motion picture Superstar, and got the supporting role around Never Been Kissed. Inside 2004, she starred within the television series for the Cur network, Cracking Up, with actor Jason Schwartzman. It simply lasted nine episodes prior to existence cancelled. Her recent films include Shallow Hal, The Santa Clause 2, Serendipity and the coming drama Marie-Antoinette.

Shannon is married to creative person Fritz Chesnut. It own deuce kids, Stella & Nolan.