Jennifer Coolidge is making this up as she goes
Jennifer Coolidge has spent nearly four decades improvising her way to comedy gold, creating instantly memorable scenes from what could have been throwaway supporting roles. Last month, she ad-libbed another meme-worthy moment after winning her first Emmy Award, for HBO’s “The White Lotus.” Standing onstage in a glittering green gown, she explained that she’d taken a lavender bath before the show and “it made me swell up inside my dress, and I’m having a hard time speaking.” When producers tried to play her off, she objected — “This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing!” — and then smiled and did a spontaneous shimmy-shaking dance to the wrap-up music, as the audience erupted in laughter.
Indeed, fans have long been obsessed with Coolidge, who grew up in Norwell and went to Emerson College, and her wacky, weird, and wonderful cinematic creations — as Stifler’s mom in “American Pie,” the closeted lesbian married to a rich, catatonic fossil in “Best in Show,” the busty, bubble-headed manicurist Paulette, learning to “bend and snap,” in the “Legally Blonde” films. Then there are her outrageous line readings (“Makes me want a hot dog real bad”; “We could not talk or talk forever . . . and still find things to not talk about.”) “I’ve made a career out of taking roles that other actresses didn’t want,” she once said, and along the way Coolidge became a cult favorite.
“The White Lotus” returns for its second season on Sunday night, and Coolidge is back as Tanya McQuoid, a wealthy heiress and self-proclaimed “alcoholic lunatic” who careens between fragile, wounded insecurity and clueless narcissism. The show sparked a career resurgence for Coolidge, and she followed it up with her role as a profanely candid real estate diva in Ryan Murphy’s recent “The Watcher” for Netflix.
Revealing her penchant for offbeat turns-of-phrase and a well-placed deadpan, Coolidge, 61, discussed almost saying no to “The White Lotus,” her youthful talent for imitation, and why she isn’t always aware she’s doing comedy.
Q. Your friend Mike White wrote
the character of Tanya expressly for you, but you almost turned it down. Why?
A. I’m older now, but that doesn’t mean I’m any less vain than when I was at like 25. I wasn’t looking my best. With COVID I had done a lot of just sitting around in my house in New Orleans eating these vegan pizzas, you know, sometimes many at a time. So when Mike said he had this new show that HBO was going to make, I got off the phone and was like, “Oh, yeah, I’m not going to do that right now.” And I would have fully blown it if I hadn’t had some great advice from a girlfriend who laid out how foolish I was being in a very articulate way. She pretty much just said, “You are an insane person right now, and you’re not playing with a full deck.” I heard what she was saying. And, boy, am I glad I took that advice.
Q. At one moment, Tanya is sulking and sad, and in another she’s erupting in anger or falling apart in anguish. What about Tanya’s contradictions fascinated you?
A. I liked that she was immensely rich and so flawed. There’s something great about that. Money didn’t prevent this loose-cannon, messed-up person from making scenes all over the place. I think a lot of people think that money is such a good protective shield, and it is, as far as isolating you from the rest of the world. But it doesn’t really protect you from who you become and how insane you can act. And somehow having a lot of money actually fuels bad behavior. But, look, she’s an abused person and had really rich parents who were horrendous to her. So she’s very fragile and messed up and has had no allies in her life.
Q. For season two of “White Lotus,” the action moves from Hawaii to the breathtaking coast of Sicily, and Tanya is now married to Greg (Jon Gries), who she met on vacation last season, but their union seems to have hit the rocks. Does that bring out her insecurities?
A. Greg is this mysterious guy. At first, he seemed to really like her, but it isn’t working out so well now. He’s sort of cranky and not that nice to Tanya anymore. He’s furious that she’s brought along a personal assistant [Haley Lu Richardson], so she tries to hide her because Greg doesn’t want her around. I think a lot of people in real life can relate to the situation. There’s nothing worse when you’re with someone, and you’re not broken up, but you can feel the person’s repulsed by you or they don’t like you, but they’re still there.
Q. You’ve also been making waves on Ryan Murphy’s new Netflix series “The Watcher” opposite Naomi Watts. What’s it like having this latest career rebirth?
A. I think it would have been better for my love life if it happened earlier. But to be really honest, I like it in this order because if it had happened in the reverse order, it would be sort of tragic. The reverse is like, “And now she dusts bowling balls at the local bowling alley” or something. You never want to go downhill in your career. So it’s sort of good that it goes up at the end.
Q. Did you aspire to become an actress from a young age?
A. It was one of the only things where anyone ever complimented me. I wasn’t very good at anything. I could run fast. I could play the clarinet. And that was about it. But I was in a couple of little plays, sort of the only positive thing I had going on. I played Auntie Em in “The Wizard of Oz” when I was like 11 or 12 at the North River Community Club, and they cut out my part at the beginning. So I had to wait through the whole show to run out and say, “Oh my darling, child! Where have you been?” I think I was so insulted that it was such a small part that my anger came out in my performance.
Q. You’ve said before that no one in your family ever thought you were funny, but you were able to imitate other people really well.
A. Yeah, my brother was the funny one! I don’t know what I was. I was kind of out to lunch. Yes, I imitated a lot of my mother’s friends or people who would come by the house to try to sell something or whatever. I would do an imitation of them after the door closed. And I have to say, even my mother, who was the nicest person who ever lived and always wanted me to be a good person, I found even she was laughing at my imitations.
Q. What were your early years as a struggling actress like?
A. I did some acting classes when I was at Emerson [College], and then after [graduation], I went out to the West Coast. But I couldn’t really get arrested. I finally had some luck when I was around 29 or 30. It all changed one day [when] I got my first break on “Seinfeld.” At the time, my mother was dying of pancreatic cancer. She had like a month to live, but she got to see that. That meant a lot to her because she was worried about me, that I wasn’t going to get it together.
Q. You once said you’re not always aware of your facial expressions and that you don’t even realize you’re doing comedy sometimes.
A. Yeah. I studied at the Groundlings [in LA] and did improv, and sometimes these really beautiful girls would be in the class, and the teacher would get up there and say, like “I want you to be as wacky as you can! Get up there, Sandy, and show us how wacky you can be!” But it just didn’t matter what the pretty girl did, she just couldn’t really contort her face in that way. So I had that advantage. You know, I can look kind of like a jack-o’-lantern.
Q. Are you getting some enticing offers since the success of “The White Lotus”?
A. Yeah, I am. And really unusual things that would never come my way. So I’m incredibly grateful because there’s nothing better than when you have a variety of roles to pick from and people see you outside of some little box that one or two movies put you in, and then you’re stuck in that box. I have to say, though, I feel like I’ve totally peaked at this point with Mike White. If I never work again, I’ll still be satisfied.
Q. Thanks for talking to me today. And congratulations on the Emmy win.
A. Thanks a lot! Yeah, I’m thrilled about that, too. I like unexpected surprises at the end of my life.