An Angry Lady in Parachute Pants

A lot of people were surprised that President Obama won a Nobel Prize this year, none more than I. Because I really thought Jane Lynch was going to get it. If you don’t know her name, you surely know her face ... because she’s everywhere. She’s the villain in television’s most celebrated new show, Glee. She played Julia Child’s sister, holding her own opposite Meryl Streep in the critical and commercial hit Julie & Julia, directed by Nora Ephron. She’s currently part of the ensemble cast of Nora and Delia Ephron’s off-Broadway play, Love, Loss, and What I Wore. She’s recurring on the consistently top-rated sitcom Two and a Half Men [2]. She also starred in Post Grad, Spring Breakdown [3], Ice Age [4], Party Down [5], The L Word [6] … and that’s just in 2009. Her work spans two decades and includes the films Best in Show [7], The 40-Year-Old Virgin [8], Talladega Nights [9], and [insert your favorite TV show here—she’s been on it: Friends [10], The West Wing [11], Desperate Housewives [12], JAG [13], Frasier, The X Files, Arrested Development [14]—you get the idea].

I asked Nora Ephron to describe Lynch and received this answer: “How about ‘a genius.’ ”

Jane Lynch, genius, spoke to me by phone about her inner Angry Lady, why she didn’t come out of the closet until she was 31, her waning patience for the president, and the men’s parachute pants that haunted her dreams.

Faith Salie: You’ve said that you don’t have to dig deep for Glee’s deliciously evil cheerleading-coach character, Sue Sylvester. In your words, Sue is “not socially acceptable, so I don’t let her out too often. She’s this snarky person who loves to say heinous things—she’s horribly politically incorrect.” What’s the most outrageous thing you’ve said as Jane Lynch?

Jane Lynch: I was at a movie and a woman was whispering to a man the entire time what was going on—like “Oh, he’s walking through the door now, look, he’s doing this, he’s doing that.” And I got so mad that as they were rolling credits, I turned around and said, “Thank you for the ongoing commentary.” And the guy said, “I’m blind!” and I said, “Well, then, sit in the back.” My friend who I was with was mortified. I don’t know where that came from—my Sue Sylvester came streaming out. I’m telling a blind woman she can’t sit up here with the rest of us who can see.

You ran away from your first acting gig, your freshman year in high school.

I did, I did. So I kind of got over that early—the fear of walking toward what I want.

How did you get over it?

After that, in high school, I wasn’t allowed to be in any plays. And it destroyed me—that crushed my spirit. It was almost like I came face-to-face with my destiny, if I can speak in epic terms. I came face-to-face with what I really wanted to do, and I was overwhelmed with fear, and I turned away from it. And I hear stories like that all the time—of people who, you know, kind of wake up at the end of their life and think, “I wish I had braved this turn,” and they have these regrets. I want to do what I want to do.

I read an interview you did in 2004 in which you were asked which actors you admire, and you said Meryl Streep. How did it feel, four years later, to be playing her sister?

I was rather nervous. One of the biggest things I was afraid of was that I might come in there contrived and get nervous and start doing something that—I mean, acting is a contrivance, but some people are better at the contrivance than others—but I wanted to be perfect. And it ended up that she was just lovely and put me at ease. And kind of showed me that if you’re not having a good time, it’s kind of not worth it, because she was really enjoying it. She enjoyed every take and she gave it her all, and it was wonderful to see that.

So how do you feel about this talk of a possible Academy Award nomination for your work as Julia Child’s sister, Dorothy? I checked out an online discussion of a potential nod for you, and here’s what someone wrote: "I saw the movie on opening night in Boston, and when Jane Lynch appeared through the smoke and haze at the train station, the theater erupted into applause."

Wow. That’s very nice. You know, I don’t know what to do with that.

If you get nominated, will you wear a dress or a fabulous suit?

I can’t even talk about it. I can’t even go there in my fantasies of fantasies … and I have a wicked imagination.

Love, Loss, and What I Wore is a play that’s a collection of stories about women’s clothing and the memories it triggers. You have a monologue about boots—these boots that your character wore in grad school. Tell me a story about an article of clothing or an accessory that means a lot to you.

I’m very hard to fit, because I have very long legs. My proportions are way different than your average lady’s, and so buying clothes was difficult because darts end up way too high—you know, the knee that’s supposed to come in a pant ends up at the middle of my thigh. And so it just affects everything. I found a pair of black pants. They were actually men’s—and this was in the '80s—they were kind of like parachute pants. They were very flattering. And I used to have dreams about losing them. Running through the streets of Normal, Ill., looking for those black pants, and someone took them. I couldn’t go on without those black pants.

When Bea Arthur died, you credited her as an influence. Who else has influenced you?

Eileen Brennan. Her work is always stellar and specific, like in The Sting [15]. I don’t know why she wasn’t a big star. And also Private Benjamin [16] may be my favorite comedy of all time, and she was wonderful in that.

Eve Arden. I like those people who are dry and do less, keep it very simple. Eve Arden, with just a cock of her head, she could do so much and was self-deprecating.

What did you learn from Nora Ephron?

I loved watching her. She took me through the set of our apartment, which was supposed to be in France but was a set in New York. And she’s so thrilled with it, she’s holding up with drapes and the brocade and [saying], “Look at this, this was done by hand. This is authentic to what the apartments were like in France and look at how the ceilings are so high and grand and how they layer the paint in France because the paint was expensive… .” Just how authentic it was. She loves her detail.

What about from Will Ferrell?

What I love about working with him is that the best joke wins. He’s so open to feeding you the good line and trying something a different way. He’s a big team player even though he’s a huge star.

I’ve heard you talk about a qualitative difference in male and female comedy. Can you explain what you mean by that?

Not that one is worse than the other, but the male comedy—what male stand-ups do, and Second City is very male in that way—it’s like, Let’s get to the joke and pop, pop, pop. Like Whose Line is it Anyway?—that’s a real masculine show.

Christopher Guest is more meandering. We’re not obliged to come to a joke. In fact, he’d rather you didn’t. Every once in a while a good joke will come out—Fred Willard is full of those little jokes—but it’s mostly about exploring the scene. And he rolls and rolls and rolls and the magic of it comes together when he goes into the editing room.

It’s almost like, with men it’s like, Let’s get to the orgasm; with women it’s like, Let’s make love a little more, let’s talk this out—a little foreplay.

You recently spoke at the Human Rights Campaign dinner, where President Obama announced his commitment to ending "don't ask don't tell" and the Defense of Marriage Act. What was that experience like?

I was, of course, thrilled to hear the president, but I’d love for him to do something. He has the power to put a stay on DADT right now. He can’t overturn it—Congress has to do that. And I know he’s only been in there a few months, but I just hope he’s not all talk. It was really nice to see him, and I stood up and applauded with everybody else, but we’ve heard it all before, so let’s get moving.

Is there a special woman in your life with whom you’re sharing these amazing experiences?

Yeah, I’m really happily matched up and thrilled, and it’s wonderful to have somebody to share all this stuff with, absolutely.

What kind of kid were you? I’m always fascinated by stories of how people, especially women, grow up to be funny.

I was a funny kid. I was maybe a class clown at times. I was one of those people who was in a lot of groups at once. I kind of navigated well, so I kind of stayed under the radar, in terms of, like, I didn’t get made fun of, and I also wasn’t exalted. I didn’t take many chances, except being funny.

Is it true that you didn’t come out to your family until you were 31?

Yeah. When I think about it, my God—because I meet kids today who are 16, and their parents know, and I was really afraid it would alienate me from them. And if I had done it at 18, it might have. By the time I was 31, I didn’t feel really close to my family anymore because they didn’t know something that was really basic to the foundation of who I am. And I made kind of a very adult choice that I want to keep this relationship alive, and I don’t want it to fade away because I’m hiding from them. And they were wonderful. Just wonderful.

You’ve credited your work in therapy with making you a better actor. What did you learn about yourself in therapy that led to that?

Well, I remember I was telling my therapist I was very angry about … well, I have this thing about following the rules. And somebody passed me on the bike path, and they passed me on the wrong side, and I was like, that’s dangerous, she could have killed me, what if I didn’t hear her? And my therapist started to laugh and she said, “You know, you have to write a monologue about this aspect of yourself and create a whole character.”

So I did. And I came up with this character called the Angry Lady who has a neck brace. She’s so angry, she’s barely audible. And I turned it into a recurring character in a one-woman show I did.

It’s so interesting, because I think about people who are innately comedic as being rule breakers and being willing to step out of bounds.

I know, and that’s not me at all. That’s why I had this thing when I realized I was gay: “Oh my God, that’s not towing the line! And I want to be part of society, I don’t want to be ostracized!”

You dig presidential biographies. Why?

I really get turned on by—maybe I’m idealizing these guys—our Founding Fathers and Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. They did extraordinarily big things, and they were flawed, and they had relationships, and I love that. I get kind of emotionally caught up in what goes on in the world politically. And I always remember, when I get mad about Obama, I think of Abraham Lincoln, who did almost nothing for the slaves until the Emancipation Proclamation toward the end of his life. You know, he was really dragging his heels. You read Frederick Douglass—he was no fan of Abraham Lincoln. He was no advocate for the abolitionists. He really played it safe. He was also one of the people who thought that we should just send slaves back to Africa. But he ended up ultimately doing some awesome things for the country and freeing slaves and getting rid of slavery, so that gives me some hope.

Did you have a plan for what you want next for your big life?

No, I don’t. And you know, I’ve found that all of my plans are usually nowhere near as great as what tends to happen.

You know, that kind of makes improvisational comedy a metaphor for life.

It does—in exactly the same way: You can’t have a plan for the scene. You have to go in there and see what’s coming at you and work from the heart.

Postscript: Jane’s right—she doesn’t need to make plans. When asked what Jane should do next, Nora Ephron replied, “My next thing, whatever it is.”