Happy Accidents

by Jane Lynch

  Following Marla’s specifications exactly, I put the show together quickly, typing it up on my first computer, an old Mac desktop that Sue, my brother’s new wife, had given me. I was blown away by how easy it made writing. I had never taken my mom’s advice and learned to type, but I was speedy at the hunt-and-peck. The minute I finished the script, I went to Kinko’s and made a bunch of copies. I really did not want to go it completely alone, so I asked a handful of friends to act supporting roles and produce it with me. Then I rented eight Wednesday nights at the Tamarind Theatre in Hollywood. I moved so fast I didn’t have time to think and let the fear stop me. I put my head down like a bull and barreled forward.

  Both Soloway sisters jumped in and helped me out. Jill directed and put her brilliantly funny mark on the script. She also made the stage bill so hysterical that the audience was laughing even before the lights went down. Faith let me use her nonsensical power ballad “If Wishes Were Rainbows, So Am I” for Sandra Ragsdale to sing in closing the show. Everything they added was worth its weight in gold to me.

  As I was waiting to pick up those hilarious programs at Kinko’s on the day of opening night, I noticed a pungent smell. I assumed it was the chemicals from the copiers until I realized that the smell was faintly familiar, and it was coming from me. I reeked of fear.

  That first performance was sold out, and it flew by fast and furious. I felt at the top of my game and in my power, going from scene to scene, character to character. The audience was with us the entire time. I’d sent out lots of invitations, but I hadn’t wanted to know who was coming, so I never checked the RSVPs. When I went out to the lobby after what felt like the triumph of my lifetime, I was floored by the number of familiar faces I saw. I was absolutely elated and felt like I was in a dream. I was beside myself with joy. I remember that it was the exact feeling I’d had watching my parents perform at Port o’ Call way back at St. Jude’s.

  Something out of nothing.

  The reviews were all good. The LA Times said: “Talk about taking no prisoners, Jane Lynch’s deeply feminine tales of the deep feminine add up to a merciless satire of feminist hypocrisies,” and the LA Weekly said: “Writer/performer Jane Lynch and songwriters Jill and Faith Soloway explode the common myth about humorless feminists in their stylish send-up, Oh Sister, My Sister.”

  The show pretty much sold out every one of those Wednesday nights and was named a pick of the week by the LA Weekly for the entire run. This brought me to a new place of confidence and belief in myself: I had created and put on my own show. What had been just an idea in my head was now an entity that existed in the world. I had been so reluctant to lead, always preferring the safety of following someone else, but this time, I had somehow summoned up the courage to ask others to join me. And they had: my all-gal team had given me their all, for fun and for free and from the goodness of their hearts. I was so proud of them. So imagine how horrible I felt when they found out that despite their generosity, I had deceived one of them. I had fallen in love with my friend/producer’s girlfriend—and acted on it.

  Remounted after the sex scandal. (Note: Laura Coyle is in this one.)

  During the lead-up to the affair, I’d put my conscious mind on hold, except to tell myself that this love I was feeling was “bigger than all of us” and that the rules of right or wrong did not apply. The thought you’ve been such a good girl for such a long time and you deserve to be bad had crossed my mind occasionally as well.

  When I told my therapist Nicki about the affair, I tried to put a new-agey spin on it. I used the words “soul” and “destiny” a lot. I was doing that thing that people who are being smarmy and having affairs do: I was elevating my motives to rationalize ignoring the rules of human decency. Nicki put a stop to my nonsense. “You betrayed a friend,” she said.

  As someone who’d always been obsessed with doing the “right” thing, I’d always prided myself on following the rules, so once I finally allowed the truth of what I’d done to set in, I indulged in some pretty grandiose self-flagellation. I was extreme in my mea culpa, though it was mostly in my head. I tried to make amends, but most of my good friends who knew bits and pieces of the story stopped talking to me. There was no forgiveness coming in my direction, and I had no ability to forgive myself, so I became consumed with my own guilt and spiraled into depression. I didn’t even end up with the girl. Our “transcendent love” petered out in the drama as she and her girlfriend broke up. I ended up skulking out of my apartment in the middle of the night because it was across the street from where they’d lived together. I moved back to lonely Venice.

  When we won the LA Weekly Award for our production of Oh Sister, My Sister!, none of us were there to accept. I was relieved to be out of town shooting a commercial the night of the award show, but I was so sad we weren’t celebrating this all together. So my good pal Laura, now living with me in Los Angeles, accepted on our behalf—but not without tripping up the stairs to the stage on her Herman Munster platform shoes.

  Laura was also my voice of sanity during that time. “Oh my god, so you made a mistake. Let it go!” she’d say, catching me in mid–shame spiral. “You have to forgive yourself at some point.” She’d also try to buck me up by not letting me hog all the blame: “It takes two to tango, baby.” Her efforts provided temporary reprieves, but I was pretty committed to suffering over my suffering.

  Shortly after Laura brought back my winning plaque from Oh Sister, My Sister!, I was given a terrific distraction—another chance encounter with Christopher Guest.

  One morning, after I had been to a chiropractor/allergist who claimed he could cure my milk allergy, I wanted to test it on a cup of coffee with cream. I went to the Newsroom in Beverly Hills, as I was sure my usual haunt, Urth Caffe, would be too busy. Halfway through my coffee-with-cream test, I looked up and saw Chris Guest getting a muffin to go. We caught eyes and he smiled at me. He’s usually rather poker-faced, so when he smiles it is like the sun coming out. He motioned me over.

  “I’m doing a movie,” he said, “and though I probably would have eventually remembered you, I hadn’t yet.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  “Can you come to my office this afternoon? I have an idea.”

  “Yes, sure. I can do that,” I said, as close to nonchalant as I could be.

  Not a bad morning: I passed my milk allergy test and I was invited to talk with the director of my dreams about his upcoming project. But, of course, I wasn’t content to simply bask in the glow of what just happened, I had to torture myself with the thought What if I had gone to Urth Caffe instead?

  That afternoon, I went to Chris’s office at Castle Rock, Rob Reiner’s production company. First, he asked if I knew who Jennifer Coolidge was. I sure did, and I was a fan. I’d seen her on stage at The Groundlings. More recently, I knew her from a show called She TV, an all-female comedy teeming with fresh, new girl talent and writers—so of course, it failed almost immediately. Then he told me that he’d recently been to a dog park with his mutts, and a couple who happened to be dog breeders had looked down on his dogs as inferior. This interaction spurred the idea for a movie about purebred dog owners that would lead up to an event like the Westminster Dog Show.

  Just as in Waiting for Guffman, this movie would feature characters in an obscure niche of the world with its own rules, hierarchies, and goals. All of the characters would be striving for success within the movie’s own culture. It had been Broadway for the Blaine Community Players in Guffman, and it was a win at the Mayflower Dog Show for these show dog people. There would be no script or rehearsal, just an outline written by Chris and Eugene Levy.

  Chris told me that he had cast Catherine O’Hara as the lesbian partner for Jennifer Coolidge’s character but was thinking of moving her to be matched up with Eugene. So, he explained, if he were to do so, he could partner me with Jennifer. He asked if I would be interested in the role.

  Cool as a cucumber, I said, “Yes, I would.”

  Chris is a man
of few words, so the meeting was rather short. However, there was an almost paternal warmth to him. I had that glowy feeling you get when you’re in the presence of someone who digs you. I probably smiled like a goof. As I was leaving, he said, “I’ll give you a call later today, around five.”

  Easy breezy, I had pulled off the meeting, and stayed calm. Except that I don’t remember the ride back to my place in Venice Beach at all, so I know my adrenaline was pumping.

  My friend Shaun was staying with me in between his poker tourneys and Chi Gong retreats. He had been a trainer at my gym, and we became friends. He is charming, and I admired how good he was with the ladies. He had a wise guru vibe and would act as my sometimes spiritual advisor. He clocked my nervous energy when I came through the door that day. He instructed me to take a walk on the beach just before 5 P.M. and let Chris leave me a message. “Center yourself in your own power,” he said.

  This was back in the days when I did not trust myself and figured anyone knew better than me. So at 4:50 P.M. I left the house and took the stupid walk.

  My mind was in a panic mode the whole time. Why was I out here? I couldn’t have cared less about the sun setting in the east or the west or wherever the hell it sets. After fifteen minutes, I practically ran home.

  When I walked in, Shaun greeted me with “Christopher Guest called! I told him I was such a fan, but he was kind of cold to me.” He had probably sent me on that walk so he could take the call. Now he looked very hurt that his talk with Chris didn’t go as planned, so I suggested he take a walk on the beach to center himself in his own power.

  I called Chris back, and he said, “What are you doing in November? Do you want to come to Vancouver to shoot this movie?”

  “Yes! Yes!” I effused. I would be cool no more.

  Then he corrected himself and said he meant October, not November, and was that still good? Without hesitation, I told him it was. He paused for a second, maybe thinking I needed to check my calendar, to make sure I didn’t have any other life-changing movie opportunities already scheduled for October.

  Before heading up to Vancouver, I got together with Jennifer Coolidge. We knew of each other but hadn’t spent any time together, so we went out for steak at Hal’s in Venice. She struck me as unique and funny, and as nervous as I was about joining the unofficial Christopher Guest Players. We started our research into the dog show world by going to a Great Dane show outside of LA, and we really started to hit it off. By the time we were in Vancouver shooting, we were becoming good friends.

  In no way would this be an ordinary movie experience. As Chris had said, there were no scripts. Instead, he and Eugene gave us each a wonderful and funny character description and backstory. It would be our job as actors to fill those in and flesh them out. The preparation for this task was much more labor-intensive than any other preparation I’d ever done, because if you don’t know everything about your character, you don’t have the freedom to improvise. You really have to have immersed yourself in the person and answered all the “who, what, and wherefores.”

  Only on a Christopher Guest movie will the set designer ask you what you think your house looks like, or the prop people ask you for your list. Here, the wardrobe person goes shopping with you for clothes. You would never be forced to wear a “Hate Is Not a Family Value” button. I’d never been given so much power as an actor. It was a truly unique and dreamy way to work.

  Jennifer played Sherri Ann, the owner of a championship poodle named Rhapsody in White (aka Butch) and married to a rich, old codger who bankrolled the enterprise. My character was Christy Cummings, a top-notch trainer hired to see Butch to a third national championship at the Mayflower Dog Show. Along the way, audiences learn that Sherri and Christy are lovers.

  Miraculously, it didn’t cross my mind at all that my first big role would be playing a lesbian and that it could possibly “out” me. Not bad for a former closet dweller!

  The day before I started working, I visited the set to watch Michael McKean and John Michael Higgins. They were playing a gay couple that adored their Shih Tzus, and this was the scene where they reenacted the classic-film Shih Tzu calendar shoot. Their characters loved old movies and had created a calendar by posing their Shih Tzus as the characters from scenes in classic movies. Today they were shooting Gone With the Wind, with the dogs dressed as Rhett and Scarlett. I really wanted to see how things worked on Chris’s unique set before it was my turn. Each take was hilarious and inspired, and when I wasn’t laughing, I was wildly intimidated.

  Power couple. Jennifer Coolidge and me.

  “But I like what she did with my hair.” Me and Jennifer.

  There was a tray of sushi nearby, so I grabbed a tuna roll and popped it into my mouth. Suddenly, a guy was running toward me going, “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Turns out, it was prop sushi for the scene. One would have thought I was some hick tourist wandering blindly through the movie set rather than an actual, professional actor.

  I looked around sheepishly, hoping to god that Chris hadn’t seen me chow down on prop food. I think he had, but he acted like he hadn’t.

  From there, Jennifer and I went to meet the makeup people. As we were absorbing everything and trying to get our bearings, we overheard Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara have the following conversation with each other as they sat side by side, looking into the makeup mirror.

  “What are you gonna do?” asked Eugene.

  “I don’t know—what are you gonna do? Have you thought of anything?” Catherine replied.

  “I have two left feet and funny teeth. That’s all I know. So what are you gonna do?”

  “I guess I’m a hussy and I’m gonna try and do that funny thing with my knee. But other than that, I really don’t know.”

  Jennifer and I looked at each other. If they didn’t know what they were gonna do, what the hell were we gonna do?

  Eugene and Catherine went out and nailed it, of course. They were pros and had done their preparation. The anxiety about failing they expressed while emoting into the makeup mirror is almost a part of the process for comedy people, I think. We have skills that are hard to measure, and most of us fear being found out for not having any idea what we are doing. We have all fallen flat at some point, and being overconfident is the kiss of death. Maybe this terror keeps us open and vulnerable. I was glad to learn that I was not alone in my fear of making it up as you go along. And I’d made a good choice—early on in my preparation, I decided that my character would be full of anxiety. Luckily for me, I had plenty coursing through my body.

  The next day, our first day of shooting, Jennifer and I would be doing the last scene in the movie, set in the offices of our magazine, American Bitch. It was weird to shoot the last scene first and to show up for work not having a script with lines or any idea how the day would go.

  All I remember from that day is that first take. When I felt tapped out and had nothing more to say and felt the scene was over, I continued to hear the “whirr” of the camera, which meant we were still rolling. I didn’t hear “cut” either. We had to keep going, so we did. We were both pretty sure that nothing we did that day could be used in a movie, but I would come to realize that as long as we stayed honest and in the moment, all would be fine. Chris was in charge of putting the whole thing together in the editing room. That’s where he worked his magic.

  Chris rarely laughs. He rarely gives “direction.” He keeps his eye on the story and can let the camera roll for what feels like forever. Incredibly prepared, he works fast and does few takes. The fresh Canadian crew was always shocked by how speedily we moved. In terms of designers, editors, and producers, Chris always works with the same people, over and over. Of actors, I’ve heard him say that he casts who he casts because he trusts that they know what they are doing, so why bother telling them? As an actor, if you want positive reinforcement or strokes, you must go elsewhere. It was a good thing that I hadn’t met him any earlier in my “development.”

  The net result of Oh S
ister, My Sister! was not a job or someone handing me a career. What it did was make me much more confident, so that I would be fine without Christopher Guest coming over to me after every take and telling me how fabulous I was.

  I still recognized my desire for positive reinforcement, of course, but instead of letting it affect me, I made it my character’s struggle. Christy is always trying to prove herself, with an eye out for how well she’s pulling it off. She’s hoping no one sees the cracks in her armor. In a moment that didn’t make the final edit, I had Christy say something about how she hoped everyone in her hometown of Romulus, New York, saw what a winner she was and wished they hadn’t been so mean to her. That came right from my own soul, out of the shadow and into a movie.

  I began to see that there were no “wrong” choices for a character, so long as you were rooted in who the character was and in that moment. The work was to stay within the perspective of the character and, rather than try to be clever, to be honest. Which I think is pretty good acting advice across the board.

  When not working, Jennifer and I took walks through Stanley Park in the constant October rain. We were in the same hotel, but for some reason she got porn in her room for free. As we walked, she’d narrate the story of the porn she’d watched the night before. I remember being doubled over, gasping for breath as she reenacted some insane position on a park bench. But she viewed it almost scientifically, mechanically. I came to find out while in Vancouver that Jennifer is not only wildly and singularly hilarious, she’s also an incredibly deep thinker and has moments of such intense consideration that time just seems to stop for her. We had a lot of good food and many great talks, and whenever we went out, we almost always had to retrace our steps in the rain because she’d left her wallet somewhere. She was pretty much unfazed by such things. Details are not her strong suit, but I am all about them, so we were a great team. I fell in love with her just a tiny bit.