Happy Accidents

by Jane Lynch

  We were together all the time while filming, often just the two of us. If it weren’t for watching dailies with the other cast members in a ballroom at the Sutton Hotel, where we were all staying, Jennifer and I might have felt we were in a movie all by ourselves. It was a heady experience, and I loved every moment of being in Vancouver and being part of such a distinctively talented group of people.

  The last day of shooting, Jennifer gave me a ceramic Great Dane she’d bought at that dog show back in LA. It was male, and for some reason the dog’s penis was circumcised; i.e., it had a visible head. Though she was not usually big on details, this was one she loved.

  When I moved from that apartment in Venice, the penis broke off. I still have the dog, just without its manhood.

  Best in Show premiered at the 2000 Toronto Film Festival, and Jeannie was my date. We flew with the cast in the Warner Bros. jet, and I walked a red carpet for the first time in my life. We settled into the theater and the lights went down. Watching myself was just awful. I thought I wasn’t funny and that I had played it too subtly. I knew what I was trying to do, but it didn’t show up on the screen and I was devastated. I felt that everything I thought I had done had gotten lost. After the film was over, I was in a state of shock and said to Jeannie, “I was so flat!” She looked at me like I was insane. Sitting there, still in our seats as the theater emptied, Jeannie verbally replayed my performance back for me, complete with nuance. Relieved, I kept saying, “Oh, you got that? You got that?” I had to see it a few more times before I was finally able to see that it was all there, and just enjoy the movie.

  The premiere of Best in Show at the Toronto Film Festival.

  Chapter 9

  Canyon Lady

  Right after I shot Best in Show, as I was sitting on a tumbling dryer at Bubble Beach Laundry in Santa Monica, I had a sudden thought. I can’t be forty and still be doing my laundry at a laundromat. I was thirty-nine, and no matter how I tried to deny it, I was an adult now, with a bank account and a career. It really was no longer necessary for me to schlep down to the corner and drop quarters into an industrial-size washing machine.

  I’ve always felt young, though not in a breezy, devil-may-care kind of way. I was just immature. This was probably because I spent so much of my younger life drinking, and being drunk makes learning to be a grown-up kind of hard. Even well into adulthood, I had very little confidence in my ability to do grown-up things, and often found myself hoping someone else would swoop down and save me, or at least show me the way. Without my dad calling to remind me to change the oil in my car, I would never have remembered to do it. My friends acted as parents to me as well; I couldn’t break up with someone without Jeannie’s permission. I acted as if my agents were authority figures that I needed to obey; they decided which jobs or auditions I took. Then, when I realized that some of these people were actually younger than I was, it began to dawn on me that perhaps it was time to grow up.

  I had maintained very few obligations and had been slow to do the things adults generally do in order to build an adult life. I always rented apartments and did nothing much to make them my own, never painting a wall or owning a stick of furniture that I didn’t garbage-pick or buy off the street. I’d never lived with anyone I was dating, and most of my relationships never lasted longer than a toothbrush. Marriage had never crossed my mind, and because I was such a child myself, I’d certainly never entertained the thought of having one.

  My first foray into taking care of something other than myself had come several years prior, when Nicki had wisely suggested I get a cat, my beloved Greta. Revealing the extreme nature of my relationship fears, I pleaded, “But what if it dies?” She replied casually, “You’ll get another one.”

  I had settled happily into my role as nurturer of the fur-covered creature, and at this point I had two cats, Greta and Riley, and had just gotten a puppy. (Right after I’d come back from Vancouver, I’d fallen for the doggie in the window and named her Olivia after Olivia Newton-John, a huge high school celebrity crush.) I hadn’t moved on to people yet, but I couldn’t have loved my animals more. I poured all my previously unexpressed adoration into them. And boy, did I have a lot of it. (Georgie Girl, my Wheaten Terrier, would join us in a few years.)

  Greta

  Riley

  My friend Jeannie and I shared our enormous love for our animals and created a special language, spoken in a high-pitched voice, just for them: “Dis gurl what is berry booty-ful,” we’d mewl. Each animal had his or her own song: “Greta Maritsky you are very cute, If you were not you’d get das boot.” We once improvised an entire opera for Jeannie’s dog, Molly. I’m certain we were utterly intolerable to anyone who happened to hear us.

  Olivia (in flight) and Georgie (seated).

  With all these critters in my care, I decided it was time to woman up and buy a home. I went to an open house in Laurel Canyon one Sunday in the pouring rain, and although I was unimpressed with the A-frame I’d set out to see, I had parked in front of another place that also happened to be holding an open house. What the heck, I thought, and made my way up the cobblestone path. I peered in through the wide living room window and saw a fire burning in the fireplace, creating a warm, inviting glow made even more enticing by the rain. I walked around the deck to the back and looked in through the bedroom window and saw a black cat on the bed, sound asleep, and I pictured Greta and Riley curled up there. I walked back around to the front door and finally walked inside. My knees went weak, and I blurted out, “I love this house” to the Realtor sitting at the dining room table. My father would have killed me for neutralizing all my bargaining power, but the Realtor was pleased and said, “Well, then you should buy it.” So I did, and with my animal kingdom in tow, I moved in.

  Smack dab in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles, Laurel Canyon is a beautiful and verdant oasis teeming with nature and wildlife. The hills of the canyon rise up, creating nooks spotted with houses in which you are likely to find musicians and old hippies. In spite of my fear that coyotes would devour them, Greta and Riley insisted on being outdoor cats. Though not a believer in God, I prayed a little every time I heard them go out the cat door.

  I had been listening to Joni Mitchell’s “The Ladies of the Canyon” in my car when fate had led me to park in front of my new house, so I had become a Joni Mitchell fanatic and a regular canyon lady myself: “Cats and babies ’round her feet / And all are fat and none are thin.” Now that I was living in Laurel Canyon, the lore of its inhabitants of the late sixties and early seventies became fascinating to me. I felt so lucky to be living in the neighborhood where Mama Cass had brought Crosby, Stills, and Nash together, where Carole King had written Tapestry, and where Joni and Graham Nash had fallen in love. Some of my neighbors had lived in the area for decades and had fabulous stories. During the time when all these interesting things had been happening in the Canyon, I had been growing up totally immersed in generic pop culture (I knew every episode of Bewitched but knew nothing about the Vietnam War), so when I moved to Laurel Canyon, I was discovering it all for the first time.

  Cozily ensconced in my house with my animals and my very own washing machine, just a few months shy of my fortieth birthday, I finally felt like a grown-up.

  I decided to celebrate my newfound adulthood by throwing myself a birthday party. I hadn’t had one since I was a kid, and it felt like it was time again to start celebrating getting older. It didn’t hurt that I shared my birthday with Bastille Day. I invited all my nearest and dearest friends, and started a birthday/Bastille Day party tradition that continues to this day. Although it had only eight hundred square feet and two small bedrooms, my house was a perfect party house, with a deck off the kitchen for great indoor-outdoor flow. The only thing I knew how to cook was salmon with teriyaki sauce, so I made that on the new Kenmore gas grill I’d bought right after moving in. I also cooked up some burgers and bought bottles of ketchup and mustard for the very first time in my life.

&
nbsp; When I ordered my birthday cake that first year, the woman at the bakery asked if I wanted anything written on it and I said, “Yes. ‘Happy Birthday, Jane.’”

  “Great,” she said. “And what’s your name?”

  “Uh . . . Jane.”

  “Oh, that’s okay,” she rushed to say. “Lots of people order their own birthday cake.”

  I had a house and a menagerie of animals and friends; I had condiments and appliances, but I still didn’t have someone special to order my birthday cake for me.

  But rather than wallow, I threw myself into homeownership and became a painting junkie. I wanted the rooms in my house to be perfect in hue and tone. This was very frustrating, though, as I had absolutely no talent for choosing colors. At first, my choices were much too vivid and my poor little house looked like a demented nursery school. Then I went through just about every shade of taupe available. I painted all the walls and all the trim in my house over and over and over again. I was obsessed. I couldn’t sleep if I hated the color I had just painted a room, and I could be found at the twenty-four-hour Home Depot in the middle of the night, looking at swatches. Jeannie was sure I had lost square footage due to the many coats of paint I’d applied.

  I had never decorated before and I had absolutely no knack for it, either. Although I appreciated a well-put-together room, I had no idea how to make one. I could shop, though, so I bought all sorts of furniture. I mixed country chic, shabby chic, Craftsman, cheap Spanish, and early American. None of it worked together, and I kept getting rid of things that didn’t match and buying new things that also didn’t match. No matter what I did, it always looked jumbled and chaotic, and more like a tag sale than a home.

  My little dog Olivia complicated my efforts to decorate when she decided the couch was her toilet. She was clever about it, and peed between the back of the couch and the seat cushions, apparently trying to hide her work. In the course of three years, I purchased three different couches and tried all the different odor removers on the market, to no avail. So I went online and bought the dog a diaper.

  Olivia in a diaper.

  I had also reached the point where I could no longer tolerate chaos and clutter. Growing up, I had been a slob who never made her bed, and now I couldn’t think straight if a piece of paper was out of place. To this day, I have things in neat piles. I may not know where anything is, but at least there’s the appearance of order.

  I also had a TV for the first time in my adult life, with a full-on cable package. I watched in shock as Al Gore lost Florida, making George Bush president and turning me into a political junkie. I watched MSNBC at all hours and was a Hardball fanatic. Chris Matthews became my best TV friend; he helped me understand what was going on and that made me feel safe. Like Chris, I was always looking for the honest man or woman, regardless of their politics. I mean, I preferred it if my politics lined up with another person’s, but in all truthfulness, what was more important to me was knowing the truth of what someone really thought, and not the party line.

  It was to my home that all my friends came early on the morning of September 11, 2001, to watch the coverage of the horrible attacks. Everyone stayed all day, and we ordered dinner in because no one wanted to leave. We felt so vulnerable. It was like after the earthquake in 1993: it seemed as if the world could end. We were all in shock and leaning on each other. For the next handful of years, I was religiously devoted to MSNBC. I had felt so unsafe after the attack, but the events that followed, with Bush and Cheney’s wars, just made it worse. I didn’t trust George Bush and was shocked that someone whom I perceived to be not all that smart could be elected president. I was afraid of what he would do next and feared that he was lying to us all. I needed to be informed to feel safe. I loved putting my feet up in my living room, sitting in front of MSNBC, and soaking in information like heat from a fire.

  I now had a home; I had a family, albeit a furry one. I had very strong long-term friendships. I was deeply interested in the political events of my world. I really was an adult. I felt like I was able to handle my own trials and tribulations, without waiting for someone to swoop in and take care of things for me. I was still shopping for furniture, but I was starting to feel settled on the inside.

  I also stopped going to Alcoholics Anonymous. I had been going to AA meetings steadily for more than eight years, and I was starting to drift away. I didn’t have any urge to drink, and hadn’t in what seemed like forever. I was getting my succor from my friends. I left my identification as an alcoholic behind and went about being just myself.

  The following January, I passed an important test when I woke up on my tenth AA anniversary in Park City, Utah, with a horrible flu. I was at the Sundance Film Festival with Jeannie and some other friends, enjoying some moviegoing and the winter weather. I didn’t have a film in the festival; it was just a beautiful place to hang out and see new independent films. Between screenings, Jeannie skied and I hung out in coffee shops. I loved the vibe of that festival, and because this was in 2002, I had a good chance of getting in to see any movie I wanted.

  When I came down with the flu, I just wanted to check out and sleep. Nyquil popped into my consciousness. Dare I? On my AA anniversary?

  I did, and I fell fast asleep. When I took that shot of Nyquil, I took a huge step toward trusting myself. I knew that I could take it for its intended purpose and trust that when I woke up, I wouldn’t make a mad dash for a six of Miller Lite. I woke up feeling rested, less flu-ish, and with no desire to get loaded.

  I also readily dispensed with the fear of that unspoken AA notion that if you stop going to meetings, you will surely drink again. I felt I could have my sobriety and take my medicine, too. I have great gratitude toward AA, but my association with it had simply reached its conclusion. Part of me was still unsettled, but I coped through more adaptive methods, like latte consumption and clutter prevention.

  Speaking of coffee, I was enjoying my “first today, badly needed” one morning in the bathtub, when Chris Guest called to tell me we were doing another movie.

  “You play the guitar, right?” he said, as if he assumed I did.

  “Well, I can play two chords.”

  “Great. Learn another one.” I think it was Bob Dylan who said all you need is three chords and the truth.

  The movie was to be called A Mighty Wind. It would follow three folk-singing groups of the late sixties and early seventies as we prepared for a tribute concert to honor the recently deceased manager we had shared. The story had us all meeting in New York City’s Town Hall to celebrate the music that had shot us “straight to the middle of the charts.” We would be “back together for the very first time.” The cast was almost identical to that of Best in Show, and I was delighted beyond words to be making a musical movie with them.

  Chris wanted us not only to sing but to actually play our instruments, and not just random twanging like I’d done at the sixth-grade talent show, but well enough to do a concert tour after the movie came out. So we rehearsed the music for weeks ahead of shooting. Parker Posey learned how to play the mandolin. I actually added several new chords to my repertoire and worked to improve my almost complete lack of rhythm. John Michael Higgins (who we all just called Michael) played a tiny classical guitar that was always falling out of tune. He was also not very good at playing it. At the end of rehearsing a song, he’d play its last chord loudly and with a flourish so we could all hear how wretched it sounded.

  Me, Parker Posey, and John Michael Higgins.

  In the film, Michael and I were matched up as husband and wife, Laurie and Terry Bohner (pronounced, yes, boner). We were members of the folk-singing group the New Main Street Singers, loosely based on the New Christy Minstrels. Michael was our bandleader not only in the movie but also in real life. His guitar playing may not have been very good, but he was a wonderful director and arranger. Back when we were shooting the dog show scenes in Best in Show, Michael had taught us songs with arrestingly beautiful vocal harmonies. We’d gathe
red to sing at any opportunity during those shoot days, and the music we made together was so beautiful it literally brought tears to our eyes. I knew he’d be superb after the gorgeous sound he’d gotten out of us in between takes of Best in Show, and he was. He arranged all of the New Main Street Singers’ tunes and even wrote one himself. Michael is a musical savant. He knows every song any vocal group has ever performed and could teach you every part in the arrangement. He has a record collection that fills up an entire room of his house.

  In the New Main Street Singers, Michael gave me the high soprano part, which was a real stretch for me, but like everyone else in this group, I worked my butt off and rose to the occasion. For someone like me, who had grown up singing and whose soul was massaged by it, the whole experience was joy, joy, joy. Just like with Jennifer Coolidge before him, my time with Michael felt enchanted, and I fell in love with him just a little bit.

  Before shooting Best in Show, Jennifer and I had talked a lot about our characters, thinking about all kinds of possibilities for their relationship. Probably because we were so busy focusing on the music, Michael and I barely even had a brief powwow before we started shooting A Mighty Wind, so I didn’t know what he was going to do and he didn’t know what I was going to do. We both heard each other’s story for the first time with the cameras rolling.

  Being unable to control one’s laughter while shooting is not only unprofessional, it ruins the take. Over the years, I’ve learned some pretty fail-proof techniques for keeping myself from laughing, including biting the inside of my cheek and saying the Hail Mary to myself. I had to do some heavy praying and cheek-biting when Michael began to speak about the “mostly musical in nature” abuse he’d suffered as a child.