Jane Lynch is interviewed in this month’s Elle Magazine (with Katie Holmes on the cover), and it’s actually a great read. We say “actually” because we noticed that most interviews with her tend to hash and rehash the same topics over and over. Really, answering the same question over and over must get tiring, to say the last. Anyway, the interview in Elle is worth the time: in almost startling honesty, Jane talks about working, her work, and being told by Second City that she wasn’t going to make it. A few highlights:
On working for free:
“I worked for free a lot,” Lynch says. “I did stuff I thought was stupid. Even for free I did things I thought were stupid. I’d do things to help a friend out. One would say, ‘I’m going to do a short and you’re going to play the boss.’ And I’d be rolling my eyes, knowing how disorganized it was going to be and that I’d have to bring my own clothes. But it was always, ‘Okay, I’ll do it.’ ”
On wanting to be an actress:
“Oh, I wanted to be adored, fawned upon,” Lynch says. “I wanted people to scream for me like I remember screaming for the Monkees when I saw them in a mall. But my insecurities were heavy even then. I was dying to shine, but afraid to.”
On sex and comedy:
“The Second City stuff is very masculine,” she says. “All about getting to the orgasm—the joke—and all about topping one another. It’s sharp, and fast, almost athletic. With this other stuff, you meander around, you know, let’s do a little foreplay. And maybe I’ll tap it a little bit here.” She offers quick caresses to various invisible lady parts in the air. “You’re not rushing towards anything. You’re truly just on the journey.”
On Sue Sylvester.
She based Sue partly on a character she called Angry Lady she’d performed onstage in the ’90s, a character that had actually come directly out of a therapy session. One day Lynch came in seething about being passed on the right on a bike trail and her therapist encouraged her to write a monologue in this angry voice.
Honest to the last. Read the whole interview on Elle here.
