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The Hollywood Reporter Asks Jane Lynch and Wanda Sykes the Hard Questions

Posted by: Natasia Rose on June 10, 2010.

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06/10/2010- by Natasia Langfelder

The Hollywood Reporter sat down with 6 women from this season’s hit sitcoms to talk about some serious topics. However, Jane Lynch and Wanda Sykes are the most interesting ones, because they are lesbians! They are two of my favorite celesbians and they have achieved mainstream success! And they don’t really watch their shows, but you totally should. Read excepts from the interview below, my favorite part is when Jane Lynch admits she calls herself her dog’s “mommy.” Celesbians, they’re just like us!

WHO’S THE FUNNIEST WOMAN ALIVE?

Wanda Sykes: I would say Mo’Nique. Have you seen “Precious”? She was hilarious! (Laughs.)

Jane Lynch: Outrageous! I’ve been watching “Damages” lately and Martin Short is in it. Not that he’s a funny woman, but funny people can do drama really well. Lily Tomlin is on “Damages” too and they’re both fantastic. If you can do comedy, you can really do anything.

JANE AND WANDA, COMING FROM THE IMPROV AND STAND-UP WORLD,

DO YOU HAVE A GOOD SENSE OF WHAT IS WORKING WHEN YOU’RE DOING

YOUR SHOWS?

Lynch: With “Glee,” yes, because everything I say is written so well. I don’t touch any of the writing because I don’t have time. I’m learning lines all the time because my character is rather verbose. But in other things, you just hope they (keep) the moments because sometimes the hilarity is in the moment and sometimes an editor might blow through that. When I do things other than “Glee,” I cross my fingers, hoping that whoever is editing it knows how to edit comedy. Because they can really kill it.

Sykes: On “Old Christine,” it’s such a piece of cake for me because I don’t have to mess with it. But on my show, because I’m doing everything, I’m more aware of “Well, is this funny?” And, you know, I just mug it up.

HOW DO YOU HANDLE A SITUATION WHEN THE MATERIAL IS NOT

FUNNY AND YOU KNOW IT?

Lynch: I’ve had moments in “Glee,” some moments that are kind of iconic now, that I didn’t think were that funny. But I’m one of those people: I’m tired, I’m not that ambitious anymore. (Laughs.) So a moment will come up and I’ll just play it and do my best. Maybe it goes flat, but I don’t take responsibility. I rarely watch what I do, I just walk away from it. [You don't watch the show?] Not much. I watched the Madonna episode of “Glee” last night. I was in bed with my dogs and my cats all by myself, laughing! I turned to my dog and said, “You’re mommy’s funny!”

WHY DON’T YOU WATCH IT MORE?

Lynch: (Not) because I don’t like to watch myself. It’s just that when I’m done, I’m done. I spent a lot of time when I was younger dissecting my performances, going: “Oh, I shouldn’t have done that, what if I had done it this way,” to the point where, just for my mental health, I had to stop watching myself. I was very critical. Now I just have as much fun in the moment and I really walk away.

Sykes: I used to watch everything. Now I TiVo “Old Christine” and I don’t have time to go back and watch it. And also, because I’m not involved with the editing, it’s like, I know what I did, they make their choices. But on my show, I stopped watching because I do the editing. I’m there all night. We shoot Friday nights and I get home at 6:30, 7 in the morning on Saturday. So it’s like, I just watched it eight times.

DO ACTORS NEED AN EXTRA LEVEL OF CONFIDENCE TO DO COMEDY?

Lynch: It’s about having confidence in your lack of confidence. It’s being able to look silly and show the parts of you that aren’t so sophisticated or shiny and allow that to come out, and not try to shape it to look good.

Lynch: It’s being able to go to the dark places, which is why comedy actors are good at drama. It’s the same process. You’re going to those dark places in the shadow, and that’s the stuff that the people in the audience respond to.

Lynch: People feel better about themselves after a comedy. They don’t realize they’re seeing themselves or an aspect of themselves that they’re laughing at, but they walk away feeling better about themselves.

Sykes: Comedy is ugly. But I do think you have to have confidence. Especially doing stand-up: If you get onstage and they see you’re nervous, it makes the audience nervous. Same thing in acting, but you have to have a little vulnerability with that. They want to see a flaw to connect with themselves.

ON THE OTHER SIDE, DO YOU FIGHT TO KEEP TAKES THAT YOU

PREFER?

Lynch: Every once in a while, my character is rather heinous. She says awful, awful things. Sometimes, for my money, they go too far. Like once, something ended with me talking about skinning a cat, which I could not do because I have two cats. I just did a PSA for PETA so I could not say that. So (showrunner Ryan Murphy) rewrote it and the bit was fine. Ian Brennan writes most of my stuff. He’s from Chicago and I’m from Chicago, so he’s worked at the same theaters I’ve worked at. He’s Irish-Catholic, just like I am. So it’s really easy.

Lynch: All the time. I’m driving around town talking to myself. I have them on a tape recorder. This last episode, I had seven scenes all in one day and it was three days after I got the script. So my head was ready to explode. I woke up one day — and I don’t know if this is menopause or something, but I couldn’t remember my name! I couldn’t put a sentence together. Does that ever happen to you, where you don’t know if you’re at the preposition or the verb? So they made me cue cards, I have to admit. But I took a little estrogen that day and a little of that ginko and the next day I was fine.

Lynch: And what kills me is when they cut out half of the speech. (But) on our show, if you don’t get every word in every take, they come after you. We have a really tight script supervisor. We actually warn people that come on as guest actors that you have to have it exactly as it is on the page.