Happy Accidents (16 page)

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.