Actress/comedienne Jennifer Coolidge is playing for both teams this April. She’s booked to appear in Palm Springs at the all-girl Dinah Shore Weekend’s 20th Anniversary (March 31-April 4), during Saturday night’s HRC Fundraiser, and the gay boys’ famed White Party Weekend (April 9-12).
With plenty of queer and queer-adjacent credits—including Nip/Tuck, Legally Blonde, and Best in Show, in which she got it on with Jane Lynch—and fresh off an RSVP cruise, Coolidge chatted by phone about her upcoming appearances, MILFs vs. cougars, and the danger of gay cruises.
WATERMARK: How did the Dinah Shore gig come about?
Jennifer Coolidge: My agent said to me, “Jennifer, this woman wants to book you for the Dinah Shore event—she met you at Basix this morning,” which is a restaurant in West Hollywood. Well, I wasn’t in that restaurant so someone else had a great conversation with this woman and she thinks she’s booking whoever that was! I so wonder what other comedian could she have run into and thought was me. I stole a job from someone really legitimate.
What are you putting together for the appearance? Any special material?
Well, I’m hoping to put together this live sex show I’ve been working on a long time. I’ve found a couple of people interested in doing it with me. I want it to be interesting.
Your character got it on with Jane Lynch in Best in Show. Have you had a lot of experience with the lesbians?
I think Jane is a great lesbian lover; she’s a good kisser. I was in Provincetown twice last summer—I love the lesbian crowd. They’re incredibly loyal and, just like the gay men, they’re a really smart audience. Sometimes you show up to do standup in certain areas and have to take out some of the stuff you really like—not that my stuff is so highly intelligent.
How will your appearance at the White Party differ?
I don’t know. I think Dinah will probably be a much more sober event. But those girls are there to have fun. It won’t be uninteresting, that’s for sure. People go to Palm Springs and let loose so I hope it’s like a gay cruise.
Well, it’ll be gay and there will be cruising.
(Laughs) They’re going to raise a lot of money and it’s a really good cause and there will be great speakers. They really have their shit together, I have to say. When you go and do all these different events you realize the heteros just don’t have it.
You just performed on an RSVP gay cruise. How was that experience?
I just got off the boat a day ago. I would do one again in a heartbeat. The only thing that’s scary is how easy it is to just disappear in the night and that would be the end. One night I took an Ambien and thought, ‘I hope I don’t sleepwalk and walk out onto my veranda and go overboard.’
Thanks to playing Stifler’s mom in American Pie, you’re known as one of the first and best MILFs. How do you feel about the cougar revolution of late?
I was really lucky because American Pie established that word and I hear it’s in a dictionary now. MILF seemed like a cool thing because it sounded like a kid’s idea of fantasizing about an older woman and seducing her. To me, “cougar” is the carnivorous older woman desperately looking for a young guy. I’ve never liked that word. She’s prowling.
Would you be in Cougar Town if offered a spot?
I’ve been so associated with ‘cougar’ that I think it would be overkill to.
You’ve been a go-to for the gays in recent years. You lent your voice to LOGO’s Rick & Steve.
Now that’s a job I don’t know how I got. Maybe they met Jane Lynch in a coffee shop and thought she was Jennifer Coolidge.
What can you tell me about your role in Ash Christian’s (Fat Girls) next film, Mangus!?
I’m this white trailer trash mother who has this amazing son who wants to be the star of a Jesus Christ Superstar spectacular show at the school, and then he has some really bad luck and it’s all about his little journey. It’s a really charming script and we shot it in a week in Waxahachie, Tex. This blizzard showed up and they hadn’t had snow in 100 years. But I really liked Ash; he’s really smart. The poor guy got really sick while we were filming. He had a terrible case of the flu.
How was shooting Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call—New Orleans with crazy Nic Cage?
This is the thing about movie making I think is hilarious. The big heroes, the people you think will be incredible, usually are the opposite. And the people you think will be weird or odd or stuck up, it’s the opposite. Nic ended up being incredibly cool. We both had houses in New Orleans; he had been down there for years. He was kind of mind-blowing, actually. I was incredibly impressed by his talent. Just how good he is over and over in each take. And a really generous, nice guy. I thought he’d be crazy or something but I really liked him.
Have you seen the Legally Blonde musical?
No. I got a phone call to go do it in London but they wanted me to audition. I was horrified. Audition? I already established it in a movie! Why do I have to audition?
