00:00Hi, Jane. I'm Allie Stegnita with Hollywood Life. I'm so excited to talk with you.
00:05Hi, such a pleasure to talk to you.
00:07Well, I want to jump right in. So you kind of are playing a completely different character than we saw you in in season one.
00:15I'm curious, did you feel like this was approaching an entirely new show to get into your new role and kind of leave Berkey behind?
00:22Well, in a way, yes, because we we leave the world of Schmigadoon behind and now we enter the big city of Schmigago.
00:30We're definitely in the decades of the sexier, darker, edgier musicals.
00:36These are the musicals I grew up seeing and love.
00:40So I couldn't be more thrilled that we're now in this decades, the decades of the 60s and 70s and in these shows.
00:47And I was just so thrilled to see what Cinco had written for me and, you know, the gifts of a hilarious character and a very showy number.
00:58So I was very thankful.
01:01Now, what musicals in particular did you look at and refer to when you were getting into character and maybe really wanted to be able to bring to this season without it necessarily being referred to openly?
01:14Oh, interesting. Well, I play Bobby Flanagan, who's the lady lawyer of Schmigago, who is most broadly based on Billy Flynn from Chicago.
01:24But then I love that her name is Bobby, which is clearly a reference to the latest Company revival where the character of Bobby was played by a woman.
01:34There's musical references to Tits and Ass from Chorus Line in my musical number.
01:38So I've pulled on that and try to put as much of that in there as possible.
01:41And then, of course, again, from Company, there's the whole not getting married section of my musical number where Bobby gets to do her summation in the courtroom.
01:50So all of our characters are an amalgam of musical theater characters from those two decades.
01:57And for me, I just love how smart Cinco writes our characters and how he knows so much about musical theater that he puts it all in there.
02:07So if you know musical theater, you know, I was dying when I read the first version of the scripts.
02:13And so it's pretty it's it's impressive how much he knows.
02:17And I love how he knows how to weave them together to make what is our Schmigago.
02:22Yeah. And I know like of the musicals that you've done from that era and those decades, you've done Funny Girl.
02:32You played Fanny Price at one point. Did you refer to that at all?
02:35I know that it's these are more like darker musicals, which Funny Girl isn't necessarily.
02:40But did you look at your time there at all?
02:43This was more of we we referenced I we delved into and referenced the musicals that we are referring to in the show.
02:50So all the ones from the 60s and 70s.
02:52Amazing. Now, I know you jump into some Cirque du Soleil trapeze and your big musical number.
02:59How did you prepare for that?
03:01Well, Cinco had originally written that she comes in and on a trapeze from the ceiling.
03:06And I was like, yes, because I love that sort of stuff.
03:10I love any of that physicality and certainly getting to learn something new.
03:14I had never done trapeze.
03:15So I asked if I could stay on the trapeze and do a few more tricks during the number.
03:20And they said, if you can learn some, we'll film it.
03:22And I was so thrilled with that.
03:24So I went to trapeze school while we were filming up in Vancouver and tried to learn as much as I could under the COVID restrictions and and put in whatever tricks we could achieve.
03:34And then they were so wonderful to adapt the ceiling and the set so we could fly all through the courtroom.
03:40I love that stuff.
03:43That's like that's my favorite.
03:45So I was in hog heaven there.
03:48I'm sure.
03:49Now, of all the other shows that you've been on, which show do you wish had a musical episode of 30 Rock, Dickinson, Ally McBeal?
03:58Well, a lot of the shows I've been on and TV have had musical elements.
04:04Certainly Ally McBeal had such a strong musical influence.
04:06And my character sang as, you know, an amateur paralegal who sings in the bar in the basement.
04:14But also that Elton John and Tina Turner show up.
04:16So that's like crazy how that worked out.
04:18But that did pretty well.
04:20And then 30 Rock, there was a lot of musical references as well.
04:23So I feel like the only show that they made a choice not to have me sing was Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
04:32Because I think they tried to delineate my 30 Rock character from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
04:38So they didn't let her sing there until I think maybe the final season where they let me sing.
04:43It was like a meta moment.
04:44I got to sing the theme song of a show within our show.
04:47And Tina said she did that just so she could get all of her money's worth.
04:52I love it.
04:53Well, Jane, thank you so much for your time today.
04:57Great to talk with you.
04:58Great to talk to you too.
04:59All right.
05:00Bye.
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