- 5 weeks ago
Allison Janney revisits some of the most memorable scenes from her acclaimed career. From The West Wing and I, Tonya to Drop Dead Gorgeous and Juno, Allison reflects on the characters she's brought to life and the stories behind some of her most unforgettable performances. Watch as Allison shares behind-the-scenes memories, discusses her approach to each role, and reveals what she remembers from the moments that helped define her career.
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00:00On Instagram, someone was selling t-shirts with Loretta and Alan's character in, when I say,
00:07oh, the most smartest. And I bought like five t-shirts from this. I don't even know who these
00:14people are making these t-shirts, but I love it. Hi, I'm Alison Janney, and today I'm going to be
00:19watching different scenes from the various projects I've done throughout my career.
00:39I'm quitting the pageant. You're what? I'm quitting the pageant. I heard you. I was just trying to
00:43scare you into changing your mind. Oh, for Christ's sake, Amber, the woman clung to your tap shoes
00:48while flying through the air like a lawn dart. That's right. Oh my gosh. This is one of the
00:54the movies that are in my career that I'm most proud of, I have to say. Loretta in Drop Dead
01:00Gorgeous is kind of iconic. I get a lot of people stopping me about this movie, and it's so crazy
01:06because you can never find it anywhere. And it's such a cult classic, I think. I had the time of
01:13my life. I was in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I'd go to the Mall of America almost every day to
01:19get that
01:19accent down. And it was a blast. And my brother at the time lived there too, so I got to
01:25hang out
01:25with him. And Kirsten Dunst was a doll. Amy Adams, there's so many people in this movie. Well, of
01:31course, Ellen Barkin, the great Ellen Barkin, it was, it's a classic. So proud. How about some nice,
01:37cool mints to turn those frowns upside down? Do you think a nice, cool mint would help if I
01:42shoved your head up your ass? Iconic lines. Just, Loretta is the most quotable character I think I've
01:50ever played. So what do I say? Simple, just say, Mom, I know you sacrificed everything. Everything.
02:02Relationships, dreams, your tummy, ass, and thighs, all to bring me into this world. Also, I could have
02:06tap lessons and be in the pageant, the same one you were in, but you know what? I'm quitting.
02:12There. You just bite. I also remember that, the makeup choice. Loretta, you know, spent a lot of
02:18time in the sun and wore sunglasses, so she's got raccoon eyes, which is, which was a creative choice
02:24that I definitely made for her. And I know you can win. Come here. Oh, I love you much. I
02:34love you
02:34much. I love the movie so much, I've got a copy in my house, and it makes me laugh so
02:39hard watching
02:40myself and seeing how cute and young I was. God, I was, I was so young. Hell no, she ain't
02:46quitting?
02:47No. Mom said if I did, she'd look up my dad and marry him. I loved Kirsten. They called her
02:53Kiki. I don't know if
02:54they still call her Kiki, but she was Kiki, and she was adorable. We had so much fun together. I
02:58loved our
02:59relationship. What was her, I can't remember what Kirsten's character was named. Amber, all for heaven's sake.
03:05And Loretta and Amber had a special relationship. Loretta liked to think of herself as Amber's older
03:11sister. They had a close bond, and, and I had a close bond with, with Kiki too, off camera. She
03:18was
03:18adorable, and I loved her, and I, she's synonymous with that role for me. Anytime I see her in anything
03:24else, like, oh, there's Amber. You think sending my aid here was an act of cowardice? You think I
03:35have the time and inclination? Sir, due respect, that wasn't what I was referring to. I think jumping
03:40up and down on the commander-in-chief and then beating a path out of town is an act of
03:44cowardice.
03:45I just kept dressing down a four-star general, which is what I love that C.J. Craig could do.
03:49She could
03:50stand up to anybody toe-to-toe and, and take them down. She was the most powerful woman. I loved
03:55playing
03:55her so much. I loved playing women who are that smart. I play a lot of women who are the
03:59smartest
03:59women, women in the room, and, and I love that because I personally don't, I'm not that person. So to
04:06get to
04:06play these smart, really capable women makes me so excited, and watching her dress down this four-star
04:12general. Anytime I get to read a scene like this where C.J. speaks truth to power, and it always,
04:18I would get so
04:19excited to memorize the line so I could just rattle those words out, and, oh, it was so satisfying.
04:26I say this with all due respect. I think your motives are personal, and I'd like to discuss that, sir.
04:30Sure. How about we discuss new defense spending being down to 300 billion from 400 billion 10 years ago? Is
04:37that
04:38personal? No, sir. I think that's about the Cold War ending 10 years ago, and America not needing to spend
04:42quite so much
04:43money defending itself against a country that can't bake bread.
04:45The audition scene I had to do, I remember, was when C.J. tells the press pool that the president
04:52has injured himself by riding his bicycle into a tree. What I loved about that, that it was just
04:58so comical that the president would ride his bike into a tree, like, it's just the most embarrassing
05:03thing. And she has to say it with such, you know, gravitas. The president, yes, he has ridden his bicycle
05:10into a tree. Chief of orthopedics at St. John's Hospital has diagnosed the president with a mild
05:16sprain in his left ankle, sustained while cycling into a large cypress tree.
05:22Knowing how comical it was and having to deliver it, knowing myself, the C.J. knows how ridiculous
05:27it is, but she also knows she has to deliver it in this way that, as the press secretary,
05:32you have to do it, and not making fun of the president. My life completely changed because,
05:37of course, West Wing, those were back in the days where you shot 23 or 24 episodes in a
05:42season. And it's an hour drama, so we were shooting 18-hour days sometimes. Fridays become
05:47fratter days, as we called them. And early call times, and we didn't have cell phones back
05:53then. So I completely lost contact with my family, my friends. It was just the West Wing
05:59cast became my family. And to this day, we are still family because we spent so much time
06:04together. I spent more time with them than I spent with my family, truly. It was an extraordinary
06:08time in my life, and an extraordinary role that put me on another level in my career,
06:14completely. Winning an Emmy. I think I won an Emmy for supporting, and then I won for lead
06:20actress, too.
06:21It means unfit for service.
06:23No, sir. Again, with all respect, I hate to disagree, but it means unfit for service based
06:27on the Pentagon's two-war doctrine. It's based on how fast these divisions would be able to extract
06:33themselves from their peacekeeping mission, retrain on home bases, and ship off to a second of two
06:39full-scale Gulf War-sized conflicts.
06:42You know, I think Aaron, as he got to know each of us as individuals, started putting the little
06:49flavors of the real people into the character, as he really did with the Jackal, because,
06:55I mean, this is embarrassing to say, but a lot of times when you're in a trailer and you're waiting
07:00around for six hours or whatever, and they called you in too early, and you have nothing to do,
07:05but you could maybe learn a new language or read a book, but no, Richard Schiff and I would be
07:09in
07:10my trailer, and he'd be playing air guitar, and I'd be learning the lines to songs like the Jackal
07:16and performing them to make our other castmates laugh or just make each other laugh. And Aaron came
07:21into my trailer this one day, and I performed the Jackal while Richard was on air bass or air guitar,
07:28I don't know, and lo and behold, it was in the script.
07:31The brother loved the high life, had a PhD in street stride, they called him the Jackal.
07:40And I'll tell you something funny about that, though, because we filmed that, CJ doing the Jackal,
07:44in the Roosevelt room, and I did it, and I had so much fun, and then the next day, Aaron
07:51said,
07:52we've got to reshoot that scene. I said, why? And he said, because you were Allison doing the Jackal,
07:56and I think CJ doing the Jackal would not be quite as good as you are. So we shot it
08:01again,
08:02and CJ was a little more shy and not comfortable performing it, but was doing it because everyone
08:06was egging her on, so she did it, but it wasn't as, it wasn't like Alice and Janie did it,
08:10and I thought that was, that was kind of great. The thing is, the brook was never fired on,
08:15and it never shot its guns. Right now, and in photographs, you're wearing a medal you never won.
08:22How does that usually go over with the boys? You know, now that I see it, I go, yeah,
08:26I can't believe I even memorized that. Like, it was so great. She's so powerful. She has all the
08:31words right there, which is, which is what I love about her, because me, I'm like, just like, I mean,
08:37Aaron is the king of writing those kinds of speeches, and those ones that make you get chills
08:43and make you go, yeah, you just want to stand up and root for CJ or whoever he's given, you
08:48know,
08:48something great like that. I mean, obviously, the West Wing is the, is what everyone wishes was
08:55happening in our White House right now. It's, there are people in the West Wing who have great moral
09:00compasses, and they're, they're good people that want, they want to do their best for the American
09:05people. And right now I don't, well, I don't feel that that's happening. Um, and to hear all the
09:12people that are going back to the West Wing now, it's kind of a salve for, for the American people
09:18who want government to look like, like this, the way Aaron Serkin wrote it. Um, so that's the legacy.
09:25People just keep coming back to it. I love that, that they have a, a template now of what good
09:31politics, what good, you know, people that, that are in public service, what it should look like
09:36instead of, you know, what is now, which is very upsetting.
09:50And an arm.
09:55And there's the feet.
09:58Oh, would you look at that. Such a great script, uh, Diablo Cody wrote. I remember I was in Maine
10:07with my
10:07family and I got that script and I knew it was something special. Her writing was just so unique.
10:13I'd never, I really hadn't read anything quite like that. Jason Reitman directed that and I got to
10:19meet with him and he ended up giving me the, the role. So it was, it was, it was a
10:23really, I was very
10:24happy to be part of this movie. And that's how I got to meet Elliot, who was so incredible in
10:29this
10:29movie and JK Simmons, who played my husband. Um, I loved those people. I remember having, we shot in
10:35Vancouver, I think, but this scene particular one is the one that people, people love with, with my,
10:42my character, Bryn. What is your job title exactly? I'm an ultrasound technician, ma'am.
10:49Well, I'm a nail technician and I think we both ought to stick to what we know.
10:54Excuse me? Oh, you think you're so special because you get to play picture pages up there? My five-year
10:59-old
10:59daughter could do that. And let me tell you, she's not the brightest bulb in the tanning bed. So why
11:03don't
11:03you go back to night school in Mantino and learn a real trade? Stepmothers sometimes get a bad rap.
11:08And I think this movie did a lot for, to, to dispel that theory, um, that Bryn actually has her
11:17back
11:17and, and, and, and loves her. Yeah. They finally came around to, to seeing each other in a different
11:23way and appreciating each other. Bryn, you's a dick. I love it.
11:33So Elliot and I, we, we, we, we, I fell in love with him on this movie. And then we
11:38got to work
11:38in a movie called Tallulah. It was directed by, um, Sean Hader and, which was a lovely, beautiful,
11:44much smaller movie. It didn't quite hit as Juno did, but he's an extraordinary actor and, and just,
11:51and so smart. One of the smartest people I've ever met. And I think that comes through in his,
11:57his acting and he's just completely who he is. And it's like, it, it, it was wonderful to watch.
12:04I was so intimidated almost by how smart he is. Our careers have crossed paths a bunch and I just
12:10adore him. I haven't seen him in a while, but, but we had, we had a great time together on
12:15that.
12:21Shirley, a good friend of mine told me, if I could forgive you, I could find,
12:30finally be free of all the anger in my heart. And I really need to be free of it
12:38because if I'm not, I'm, uh, I'm going to drink again.
12:45Or jog myself to death. I love that. Ellen Burstyn, how amazing was, was it that I got to work
12:55with
12:55her? Truly one of my, my heroes. And that scene, I remember it now. That's why it's starting to make
13:00me cry a little bit. That's was, was so great with Chuck Lorre. He was able to have a scene
13:06like that,
13:06but also have laughs in there. And I think he wanted to see how far he could, he could get
13:12with
13:12mixing that, those two things together. Like we dealt with a lot of things that, well, you know,
13:18addiction, um, cancer, um, just so many heavy things. Cause obviously in life, if you don't have a sense
13:26of humor, it's hard to get through all the things you have to get through in life. Cause it's not
13:29easy
13:30for anyone. We handled that beautifully with the combination of the, the serious and the, the very
13:37funny. Who's this friend? Well, to be honest, she's not so much a friend as the mother I never had,
13:47but I'll be damned if I'll tell her that.
13:51I get so many letters of people thanking, uh, me and thanking the show for helping them through
13:56their struggles with addiction and just feeling seen. And one of the main reasons I wanted to do
14:01this was to honor my brother, to help, to show that people can, um, survive an addiction. They can,
14:09there is life after, um, after that. And that was important for me to, to put out into the world.
14:18And it felt, felt, I felt proud of what I was doing, a message that, that we were putting out.
14:22There was a good one. Um, and
14:30yeah, I'm really glad I, I got to, to do that. Cause I think it helped. I think a lot
14:34of people
14:35saw it and it helped them. And I get, I get, I get proof of that every day cause I
14:39get so many letters,
14:40you know, from, from people thanking us for what we did in that show.
14:51I want you to know,
14:55I don't know. I, I'm on your side.
15:01There's a big crowd out there.
15:05A lot of people support you.
15:10You done good.
15:12My dear friend, Steven Rogers, and I went to the neighborhood playhouse in, um, New York together
15:18from 1982 to 1984. He wrote I, Tonya. And he wrote this part for me. And he told me about
15:29it
15:30way before he even finished it. He said, I'm writing you a part and you're going to wear a fur
15:34coat and
15:35have a bird on your shoulder. And I was like, okay. Like I couldn't imagine like what he was
15:40talking about. What would, it sounded like completely a cartoonish thing. I'm like, who would do that?
15:45I didn't know what he was doing. And then I found out he was writing the Tonya Harding's, um, story.
15:51And he wrote the part for me. And I looked through everything, found the footage, the actual footage
15:58of LaVonna Harding. And sure enough, she is in a fur coat with a bowl haircut and a bird on
16:03her
16:03shoulder. And I looked and scoured for all the footage I could find on her and who she was.
16:09Because of course this version is Tonya's version of her mom. So I didn't get to actually meet the
16:15real LaVonna Harding. She was nowhere to be found. Tonya does not have a relationship with her. So we
16:19couldn't find her and I couldn't talk to her. So I knew that this was just, this was Tonya's version
16:24of
16:24her mother. And, and according to Tonya, this is exactly, I was spot on. And I was like, wow.
16:30Because one of my first scenes, I had to be so mean to Margot. And it was very hard. It
16:35was like,
16:35I just met her, you know, I just sort of, hi, I'm Margot. And, and we just started rehearsing. And
16:40my little trick I did for myself is I pretended Margot was me, you know, how we can be so
16:45mean to
16:46ourselves. So that was really easy to think of her as me, some part of me that I hated or
16:50was mad at.
16:51And it was like, it clicked in for me and made it so much easier to do those, to do
16:56those scenes.
16:57That was quite an upsetting scene to see her. Oh, you think, God, maybe she does love her daughter,
17:03but she does in her own way. I don't know. She's just looking for a, looking for a dime.
17:11Did you know about the attack?
17:18Well, you can tell me.
17:23God, what are you looking for?
17:26When are you going to stop it?
17:31I, it's just a,
17:44I just don't ever judge my characters. It makes it so much easier to play them and do the things
17:49they, like everything's for a good reason. Everything she does that everyone else finds
17:54despicable has, she's got a good reason for it. And so that's, that's the only way I can do it.
18:00But on the outside, of course, I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe
18:04that, um, McKenna Grace is in this movie as a little girl and I beat her with a hairbrush.
18:09I mean, that was actually the really, the hardest thing to do because I was like, McKenna,
18:13you know, this, I'm not really, I'm, you know, I felt, I had to apologize to her over and over
18:18again.
18:19Yeah, lick my ass, Diane. She can do a fucking triple. That was a great line.
18:32Oh, you bled on them.
18:34Really?
18:35Todd.
18:35Todd. No, I, it's probably cocktail sauce.
18:37It is not.
18:38Oh, shit. Sorry.
18:39Could you check them, please?
18:40It's just that one.
18:41Yeah, I don't see it anywhere else.
18:42Is there, where?
18:44It's okay, it's just on the ice.
18:46No, get, get your hands away.
18:47You know what, we won't eat the ice.
18:49Your guests are afraid you're going to give them hepatitis.
18:51This particular scene in Grace Penn is interesting because she's at her family estate,
18:57her old family home, and it's her home. But only now she's the president of the United
19:02States. And this scene is so lovely on so many levels because it's, first of all,
19:07it's like a little play Deborah Kahn has written for us. And Grace and Todd have been fighting all
19:12day. And Kate and Hal are fighting in there. And they're these huge, you know, they're politicians,
19:20but they're now just people, two couples in a home. And they're trying to, like, this is the first time
19:25they've had to interact this way, not in the Oval Office. They're trying to be just two couples
19:30sitting down and having drinks and talking about their day. And underneath there's so much going
19:35on. Everyone knows that, you know, Grace is the one that planned the attack on the HMS Courageous,
19:43and they all have different ways of wanting to deal with it. And there's just so much tension
19:49under the scene, so many different layers. This was enormously fun to play this and to play Grace,
19:54another woman who's smartest woman in the room. And to have gone from playing CJ in West Wing and now
20:00playing the President of the United States is kind of a great art.
20:03How was everyone's day at the office?
20:05You know, there was a law in the books at some point, maybe early 18th century,
20:08that you were not permitted to serve oysters to prisoners in prison more than twice a week.
20:13Really?
20:14Where the prisoners would mutiny.
20:16Why? Because the oysters wouldn't keep them.
20:19They were not a delicacy. They were so damn plentiful, it was punishment.
20:24Lobsters.
20:26Not oysters.
20:29Really?
20:30Yep.
20:31I watched the first season of Diplomat and had no idea that I was going to be joining the cast.
20:36I just
20:36fell in love with the show immediately and just couldn't wait for season two. And then I got this
20:42call from Deborah, and I was completely flattered and so excited that she wanted me to play Grace,
20:48and she didn't have to pitch me anything. I just said, yes, yes, I want to be there. I want
20:52to play
20:53Grace Penn. I have total faith and trust in Deborah and whatever she's going to write. I didn't have
20:59to sit down with her and go, now listen, I think Grace should be this way and I want her
21:03to be this
21:04kind of, like, do it. Let me be your client. Let me play her. Do, write for me, I will.
21:10And she
21:10hasn't disappointed me. Every scene, every episode, every season has been an incredible challenge and
21:19so much fun as well because Carrie and Rufus and Brad are all so much fun to play with. And
21:26the whole
21:26cast is really a brilliant cast.
21:31I, Grace Hagen Penn, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the
21:40United States. I didn't have any mad designs for having to play Grace. I just wanted to have her be
21:45real, have her be believable, have her be fierce, have her be a badass, have her be, you know, it's,
21:52it's great. When I got sworn in as president on the set, it was a very emotional day because
21:55obviously we haven't been able to elect a female president here in these United States, which is,
22:01we really felt that when I was being sworn in. Everyone got kind of emotional. It would be
22:07amazing to have, to finally have a woman president. So there's that, feeling that responsibility on my
22:14shoulders, but I just look at the script, what's in front of me and I, I fill it with everything
22:20I
22:20know how to do as an actor. When I was filming it, I didn't feel the power of that. I
22:24was just worried
22:24about, oh, did I hit my mark? Did I put my hand too high? They told me to put it,
22:28like I had those
22:29technical things in my mind and just getting the lines right. But everyone after we'd filmed it came
22:34up and said, oh my God, we're all crying behind the video village seeing, seeing you get sworn in as
22:39president. It was so emotional. I was like, really? I was like, of course. And then I saw it,
22:43when I saw the, the episode, I got with the music and everything, the, the, behind it. And it felt,
22:50I got very emotional too.
22:56Thank you so much for watching.
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