Jennifer Coolidge: 'I do think it's interesting that I've never been offered the part of a real winner'

Jennifer Coolidge would quite like to play a winner. Just once.

“I think very intelligent casting directors can tune in to your weaknesses, your personal weaknesses, just as a person. And then they go, like, she’d be good for that ‘insecure lady’ part,” she tells Big Issue.

“I do think it’s interesting that I’ve never been offered the part of a real winner. I would like to graduate some time. Maybe. 

“I don’t know if I’m destined for any like, Charlize Theron parts.”

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Personally, I say, I would love to see her play a gun-slinging post-apocalyptic heroine, à la Charlize. But Coolidge shakes her head, a touch wistfully. “I don’t know. They don’t really think of me for those.”

In the midst of a stunning career renaissance, Coolidge isn’t really complaining. Her inspired portrayal of billionaire (and bona fide ‘insecure woman’) Tanya McQuoid in HBO’s The White Lotus earned her an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and multiple Critics Choice and SAG Awards. Meanwhile, viral clips of her performance catapulted her into Gen Z digital mythology.

Coolidge’s iconic line in the final episode of the second season – “These gays! They’re trying to murder me!” – spawned a million GIFs, memes, and pieces of bootleg merchandise (This obsession, it’s worth pointing out, came largely from within the ranks of the actor’s substantial LGBTQ+ fanbase).

Coolidge is speaking to Big Issue at the press junket for A Minecraft Movie. It’s a big-budget Hollywood project starring Jason Momoa and Jack Black that signals she’s reached a whole new level in her career. Sequestered on the third floor of a Central London hotel, she has spent the afternoon being chaperoned in and out of interviews. The schedule has not dimmed her energy: I hear her Boston accent before I see her, effusively thanking a member of hotel staff. There are echoes down the corridor, “That’s amazing! Wow!” 

Jennifer Coolidge sips a vanilla oat latte. “Oh my god, no, this is a treat to have you,” she says, when I thank her for the time. “I needed a break from others. Jason [Momoa] was talking my ear off. I just needed some quiet. No, that’s a joke.”

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In the early 2000s, Coolidge popped up everywhere, from Frasier to Friends and Sex and the City to comedy blockbusters like American Pie, Legally Blonde, and Zoolander. But then, she hit a fallow patch; the calls dried up, work wasn’t always forthcoming. She continued playing lower-profile bit-parts but significant roles eluded her. In 2016 BuzzFeed even ran an article entitled: [Just want to let you know that the actress who played Stifler’s Mom [Coolidge’s iconic role in American Pie] isn’t dead.’ It was a difficult time. Is this why she can play insecure ladies so well? 

“I think, I think,” Coolidge muses, “Casting directors just pick you because they know, you know, you’re not doing that great.”

I’m clearly making some sort of sympathetic face, because she laughs.

“I’m seeing your fa- I’m not – I mean, I don’t know. I guess what I’m saying is… vulnerable. I think that’s why I get cast sometimes, being sort of vulnerable and not protective enough of oneself. I don’t know if I conceal much of what’s going on. I’m saying that sarcastically but maybe I’m not. Maybe I’m both. Who knows?”

A Minecraft Movie sees her playing another underdog, a divorcee called vice principal Marlene, who hits a video game character with her car.  

“[My character] is having a very unlucky moment in her life and has this terrible ex-husband who’s divorcing her, named Clemente, and he’s a piece of work,” Coolidge explains. “But then, she has this incredible romance with one of the most handsome men in the world.” 

She’s referring, of course, to a Minecraft creature who’s made from CGI blocks. “He has a strong sexuality. He’s very attractive in every way.”

Surrounded by the paraphernalia of a Hollywood junket – TV cameras, branded merchandise, an attentive entourage – it’s clear that Jennifer Coolidge’s days of sitting around waiting for roles are long behind her. She’s “really glad”.

“I want to say to anybody who thinks that it’s over, it’s not over till it’s over. What is it? It’s not over till the fat lady sings,” Coolidge says. “And I think a lot of people, I think people give up. They give up very easily. And, you know, they just, they feel like it’s too much pressure. And I just say, hang in there. It really sometimes will completely change in an instant, all of a sudden. And you can’t even explain it. I’m glad I’m alive today, for sure.”

Coolidge’s profile has never been higher and is set to stay that way. She’ll appear in Legally Blonde 3, but first she’s contemplating going on the hunt for local children she can take to A Minecraft Movie. 

“I wanted to have kids, so I was trying to think of whose kids I could take to it,” Coolidge says. “I’m in London and I was thinking I might just hopefully run into some kids on the street.”

A Minecraft Movie is in cinemas now.

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