Jennifer Tilly Outsmarts Them All

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That voice. Onscreen, Jennifer Tilly speaks in a breathy, high-pitched register not unlike that of Marilyn Monroe, whose “ditzy” characters knew how to wield their beauty and hide their cunning. “We were all obsessed with Marilyn Monroe back then,” Tilly, 65, says, recounting her early days as a “sex pot” actress in the 1980s, coming up around the same time as Rosanna Arquette and Kim Basinger. This was before Tilly scored an Oscar nomination for her role in the 1994 Woody Allen movie Bullets Over Broadway, before she starred as a mob wife in the Wachowskis’ cult 1996 film, Bound; and before she became the bride of Chucky. Off screen, Tilly’s voice is deeper, sweeter even, than how she sounds in her memorable appearances on Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show or in Liar Liar opposite Jim Carrey. Four decades into her career, she’s as beautiful and cunning as ever, but also settled, and it comes through in the full-toned responses to questions about her longest running job as the lead of a horror franchise or her more recent decision to officially join The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills universe.

Our first conversation takes place just after the third season of Chucky finished airing on Syfy in May. (Our second takes place in between Housewives shoots the next month.) Tilly plays Tiffany Valentine, Chucky’s platinum-blonde, serial-killing counterpart who first appeared in 1998’s fourth Child’s Play installment, Bride of Chucky. Tilly relishes her role as Tiffany and how it lets her swan around in fabulous gowns even when the setting is prison. But it wasn’t love at first. When Chucky creator Don Mancini approached her with a slasher franchise, she was worried what it would do to her promising career in auteur cinema. She broke out in 1989’s The Fabulous Baker Boys alongside Jeff and Beau Bridges, playing a character director Steve Kloves wrote for her. Five years later, she mounted her own Oscar campaign for her role as another comically inept actress in Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway (without the endorsement of producer Harvey Weinstein) only to lose the Supporting Actress award to her co-star Dianne Wiest (who received the Weinstein imprimatur). She thought the nomination would be followed by a wave of prestigious opportunities that never arrived. She auditioned for Wayne Wang’s The Joy Luck Club but didn’t get cast. She was in the conversation for Twister, but the part went to Jami Gertz. For the most part, she was fighting the same white actresses for the same parts in studio films. She still is. She has a sober outlook when it comes to claims that roles for older women on the big screen are more appealing, or even more abundant, than they were decades ago. “Once in a while there’s a role as the head of the CIA, or the grandmother, or whatever, but there are five actresses in Hollywood who get those older-women parts,” Tilly explains, implying she’s not one of them. “I would love to be Frances McDormand.”

Meanwhile, Chucky and Tiffany persist. She initially felt like a leading part in a horror franchise would dash her dreams of making it as a leading lady in more Academy-friendly movies, but Mancini won her over with a script she describes as funny and intelligent. Today, Tilly is arguably more essential to the Chucky franchise than its namesake so much so that the TV series has bent itself around her fandom, writing her sister (Meg Tilly, also Oscar nominated) and former castmates (Bound’s Gina Gershon and Joe Pantoliano) into scripts. Movies never gave Tilly the statue-filled future she’d imagined, but she’s charted new territory on the small screen as a result — as the voice of Bonnie Swanson on Family Guy, as a World Series of Poker regular, and yes, as a recurring guest on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. She is generally a vibrant conversationalist, but when discussion turns to Housewives and her future as a “friend of” on the series, her eyes light up: “I think I was more excited to meet Kyle Richards and Erika Jane and the other ladies than I was when I met Elizabeth Taylor.” Whereas she was nervous about stepping into the spiky heels of Tiffany, she sees reality TV as yet another way to survive in an industry she’s spent four decades outsmarting.

What was your first impression of Hollywood?
I always wanted to be a movie or TV actress. Everybody in my acting classes went off to Broadway, because our teachers said, “Real actors go to Broadway, and if you want to sell out, you can go to Hollywood,” and I was like, “Yes, that’s me. I want to sell out.” I was like, “What’s the point of doing theater when it’s 300 people a night? When you do something in television and film, people all over the world can see you.” I came out to L.A. right after I got my driver’s license. My dad sold me a car for $400. It was this broken-down Mustang. He dropped me off at the Hollywood YMCA, and the next day I found an apartment that was $90 a month — a furnished apartment with a Murphy bed.

The first thing that I did was Vanities, and I got a Drama-Logue Award for that. I was like, “Wow, Hollywood, it’s an open book for me.” But then, it was very, very hard to get an agent, and it’s really hard to get jobs if you don’t have an agent. I remember once I was an extra on Days of Our Lives — I think that’s the most excited my mom and grandmother were about anything I’ve ever done. It took me about four years to get an agent. He sent me to all these auditions. I started getting parts. But I always said, “I’m not the girl next door. I’m the girl next door to the girl next door.” I never really thought I was attractive, so I was like, Oh, you’re destined to do the goofy, funny parts, which is weird, because now I look back on it, and I was very beautiful.

You are still gorgeous.
I remember my sister was dating Sean Penn, and they were trying to set me up with his best friend. I asked him, “What did they say? How did they describe me?” He said, “Well, Sean said you look just like Meg, except you have coarser features.” I was like, “That’s me. I have coarse features.”

Because when we were growing up, we were very, very poor, and my parents were hippies. I grew up in the Brady Bunch time, and all the other girls had straight blonde hair and the little lunchbox with the TV show that was popular and the Hostess CupCakes. Meanwhile, we could only take a bath once a week. This is really gross, but because water was expensive, Sunday was bath day, and everybody would take turns taking the same bath. I didn’t even realize until I went to college that people showered once a day. My roommate was going down for a shower, and I was like, “Again? Didn’t you just shower yesterday?”

When I became an actress, I had this idea that I could play beautiful because I was such a great actress. I would always think, If I got the part of a beautiful person, then I could out beautiful anybody, because I was such a good actress. But I never really thought that I could be the leading lady. In the ’90s, I lost a lot of parts, especially in comedies, to girls who were models, who didn’t even act.

Do you remember which auditions you lost?
I just know that you could go back in the ’90s and look at all the women who were starring in movies, usually opposite Adam Sandler or Jim Carrey. I said to my manager, “It’s comedy. They want a comedian in the female part.” They said, “No. They feel like the lead actor brings all the comedy, and they just want the pretty girl that they couldn’t get in high school.”

I always felt like being a comedian, it’s not just about being Jim Carrey — who’s the most brilliant comedian — and doing pratfalls and climbing the wall and making funny faces. You look at a lot of the actresses in the ’40s and the ’50s who were in comedies, and it’s having a sense of timing. It’s knowing how long a beat to wait before you say your next line. If the comedian says his line really big, it’s like an opera. If you have the basso profondo, then you need the piccolo. If his line is really big, then you need to wait three-and-a-half beats, then come in small. To me, it’s a thing that you either have or you don’t have — a comedic sense. But I think that the guys, when they become really big stars, they’re like, “My girlfriend in the show has to be the prettiest girl there is, not Jennifer Tilly.”

You mentioned that things got a little easier after you got an agent. When did you feel like your career was really taking off?
I guess I was 35 or 36 years old when I got my big break, and that was Bullets Over Broadway. I had a lot of movies that I did in my 20s that I thought were going to take off, then they just fizzled or became cult movies later on, like Let It Ride. Bound, which is one of my favorite movies that I’ve ever done, now it’s a real cult movie. The problem is, when it becomes a cult movie later on, it doesn’t help you get your next role. If somebody said, “Jennifer, don’t worry. Twenty years from now, everybody’s going to be watching this movie,” I would have been like, “Well, that doesn’t help me now.” It was always a struggle. One role never led to another role.

I am sure you’ve read that I fought tooth and nail against doing Chucky. I was coming off of Bullets Over Broadway, but the pickings were slim. My manager wanted me to do Chucky. He called me up and he goes, “Jennifer, you got an offer. It’s a major motion picture.” He knew I always had a hard-on to do major motion pictures, because I’d made so many little independent films. I was like, “Really? What’s it about?” He goes, “It’s about a little doll that kills people,” and I was like, “Oh my God, a Chucky movie? I’m not doing a Chucky movie. I can’t even believe you’re coming to me with a Chucky movie.” Back then, horror films were things that you did at the beginning of your career and then at the end of your career. You all see, Rénee Zellweger was in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Jennifer Aniston was in …

Leprechaun.
Then the older actresses, when they get older, they do Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte. I was in the middle of my career. I was hoping I could parlay my Oscar nomination into something a little more elevated than a Chucky movie. But thank God I took it, because talk about career longevity. That was 27 years ago. I’ve done four movies, three seasons of Chucky.

Don Mancini is the greatest writer ever. The things that he’s been writing for Tiffany — I never would’ve thought that her story line would have such an extensive trajectory. In Bride of Chucky, she had a poignancy, even though she was a hottie and a little bit of a psychopath. Now, it’s funny that people really identify with Tiffany. When I look at my little Instagram pie graph, my biggest fan base is the 18- to 25-year-olds. Seed of Chucky is very much beloved by the gay and trans community and was very, very much ahead of its time.

What made you ultimately decide it was worth taking the role of Tiffany?
I read the script and I thought it was really funny. When she’s talking to Chucky, who’s sitting on top of her dying boyfriend, and they’re having this romantic moment, I thought, This is really such an intelligent script, this Bride of Frankenstein parody. And I had a boyfriend who was really into Hong Kong movies, and he took me to see all these films. Ronny Yu was a perfect choice to do Bride of Chucky, because Chinese movies, they’re very obsessed with ghosts and the supernatural, and they’re beautifully shot. Ronny Yu directed a movie called The Bride With White Hair, which is considered a Hong Kong classic. The fact that they were hiring Ronny Yu to direct, I thought, Well, this is very interesting. Before that, I really did feel like horror movies were more like soap operas and would be lit like Porky’s, very flat lighting. But with Bride of Chucky, our cinematographer, Peter Pau, ended up winning an Oscar a couple years later for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. So, all these elements were very intriguing to me.

Then my friend Gina Gershon said to me, “Jennifer, you should do it. You’ll have a franchise. Every actor wants a franchise.” I thought, Well, Gina, I read the script and at the end of the movie, Tiffany dies horrifically and not before popping out the ugliest-looking baby we ever saw. There’s not going to be any sequels. I did not understand that Chucky always comes back. Then we had Seed of Chucky. Don thought one of the reasons why Bride of Chucky was such a success is because I was there in all my flesh and glory. He’s like, “We need to figure out how to get Jennifer Tilly, the person, back into the movie.” So he came up with the idea — that they’re making a movie of the Chucky saga, and Jennifer Tilly, the actress, is playing Tiffany in the movie, and Tiffany the doll becomes obsessed with Jennifer Tilly. Tiffany becomes my biggest fan and she stalks me all the way to Hollywood and decides I’m the perfect vessel for her evil little soul.

Don and I would get together every week and think of mean things that Jennifer Tilly could do. We decided that Tilly’s career is on the decline and she thinks it’s slumming to do a Chucky movie. She’s always complaining, “I’m an Oscar-nominated actress, and now I’m fucking a puppet.” Like I could have been Julia Roberts. I was never competitive with Julia Roberts. I think I was only up for one movie she ever did, Mystic Pizza, but not in the Julia Roberts part. Then Don turned in the script, and the studio rejected it. They were like, “Can’t she just be a nice girl that’s being chased by a murderer who’s killing all her friends.” And Don goes, “You mean like I Know What You Did Last Summer?” They’re like, “Exactly, yes.” So we had to take out a lot of the mean stuff. There was a scene where Tiffany finds a severed head in a warehouse and all of a sudden there’s all this paparazzi. She hasn’t had that amount of attention since Bullets Over Broadway, so she gets in her car and calls her assistant and she’s like, “Turn on the TV. Oh my God, turn on channel nine.” She feels like this is going to help her career. The studio goes, “That makes you look so awful, Jennifer. A man has died after all.”

People talk about Bullets Over Broadway as your first big role, but you’d done The Fabulous Baker Boys before that. Is it true that Steve Kloves wrote the part for you?
I think my first breakout was maybe when I was on Hill Street Blues. That’s when I started getting a little bit of attention. But definitely, Fabulous Baker Boys was a breakout role for me. My agent submitted me for the Michelle Pfeiffer part, which I thought was incredibly ambitious of him. And then Steve Kloves said he’d seen me in a play and wrote a part for me. She was very similar to Olive in Bullets Over Broadway, in that she was a very basic person who dreamed of great things. And she’s blissfully unaware of her supreme lack of talent. So when she goes in there to do the audition for the Baker Boys, she’s like, “Who can make the sun rise? Sprinkle it with dew” — acting out the words. She does not hear how tone-deaf she is.

That was the first movie I did with Jeff Bridges. He’s very beloved in the film community because he’s just such a great guy. He has this aura of, Yes, I’m a movie star, because what real movie stars do is that they don’t have anything to prove so they’re very kind to people. The people who go on set and they’re like, “Tell me when the other actors have left their trailer and then I’ll leave my trailer.” That kind of stuff is usually middling actors or soap-opera actors. The people who cause the most trouble are people who are very insecure about their place in the world. Then there’s people like Daniel Day-Lewis, who have their own method. People that are like, I have to live this life. Everybody has to call me by my character’s name. Even when I’m at craft service helping myself to a gummy beer. With Jeff Bridges, it’s not that hard. He knows how to act when they say action. I’m not impugning either method. Everybody has things that they need to do.

You famously launched your own Oscar campaign for Bullets. You took out ads in Variety. You arranged for Jay Leno to introduce you as an actress with Oscars buzz, even though the Weinstein Company had not even submitted you. Did your agents and friends support your decision to do this?
I was always a hustler. When I did The Fabulous Baker Boys, I was already nominally famous. The paparazzi all knew me. I would literally go to the opening of an envelope and I’d have my outfits and I’d be on the red carpet and they’d take pictures, click, click, click. Maybe somebody wants to ask about my skin-care regime. I was always doing that to try to get my name out there.

With Bullets Over Broadway’s Oscars campaign, the studio puts the person in the category where they think that they can win. Dianne Wiest is obviously the lead in the movie. She had twice as many lines as me. She’s a romantic interest. But because she’s a character actor, I had heard that the Weinstein Company thought she had a better chance of winning in the character-actor category — the supporting-actor category. And I was like, What? So I called my publicist at the time and I said, “I hear I’m not one of the people who’s in contention for supporting actor for the movie.” She goes, “I called the Weinstein Company, they said, ‘No, of course we’re going to promote Jennifer for an Oscar.’” But this is what I did not know: They did not submit me for a Golden Globe. You have to be submitted to get nominated. Usually the studio submits you, but now I know if the studio doesn’t submit you, you can submit yourself — or your agent and your publicist can submit you. So I wasn’t submitted for the Golden Globes, I wasn’t submitted for SAG Awards, all these awards leading up to the Oscar race.

I was very tenacious, and I just decided, I’m going to start my own campaign. I don’t know how to do it anymore, but then you could buy a full page in Variety with pull quotes about how great your performance was. I remember it was like $400 for a black-and-white ad, which was a lot of money to me back then. So I took a picture I had of Woody Allen and I, laughing hysterically, I slapped the Weinstein logo in the corner, then I put all my quotes in and bought my ad. Back then, Jay Leno loved me because I was really good on talk shows. Ahead of the Oscars, he asked me to come on this show and I said, “Only if you use the phrase, Oscar buzz.” And so I was standing in the wings and he goes, “Our next guest has Oscar buzz surrounding her performance.” And I was really smugly going, She does now.

And so yes, I got nominated. I called up my publicist after and I go, “I got nominated for an Oscar.” She goes, “Jennifer, are you sure?” She was gobsmacked. The Weinstein Company didn’t do an Oscar campaign for Chazz Palminteri, either, and we were the two surprise Bullets Over Broadway nominations. Miramax was not happy. I got flowers from everybody. I didn’t get any flowers from Harvey Weinstein or Miramax. They were upset because they thought I was going to split the vote. Now that I look back on it, I never, ever had a single audition for a Miramax film. For Bullets Over Broadway, I got cast by Woody Allen and they sold it to Miramax after it was completed. Now I think of it, I guess it was a blessing in disguise.

Did you know the Wachowskis before you got cast in Bound?
I did not know them. It was after I did Bullets Over Broadway and they really, really wanted me. I went in and I read for the role of Corky. The role of Violet was … who was that actress?

Was it Linda Hamilton? I heard that she was considered for the role of Violet before you.
Linda Hamilton. At the time I felt like I was being typecast as a sex pot and I’d love the role of Corky more. I was like, Oh my God! I can go in, not wear any makeup, just be a badass. And then Linda Hamilton dropped out and they wanted me to play Violet. I did not want to play Violet. So I think Rosanna Arquette got the role of Violet next, but then she got a series and they wouldn’t let her out to film the movie. I kept going in and reading for Corky, and they were like, “We want Jennifer for Violet.”

My manager finally goes, “They found this girl Gina Gershon. They said they like her better for Corky, but she’s willing to play Corky or Violet. Will you meet her?” I said yes. But I dressed as Corky-ish as I could — jeans, torn T-shirt, my hair all Corky’d out. Gina’s like an hour-and-a-half late or something — not her fault, the plane was late and nobody picked her up at the airport. I was sitting with the Wachowskis and she came in and said, “I already got my ears pierced.” (Corky had six piercings in her ears.) She pulls back her hair to show them, then she looks at me and she goes, “That’s what I think my hair should look like,” pointing at my Corky hairdo. And I was like, “Nobody told Ms. Gina Gershon that she was going to be playing Violet?” The next morning the Wachowskis knew it was over.

A couple days later my manager called and he goes, “Jennifer, do you really not want to play Violet? Violet is the better part.” And Violet was like a slow-moving shark. When I thought of her, I thought of her as submerged. You see the tip of the iceberg, but most of the iceberg is underwater. After I finally took the part, they didn’t let me improvise at all, which is my go-to. I’m a comedian. If there’s an empty space, I’m afraid of empty spaces. But I realized later, it was because everything Violet says is for effect. Even if it seems like she’s saying something accidentally, she’s doing it for effect, because she’s the master manipulator. When I saw the movie I said, “You wouldn’t let me improvise and you let Joey Pantoliano say whatever the fuck he wants.” And the Wachowskis go, “Well, Joey never knew his lines. He had to say something.”

I really ended up feeling like it was one of the best roles I’ve done, and Corky and Violet are two of the best female parts that I’ve ever read. The story was about them. They weren’t the decoration. They weren’t the girl who shows up in a bikini or needs to be rescued. But I remember the Wachowskis saying, “You would not believe how many actresses refused to come in and read for this, because it was lesbian.” I think it turned the needle a little bit, because them being gay wasn’t even a plot point. It was two people who were in love who happened to be women. I’m so gratified to see that movie has become a cult classic and was very embraced by the gay and lesbian community. I had a lot of gay men fans after Bullets Over Broadway, then after I did Bound, I had a lot of lesbian fans.

Your Bound co-stars popped up in Chucky’s second season, which was a lot of fun. Did you bring the idea to Gina Gershon and Joe Pantoliano, or — ?
Don was obsessed with Bound. Even in Seed of Chucky, he puts in some lines about Gina Gershon. He had the idea that he wanted to do it, and I thought, You’re never going to get them to guest star on my Chucky TV show. They’re movie stars. But, I think they just really loved the script. Don wrote all that. He had the idea to bring in my sister, too. He had the idea to bring in Sutton Stracke, who’s one of my besties, who’s on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

I really do believe that that helped with the renaissance of Bound. Gina was working on the Archie television series. She goes, “There are two girls who play a lesbian couple on Riverdale, and they’ve never heard of Bound.” We thought all lesbians had heard of Bound. She goes, “Bound, it’s disappeared. We have to do something.” And after that episode of Chucky, then it started showing up on Netflix and the other streaming services.

Liar Liar is another one of your movies that’s being discovered by new audiences. In 2017, Jim Carrey spoke about working with Tommy Lee Jones on the set of Batman Forever in ’95, which was released a year before Liar Liar. And this is what Jim Carrey said: “Tommy Lee Jones went to hug me and he said, ‘I hate you. I really don’t like you.’ And I said, ‘Gee, man. What’s the problem?’ … And Tommy Lee Jones said, ‘I cannot sanction your buffoonery.’”
That is great.

How was it for you working with Jim Carrey?
I loved working with Jim Carrey, but it is very intimidating. I’m a funny person; I love improv. I believe he’s a comedic genius, and I think it’s a sad thing in our business that comedic actors never get the nominations for being a comedian. I think he got a nomination when he did his serious part. But there are lots and lots of actors who can do serious acting; anybody can cry. To be a brilliant comedian like Jim Carrey is a gift.

So, he was like a racehorse. You know the racehorses — they’re pampered and high-strung. He was at the top of his game. He had just come off of huge hits like The Mask and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. I remember he had a gym on the set that was bigger than pretty much everybody’s trailer. The movie revolved around Jim Carrey. This is why I think sometimes people have problems with him. I had no problems. I was so grateful and happy to be in a Jim Carrey movie. Nobody is going to see that movie for me, or Swoosie Kurtz or Amanda Donohoe or Maura Tierney or the little kid or Cary Elwes. We’re all brilliant cogs in the Jim Carrey machine. They surrounded Jim Carrey with really good actors but not star actors, because after the $18 million they paid him, they couldn’t afford to pay other people. They offered me one quarter of what I normally would get on an independent film. When my agent told me what the offer was, I was like, “What? I wanted to do a major motion picture where they have a big budget.” And he said, “Well, you want to be in the Jim Carrey movie, don’t you?”

On set, he could improvise, but you could never improvise back. If you say, “Hey, did you go to the store and get some milk?” and he starts talking about, “Well, I went out the door and then a spaceship came down and there were aliens and they took me up in the ship and started probing me and then they threw me out over Iowa and I walked all the way back home,” you can’t go, “Oh my God! Alien!” You have to say, “Yes. But, what about the milk?” You have to just get back to the script as soon as possible. And he would do so many takes. In the first few takes he didn’t know what he was doing. He couldn’t find his melody. Then about the seventh take, he would be brilliant and everybody would be laughing. I’d be like, “Great. We got it. Let’s move on.” But he’s just getting started. Then he adds curly cues. He gets very baroque and grand and pretty soon he’s slamming the toilet seat on his head. That’s why I say he’s a comedic genius. Nobody would ever think to do it.

It’s almost compulsive with him. The first day I shot, he goes, “Jennifer? When I leave the room, squeeze my butt!” I was like, “Oh. I’m feeling really nervous, squeezing the $18 million butt.” He goes, “Yes. Do it. It’ll be great.” So, as he’s walking out of one scene, I squeeze his butt. And then at the end of the movie, my character loses the case. In the script, she just goes, “Ha!” and grabs the kids and leaves. And Jim said, “Jennifer, why don’t you say, ‘Don’t you have a giant check you need to be writing me before I leave?’” Which is great, because he gave me a great exit line, and when you have a good exit line, people remember your character. So, he was very generous in that way. And it was maybe the biggest hit that I was ever in. That’s because they knew where the money shot was, and it was Jim. And it was important that Jim felt comfortable and was allowed to do the things that he wanted.

I want to ask about your late-night appearances. I rewatched quite a few before this interview, and you’re dynamite on a late-night show. This one time, you were on Johnny Carson in the late ’80s, and it seems like you’re putting on a persona, having fun with it, but Carson doesn’t totally understand how you’re trying to move — almost to the point where he seems uncomfortable and stumped. Do you remember this?
This is a really strange thing. I was on Carson a bunch of times. I love Carson. He’s a master of understated comedy, and he loved me. My husband at the time, Sam Simon, he didn’t like me going on Carson. He thought I would go in and I would do this dumb blonde — that was my talk-show persona, the dumb kind of Marilyn-ey thing. But Johnny loved working with me because he understood my character. I would set up Johnny and then he’d wrap the joke up in a package, like, “Here’s your joke,” and hand it back to me. And he would always get a laugh. So he was always calling and wanting me to be on the show. Anytime anybody would drop out, Johnny Carson would call, about once every three weeks. But Sam said, “You don’t want to be that person who’s always on talk shows.” He was like, “You’re a serious actress. You don’t want to be Teresa Ganzel or Terri Garr,” who are two people whom I actually really love seeing on talk shows. So I would always say to Johnny, “Well, I’ll come on when I have something to promote.” And then, ironically, the only Johnny Carson thing that’s out on YouTube is the one that you saw.

It was my first experience with the dark side of Johnny Carson. I went there and I was wearing this Moschino corset dress, which was very popular in the ’80s, with a leather jacket. I was the last guest because I wasn’t famous. So first this one actor came on — John Larroquette from Night Court. But he was promoting a made-for-television movie where he played an alcoholic, so it was a serious John Larroquette. And it was kind of not great. Then Johnny had a magician that came out, who was trying to do tricks but that also tanked. By the time I came out, Johnny was in such a bad mood. I looked in his eyes — and usually he’s very avuncular — and I was like, He’s already on the bus home. I just started talking. I was talking about how I went to this voice doctor and she reached under a desk and she pulled something out. I said, “What do you think she pulled out?” The old Johnny Carson, he can say anything — a golf club, a watermelon. And he looked at me, like, he goes, “I have no idea.” I felt like I jumped out of a plane and my parachute wasn’t opening.

Then I went back in my dressing room and my publicist said, “Oh, you’re in so much trouble. Johnny was very unhappy. He was like, ‘Why did she wear that outfit? Her outfit threw me, she’s wearing underwear on my show.’” But a day or so later, the head of the publicity agency called and they go, “Johnny wants you to come back on Friday.” I go, “What?” Apparently everybody was saying the show that night was so boring and so bad they almost turned it off, but then I came on and they’re like, Who is that girl? She’s so weird and crazy. They loved me. They said, “Johnny wants you to come back on and he wants to explain how your outfit threw him off.” He felt bad that it had been a bad experience for me and he wanted to make it up to me, but I was shook. I’d never experienced the not-there, angry Johnny Carson, and I didn’t want to come back. I said, “Oh, I’ll come back later when I have something to promote.” And then all of a sudden it was announced he was going off the air. Maybe that’s why he was in a bad mood — maybe he knew that already. And then all of a sudden all the celebrities are coming to pay their tribute, so they didn’t have a time slot for the independent C-list actress.

You do talk about your voice in that Carson appearance. How do you feel it has helped or hurt your career? It’s such an iconic part of you.
I did start out doing the Marilyn Monroe thing and talking with a little voice — kind of spacey, kind of innocent. Because of that, I would say the biggest misconception, perpetuated by me, is that I was not very bright. But I’m razor-sharp smart. I try not to do self-deprecating humor anymore. I don’t think it’s super appealing when you get older.

When I look back on old footage of how I talk, it’s almost like removing myself from myself. There was a time when I could not act in my normal voice, the voice I’m talking in now. I felt like when I came up with a character, a voice would come out. I remember the first day of shooting The Getaway, and I was kind of nervous. We did a scene, then director Roger Donaldson goes, “Okay, everybody clear out except Jennifer. Everyone take a 10-minute break.” And I was like, Oh, what is this? This is not good. He sat down and went, “Can’t you talk in your normal voice? You know, the voice that you were talking in before you started acting.” I was about to cry because at that point I could not act in my normal voice. And then Michael Madsen, I think, talked to Roger and said, ‘No, the voice is perfect.’ I did not get fired, but it really rattled me.

What makes a director good in a way you’d like to keep working with them?
Well, I loved working with Woody Allen. I know it’s not politically correct to say that. Woody Allen loved for me to improvise. He loved when things went wrong because he likes life to happen before your eyes. He always finished at seven o’clock at night. The crew goes, “Oh, because he always wants to go and watch the Knicks.” And he puts together the best actors. I think the greatest directors really don’t tell the actors what to do. They put together the actors, and they assume the actor knows how to act. Sometimes he’d say, “Let’s do it again.” And everyone will be like, “Oh, do you want it faster or louder or whatever?” He didn’t know. He just wanted to see if something different would happen.

I loved working with Peter Bogdanovich. He loves when people are talking at the same time and improvising. I worked with Bob Altman on a television series. I remember the crew was complaining because he mic’d everybody, even the extras. Usually in a party scene, the people who are talking in the scene are mic’d and everybody else is pretending like they’re talking, but you can kind of tell. He wanted people to really be talking. I love that way of working. I loved working with the Wachowskis, too, because they were so meticulous and planned out. Even Gina and Joey and I — well, maybe more Joey and I — we would say stuff during rehearsals, “Hey, could we not say this in this scene?” And they would be like — and they’d talk really slowly — “Well, you can not say it, but there’s a scene on page 76 that refers directly to that line, and it wouldn’t make any sense anymore.” That’s when we realized the script was so meticulously constructed it was like a house of cards.

You talked earlier about losing comedic roles to models, but do you remember any other parts in movies that you lost throughout the years that you really wanted?
I did really want Annelle in Steel Magnolias. I almost got that. When I went over to CAA, my agents had a list of projects that they said that they started for me, and one of them was Twister, and I think Jami Gertz got the part. Oh, there was one that I really wanted! It was The Joy Luck Club. I had gone to dinner with Oliver Stone’s right-hand man, who’s a wonderful Chinese woman, and I think she was producing The Joy Luck Club. I mentioned that I was half Chinese, and, a day or so later, The Joy Luck Club script came on my doorstep. I went in, and I auditioned. I got very close to it. My manager called me, and he said, “Wayne Wang wants to talk to you.” I start crying, and he goes, “Why are you crying?” Because I knew I didn’t get it. Because why does he want to talk to me? He wants to tell me I gave the best audition, but I didn’t get it but for some political reason. And Wayne Wang was like, “You were so wonderful, but because the studio wanted …’ blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I just remember I was sobbing, and he goes, “I love you, and I’m going to put you in another movie.” I knew he never would, and he didn’t.

Who would you want to work with now? We’ve seen a resurgence for Jennifer Coolidge, thanks to Mike White’s White Lotus, and Jean Smart with Hacks. Are these the kind of opportunities you would still want as an actor? 
Yes, absolutely. Coolidge, we did The Women together. She’s hysterical and I love that she’s getting all these accolades. So many of my fans, so many people have said that I should do The White Lotus. It’s a weird kind of thing. I read about somebody, like a documentary filmmaker, and he was at the Oscars, where he won an Oscar. And he went outside to have a smoke, then he couldn’t get back in. He was going around and around the building, and they wouldn’t let him in. That’s kind of what I feel like. Like I got nominated for an Oscar, and I stepped outside to have a smoke, and now I’m wandering around the building, looking for how I get back in.

I know that Russell Crowe once said, “Oh, there are lots of parts for older women. They just don’t want to play older women.” It’s like, Russell Crowe, get off your high horse. In a movie, there’ll be 37 parts for men and three parts for women. One of them is the little secretary; one of them is the hot blonde, the lead; and then the other one is another hot blonde whom he has a dalliance with. Once in a while there’s the head of the CIA, or the grandmother, or whatever, but there are five actresses in Hollywood that get those older-women parts. I would love to be Frances McDormand. I’d love to have her career. And she’s basically the same age as me. I would love to play Dame Judi Dench parts. Helen Mirren, I would love to play her parts.

When I used to go out for parts — back when I was auditioning — I would be like, I don’t even know why I’m coming in here. It would be for things that I didn’t want to do, but I wanted to show my agent that I was willing to work. I’d go audition for a grandma part on a TV show, and you look around and you see all the other actresses from the ’90s, all lined up on chairs. Hollywood is so disrespectful. I thought, I just don’t enjoy this. I don’t want to do any more auditions. People can offer me a part or don’t offer me a part, but I don’t have that many years left to live on this earth. I want to do things that are interesting to me. I feel like they say when people get old, it’s because they think that’s what they’re supposed to do. Once people retire, they sort of disappear really fast because they feel like they’re not useful anymore. I think one of the most important things is to have things that you feel are important. I don’t know if people would agree, but I feel like Chucky is important, and I also feel like Housewives is important.

So I know you’ve been filming The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. How is it going? 
One of the things that I remember my lawyer saying was you are not allowed to do any interviews regarding Housewives. But I think I can say something without giving away any plotlines or anything.

How did you decide to go from occasional guest of Sutton Stracke to official “friend of” supporting character on the show?
I’ve always been a Housewives superfan. Only the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, though. I remember I was like, “I live in Beverly Hills, and it’d be kind of fun to see Beverly Hills through the lens of really rich people.” I thought that I was going to see a lot of people shopping on Rodeo Drive, but a lot of the filming that they do is in the Valley, in places where it’s easier to get permits. So it’s not like you’re at the fanciest places in Beverly Hills, arguing. They’re usually arguing at some kind of non–Beverly Hills place because the really fancy, elite places don’t want Housewives screaming at each other in their dining room.

But I never thought I’d be on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. To me, it’s like working with Martin Scorsese. My boyfriend always says if he got $40 million, he wants to go into space and experience zero gravity. To me, being on Housewives is experiencing zero gravity. I was more excited to meet Kyle Richards and Erika Jane and the other ladies than I was when I met Elizabeth Taylor. They’ve been asking me if I want to be on the show, and I’ve always said “No. No.” This year, I sort of thought, I just want to do everything different. I’m trying to take on challenges.

I’ve been filming for about a month now, and I’d say the Housewives is the most challenging thing I’ve ever done. I read this book called Bachelor Nation, and the Bachelor editors said — I’m paraphrasing — “When we get all the footage, it’s like we have a big box of Legos. And we’re like, ‘What are we going to create with these Lego blocks?’” They can do anything. They can make you the girl next door. They can make you the villain. They can make you the cranky one. They can make you the patient one. It depends on what they want to show, what’s going to make the story. Even when some Housewives were looking really bad on the show, and the fans are throwing mud at them, I had empathy for them because I thought, What they’re doing is spinning a storyline out of thin air. You come in without a script. It’s just sort of like they just wade in there, and they go at it. In real life, if you’re at a restaurant and people at the table are screaming at each other, you’re mortified like, Oh my God. I can’t believe I’m with these uncouth people. But when I am sitting at a table with Housewives, I feel like I have a front-row seat at the Super Bowl.

I like all the Housewives. I appreciate what they do. I’m just going to say it’s really challenging. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever done, but I’m really happy I’m doing it, and I think it’s such an interesting kind of sharp left turn for my career.

Looking back, what is a sacrifice you’ve made in your life for your career?
I never had a baby. I was always looking around and Annette Bening was cast as Catwoman, and then she got pregnant and she couldn’t do it. But I once had a dream of a little girl. She’s like 3 years old, she’s twirling around, and she’s going, “Mommy, Mommy, I want to be born.” I thought, Oh, I wonder if that’s my little girl. And then I remember I had another dream where I was late for the Oscars and I went to this room and there were all these little babies crawling on the floor, tugging at me, like, “Slow down, come play with us.” I was swatting them down. I was like, “Out of my way. I’m late for the Oscars.”

My babies have been my movies. I’ve made a lot of movies that I made because the roof was leaking, or I had to fix the plumbing, or because I am a workaholic, just like I’m a gamble-aholic. And I made a lot of movies that did not become big hits, like The Cat’s Meow that I’m very proud of. But I feel like if you have four or five movies that you’re very proud of and that have entered the lexicon of popular culture, then, you’re doing well. Bullets Over Broadway, Bound, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Liar Liar, Let It Ride.

And I’m starring on a television series that’s really widely lauded. Most franchises would say Tiffany’s getting a little long in the tooth. “Let’s bring in some younger people.” They did bring in a young Tiffany. She was a wonderful actress, but it’s sort of like when they decided to do the reboot of Chucky. It was a really good movie. Even Don Mancini said, “You know, it’s a great movie.” We were all like, “Oh, we’re going to become extraneous.” But the fans were like, “Well, that’s not really Tiffany.” So there’s not going to be more younger Tiffanys.

I have no complaints.