Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Jane Lynch

Episode Date: April 17, 2022

You may know Jane Lynch from the Christopher Guest mockumentaries like Best in Show, or as the unforgettable Sue Sylvester on the hit show Glee, or more recently in an Emmy-winning performance on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. In this week’s “Sunday Sitdown,” Willie Geist gets together with the actress to talk about her latest role making people smile in the highly-anticipated Broadway revival of Funny Girl.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks as always for clicking and listening along. Boy, do I have a treat for you today. My conversation with the hilarious, talented, and charming Jane Lynch. You know her, you love her from Christopher Guest, mockumentaries like Best in Show. Of course, as Sue Sylvester on the crazy phenomenon of a series called Glee. More recently, she's won yet another Emmy in her illustrious career. for her role on the marvelous Mrs. Maisel. She's hosted game shows like Hollywood Game Night,

won a couple of Emmys even for doing that. She's really done it all. She comes from just outside Chicago. She went to school, downstate in Illinois, and then came back to Chicago and performed in the second city troupe, the famed Second City Troop, doing sketch comedy with people like Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert. Now, she is one of the stars of the Broadway revival of Funny Girl. Funny girl. Of course, it was on Broadway many, many years ago, and then in 1968 was made into the film, which famously starred Barbara Streisand. Now back on Broadway, highly anticipated, already really well reviewed. It's in previews and about to go full and wide. Tickets available now, if you're interested in coming in New York. So Jane and I got together

at the August Wilson Theater, just to give you a visual. We're not inside the theater itself for the interview. We're out in the lobby. So when you walk in, you buy your, what do you buy, your jujie fruits and your twislers and your maybe a little glass of wine in one of those sippy cups they give you on Broadway. We're right there, maybe get your t-shirt after the show, having a great conversation about this show and also about her career and her long road to getting all the things that she's had in her life and just honestly never stopping the work and kind of taking it as it comes.

So please sit back, relax, and enjoy a good time with Jane Lynn. on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. I'm so happy to see you, Jane. I'm so happy to see you, Willie. I'm so happy to be standing in this lobby where I was, I think, 72 hours ago, getting ready to go see this incredible, incredible show, and to see a full house full of people. Before we even talk about Funny Girl and what it means,

just the experience of being back in a theater. I know what it felt like from my seat and Roel. What was it like up on the stage? Well, you know, the whole experience changes with the audience. You're rehearsing and you're doing your thing, and you get a titter here and there. Ha, ha, ha. Maybe you don't get one at all.

And you get into on stage and it's packed. And it's people who are starving for musical theater. And, you know, who to thunk it. They just, the electricity is palpable. And it changes everything. And it takes it from this kind of nice level where you are at rehearsal as you're working stuff out to this glorious happening that, because you have that added element, which completes the experience, which is the live audience.

Yeah, I genuinely felt that because I think I told you that we hadn't been to a show since the pandemic. And to walk in here and feel that sense of community and people from all over the country and the world in one place, smiling and laughing together. Yeah. That must be an amazing feeling for you as a performer. It is. And the whole thing, community that we lost in the last couple of years, and we realize what social beings we are. You know, we need each other. And, you know, there's, we're all, they've been at home at our computers, and in my case, Twitter,

which I've broken the Twitter habit, by the way. Good for you. Yeah, it's behind me. Good. Totally off? Almost completely off. Yeah, every once in a while, I check Tom Nichols. You know Tom Nichols?

Of course I do. We have him on the show a lot. Yeah. It's very smart. And I feel caught up. And I'm cynical about the world and yet uplifted at the same time. So thank you, Tom Nichols. But he's really the only person I listen to there because he's so.

smart. Also, his musical references are, I line up with all of them. Yes. I think, what do you say, Barry Manilow over Bruce Springsteen? Oh, no, no. Billy Joel over Bruce Springsteen, and I agree. You agree with that? Well, here's what,

kind of with a caveat. Okay. I think that Billy Joel is brilliant, and I know every word of his albums, especially 52nd Street, or what was it, 57th Street. I remember what street. Seven? 50 seconds street.

But anyway, I know, I love his stuff. But Bruce Springsteen is a poet. And a genius. And, like, Thunder Road beats the hell out of any rock ballad ever written. It's like five songs in one song. So I totally get that, but I'm still a Billy Jo. The only reason I express my dismay was I'm from New Jersey. So by law, Bruce wins all arguments.

Exactly. Well, it's standard issue in high school, isn't it? They'll lock you up. Thunder Road was our anthem, you know. Was it? Driving down the parkway of the shore. Mary, is it Mary's dress waves or Mary's dress? Mary's dress. Sways.

Screen door slam. There was a whole controversy, and he didn't know. Is it dress waves or sways? And I think it's sways. That's what he says in the album. But it might be waves like on the lyric sheet. He goes back and forth from show to show. Just fickle that way.

What were we even talking about? Oh, funny girl. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yes. Yeah, I'm doing a play. A musical play. A wonderful musical play. It has so many people talking.

Just even in previews, people are excited. This place is sold out. And you kind of have a lifelong connection to this show. This is a little bit of a full circle moment for you. It is, and I may shed a tear. My mother and I bonded on this. It's really the only thing that we bonded on. And we saw eye to eye on.

And anytime I would do well in chair business, like I would get a job on, you know, a guest on a sitcom. She would leave a message on my answering machine saying, who taught her everything she knows? And I'm singing that song. Oh, my gosh. So when they came to you with this idea, did you say, of course? Of course.

It was actually my agent. Bless him. Joe, Vance, of Realm Talent. He did this behind my back because he knew how much it would mean to me. So he wanted to investigate first. And he contacted Michael Mayer. and the producers and said, would you be open to Jane in this part? And I guess they said yes, obviously.

So right when it was at the point of an offer, that's when he let me know. And I was just, I remember I was in Canada, I was doing a Netflix kids movie, and I was just jumping up and down going, because it kind of came out of nowhere, even though it had been in the works. You played Miss Hannigan nine-ish years ago, I think. Yeah, 2013. Yeah, something like that. For about two months.

Yeah. So this is sort of a decade-long wait for you to come back. Yeah. Do you love musical theater? I do. I do. I adore it. I haven't done much of it. I've done more like plays.

I've probably done more Shakespeare than I've done musical theater. But it's my favorite thing. Especially, and I'm going to sound like an old lady, you know, I don't know about these musicals today, but boy, did they make them back in the late 50s, early 60s? You know, candor and Ebb and even up. to Sondheim. I love Sondheim, too. Rogers and Hammerstein, and of course, this is Julie Stein, and this was like the apex of musical theater,

to me anyway, is this show and this music and this book, I mean, the script is beautiful. Sometimes your scripts are a little flimsy, but the music is beautiful. Well, this has it all, full package. Gypsy's another one that has it all. That's a great one. Yeah. It's amazing how many well-known actors like you I talk to who do movies and TV, and they go, actually, theater is my favorite thing.

Because it's a live audience and you get another shot out at the next night. And there's the community of being around Broadway and going out and seeing other shows and actors. Do you love being back in New York in this community? And there's a lot of people that I, when I was doing Glee, like Jesse Tyler Ferguson was doing Modern Family and we were both Fox shows. So they were produced by Fox. So we would see each other at events. And he's doing Take Me Out. And so it's beautiful to see him around here.

And Darren Chris is doing American Buffalo. And yeah, it's kind of nice. And it's a great community. It's so accepting and, you know, joyful. And there's something about being, you know, I always say it's an actor's life for me. Because there's something about being a part of this big community and it's very can-do. And, you know, we're a little pampered in Hollywood. We sit in their trailers and we wait for someone to knock on the door.

And then we go do our thing. And someone is, like, basically holding our hand the whole way. So when I got back here to rehearsals, and I started rehearsals, the common refrain was, where's Jane? Where's Jane? Because I was kind of not in the mind of show. And hopefully I am now. I mean, I would forget to check in.

Everybody has to check in. You know, you have to say, I'm here. And, you know, I just kind of show up. And they go, where's Jane? Where's Jane? And there's no big celebrity dressing room. I've been up in the, you know, these dress rooms. You've won eight Oscars and you're in the closet.

Exactly. Mine is like a little closet. So there was a little bit of a shift that had to happen. Yeah. And it's the character is so rich and I imagine so much fun to play. What do you love about Rosie? I love that she's a fierce, fierce advocate for her daughter. She loves her with such a passion. I mean, and also she's very sensible and very wise and she doesn't get her. let her get away with stuff. And I think that last scene is probably one of the most gratifying scenes of ever played in film or on stage where she tells, you know, this daughter who she just adores and would, you know, take a bullet for, you made a big mistake. You, you made the mistake that I made, you know, in love, you made the exact, and I warned you

all along and she lays it out and at the end she says, sorry, but it had to be said. That's a tough scene, but what a gratifying scene to play. But she also gives her daughter room to go try. The thing she wants to try, which struck me is beautiful. Yeah, you just go, you show up, you're going to love them. Are they going to love you? She says, are they going to love me, mom? And I say, what are you kidding?

You're going to slay them. She has no doubt that her daughter has something special. And if we only had somebody like that in our life, everybody had that advocate who says to you, I know you're feeling a little down now, but you've got something that's really special, and the world has to catch up to you. What is it like to come to the top of the stairs, and because people love you from so many other projects,

to have to hold for applause when you appear on stage? It's a lovely thing, but I always said to Michael, please don't make too big of a deal out of this, because what if they don't? And so we have this whole thing where I say my line, and presumably there's applause, Then I have to walk down these stairs, these spiral stairs. And if, you know, we're hearing crickets, it's going to be embarrassing.

But it happens every night. They applaud and it's lovely. And, you know, it's, you just, you stay in the world of the show. And but it's really a joy to hear. And how happy everybody is to be in, you know, the theater. And, you know, the minute the overture starts, people are going crazy. I think there's no risk of crickets for the run of this show, because you didn't even get your line out before they started going crazy.

the other day when we were here. You mentioned Beanie, who plays Fannie. My goodness, people who don't know the Broadway and theater side of her and have seen her in films, I think are going to be absolutely stunned by her performance. She's the real deal. She is, I like to say, of people who, like Beanie, who are so talented and such a professional, she is of show. She is the most confident human being I think I've ever met.

And with a, she's magnanimous and kind and funny and self-deprecating, but not that self-deprecation that's like, well, I'm just an idiot where you go, no, you're not. It's not at all that kind of a thing. She's very kind and, you know, there's a lot on her shoulders if she took a moment to think about it. And she probably does. It has a moment here or there, but it certainly doesn't show in how she's conducted herself. in these rehearsals. And now with the audience, how she's just, she's like on fire.

She's like this, what is it? I'll flicker than flare up. Is that from her song, from I'm the greatest star? That's exactly what happens. Every time she hits the stage, she flickers and flares up. And it's such a delight to hear the crowd

and, you know, to peek out and look at her just so firmly ensconced in the moment. Ah, she's amazing. It's not easy stepping into Barbara Streisand. shoes, I have to imagine. But the reality is it's been a while since that movie came out. And their Beanie Felchine shoes now. Yes. They're hers. And there are a couple

of generations who are seeing this for the first time. So they don't even have the Barbara impression in their minds. So to bring this back to Broadway, as you guys talked through the book and the music and all that, were there changes, were there updates, were the things that you wanted to bring to a 2002 version of it that weren't there

in the 60s? Well, you know, a good story is a good story, whether it's set in ancient Greece or, you know, New York in the turn of the century up until about the 1920s, which is the span of this show. So, no, there's no updating. But Harvey Firesteen wrote the script. And he revised the script. And he trimmed it down. He got rid of a lot of the fat and, you know, put his spin on some things, but it works. And it actually makes the piece come alive even more. So, you know, people say, how do you do this show for a 2022 audience? And, you know, you don't have to. Like, there's a lot of, you are woman, I am man, like, oh, is that sexist? You know, we don't even deal with that. We just, it's the story of a man and a woman

who fall in love and they have their struggles, their power struggles. One wants to be free, really loves his freedom. And the other one needs to have him close and right there and needs to be in control of everything. So, you know, she doesn't get abandoned. And, of course, it ends up, well, you don't want to, you know, spoiler alert. The relationship is fraught toward the end there. And, you know, that's a, that's a timeless story. You mentioned Harvey, how great is it to have him tell us to turn off our cell phones at the beginning. If you only come for the opening announcement before the show starts, hello, my cookies in the Harvey Firestein voice, telling you to turn off your cell phones and put on your masks, and I'm sure people, I don't think they're

one person in that audience that has their phone on when he's done with them. No, we snapped to attention very quickly. It was silence immediately. So this is already a hit. It's going to continue to roll on as one. How does Broadway, as you look at it, figure into your future plans? Because you are, I mean, I'm looking at your, I couldn't even begin to speak to you today about everything you have going on right now, whether it's the weakest link or Maisel and all the things. you do. How do you think theater, Broadway, fit into your plan? You know, I've never

set out to do anything. I've never made goals. Did you did you say, oh, I want to be on television? You just kind of were thrown out there on the Tucker show, and I remember. Yes, you do. Yeah. And you just react. So that's kind of how I've lived my life, and it makes me happiest, and I have

done a variety of things. So I will continue to operate in that way, because it seems to work. You know, I'm happy, I'm inspired. You know, when this came along, I would never have imagined this for myself to be playing Rosie Bryson, Funny Girl on Broadway.

I mean, it's a preposterous fantasy. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from Jane Lynch right after the break. Welcome back now more of my conversation with Jane Lynch. As long as we're speaking about your projects here in New York City, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Yes. I imagine that had to be a blast to step into that role.

Yeah, so what a well-conceived character. Thank you, Amy and Dan, for that. The dichotomy of Sophie Lennon is pretty amazing. She's this, you know, broad from Queens. She's like this, this foul-mouthed, housewife from Queens who's full of joy, you know, just full of love and dirty jokes and having a great life. And then Sophie Lennon over here is just basically miserable. and not happy with anything and putting on airs and nothing is good enough.

Nobody does enough for her. No one waits on her enough. And she's just very, you know, he scratched the surface and she's just miserable. She's got everything in the world that anybody could ask for. She's got fame. She's got money. She's got a man-servant who will never leave her. And even when she stops paying it at one point last season, she stops paying him, but he still shows up.

it's really fun to kind of put on her shoes and then take them off at the end of the day. I know it's well before your era in comedy, but are any of those themes ring true to you about being a woman in comedy? Yes. Well, not for me personally so much. I'm coming up at a great time to be a woman in comedy. Like Phyllis Diller, who I don't think she had that dark side, but she was that, she was outrageous and she was actually quite pretty but she was like I'm so ugly nobody wants to it was her joke right you know that was her gig and a lot of times like Totey field I'm so fat and Joan Rivers I'm so ugly so there had to be a kind of a hook of how unattractive they were to men so it was about in real their comedy was about how they are viewed in relation to men where and then midge mazel comes along and she's

now I'm not going to do any of that because the first thing the Sophie asks her what's your gimmick I just see funny things, and I tell people about them. And it's so pisses Sophie off. Because that's not the way the game's played. That's the way I've played this game. And now you're telling me that I didn't have to, and she can't deal with that reality. It would be like pulling the rug out from underneath her.

So that's why she despises Mitch. Such a good character. And also, you know, when I'm on the Upper West Side and I see all those old cars and I see the extras, that's to be fun to, like, step into a period piece. It is. And, you know, one of the things, I love wardrobe. And our wardrobe designer, Dona, whose last name, I keep forgetting because it's hard to pronounce it.

Sorry, Donovan. We'll add it in post. Yeah. Thank you. From the, like, the background in a restaurant, like the workmen and their workmen outfits from the late 50s, early 60s, and the young girls going to lunch, you know, with a date or with each other and just how they act with each other and what they're wearing. and everything is just stupendous in the cars and the music that they put in. It's just such a wonderful era,

and it makes me yearn for a time when, you know, we didn't wear cargo shorts. Yes. You know, and flip-flops to the theater. I don't know. Can you even wear flip-flot? I bet you can, though. People wear them everywhere.

Yeah, yeah. Out to restaurants at night. Yeah. I think we're both kind of old-fashioned. Yeah, and look at you, and I love your pocket square, and I love you to the Windsor, Not sure. Oh, yeah. Also on an airplane. I'm not going to, I don't have to get super dressed up. People who wear their bathing suit on a plane and take their shoes off. What are we doing here?

That's Tom Nichols, big thing is people taking their shoes. Back to Tom Nichols. Is people taking their shoes off on planes. No. And then putting your foot up on the person's seat. You look over and there's somebody's foot. No. Yeah, it's just crazy. But people come in their pajamas onto planes with carrying their pillow. Literally. slippers, jammies, and the neck pillow. It's an amazing sight. And a big, like, slurpy.

Just in case they don't get enough to drink on the plane, or they'll bring in, like, Chinese food. Oh, yes. Or you catch that on the subway sometimes. Right, exactly. So we'll open a little general soes next to you on the subway. Really? Are we doing this?

So I'm curious to know going back to your childhood in Illinois how this comedy thing started for you. So South Suburals. I think, right? Yeah. I was born in Evanston, so I was just north. We were on the flip side of each other. Yeah, you were in the, you were up in the rarefied air.

We were down in drugs. I don't know. Evanston's on the edge of rarefied air. I don't know. It's not up to like the Wilmet. No, you're right. You're right. It's not.

Sort of that in between. In between, yeah. Well, we were definitely south side. We were right outside of the city. In fact, we were one of the first people to move in. I was born in 1960, and I think that the little town that I grew up was established in like 1958. Oh, wow.

So my parents moved from the south side of Chicago. They're both Irish Catholic. My mother's half Swedish. And the Swedish always won out. She was very... And they moved, you know, South. Manifest Destiny was to go south. And, you know, bought a house.

And I grew up in the prairies, basically. There were, you know, houses popping up, but it was basically prairie at that time. I remember we had... I don't remember this about my mother telling me we had the party lines when I was growing up. So how does that... develop into a comedic person.

I think, you know, you're born with a nature, and mine was always to find the funny. And my dad had kind of like, even though he was Irish Catholic, cat skills kind of humor. You know, he liked the corny jokes. And my mother was funny in spite of herself. She was kind of, her mouth was always a gape.

Oh, kind of a person, and she made us laugh. all the time. So when does the possibility of being a performer or an actor or a comedian? Watching television. Is that what it is? Yeah, watching television going, I want to do that. Really? Watching Carol Burnett.

Watching the Brady Bunch. I always wanted to be a part of like a group of people playing make-believe. Like, it's basically playing house for a living. And I decided that if that's something I can do, I want to do it. Just play pretend. I have to imagine that felt a long way away from your little town. in the prairie somehow to go to Hollywood. It was like going to a different planet. No?

That's the thing. It didn't feel so far away. In fact, I was 12 years old and I wrote a letter to Universal Studios and they wrote me back. Was this the Brady Bunch letter? Yeah. I said I'd like to be on the Brady Bunch. It was so nice. The assistant to the casting person wrote back and said, we don't have a way to develop young talent, but please stay in school, do plays.

And, oh, I just held that letter up. And I remember my mom sat me down and said, you know, she regretted this. Not everybody gets what they want in life. You know, as I was doing well, she would say, I'm so sorry. I said that to you. But it seemed entirely possible to me. There were times I'd get frustrated. Like, if I didn't get cast in the school play, I was like, are you kidding?

Right. You didn't cast me? And then I'd feel, you know, it'd be dejected. and, you know, I wanted to be invited to the theater party, but I kind of always knew I would be. Yeah, I had a strong sense of it. That's so cool, that you had that confidence to do it. Yeah.

And then you come up, you go to Southern Illinois. Illinois State. Illinois State, excuse me, Redbirds. I was thinking of the Salukes. Go Redbirds. Southern Illinois was a party school. It's a different thing. Yeah.

You were more of an academic program. Not really at all. At that time, Illinois State was easy school to get into it. I was put on the wait list at Southern Illinois. Oh, is that right? My parents went to the U of I, But because my dad lived in Champaign, not only was he in state, he was in town. But your dad is smart.

He probably belonged at you. He is, didn't have the grades. He is smart. He didn't have the grades, though, but because he lived in Champagne. Literally lived up the street. Oh, there you go. Sure, come on it. Yeah.

But, yes, it is a great school. So you come up, you spend some time in Second City. Yes. And the days I think of, like, Karel and Colbert. Yeah, yeah, we were all in the same era. Yeah. What was that experience like for you? Did that feel like the beginning of something?

Yes. did. You know, I had gone to graduate school. I got an MFA at Cornell, and I thought I was going to be, you know, I did at Shakespeare Company when I got to Chicago and I thought I'd be in, you know, repertory theater. I'd always play the comic role, I thought. But then I got into Second City and you're doing 10 different characters in the space of an hour. And you're throwing wigs on and throwing wigs off and putting glasses on. And it was a blast. I loved it. That opened up, you know, just a whole different sense of possibility of what I can do. I love sketch. What felt like the break to you? Because I think for a lot of people, it's best in show when they say, who's that? Yeah, I think it's best. You've obviously done a bunch of work before then. Right.

But I think best in show was the crack that opened things up in terms of people started to know who I was. And I was being offered work. I still auditioned, but I was being offered work. But before that, in 1998, I had a bunch of characters that I had done around. L.A. with a bunch of my Chicago friends. We were doing sketch comedy, and I had a bunch of monologues and a bunch of silly songs, and I put them all together into a one-person show, which was the thing in 1998. I'm doing a one-person show. And I did a one-person show with three other people. But it was all the stuff that I had written over the last, you know, decade. And that

blew the doors open of my confidence, for sure, that I actually took something by myself. I didn't like get invited to be in a show. I created it myself. I rented the theater. I made the programs. I remember I was picking the programs up. This was back in the day when you had them printed it like kinkos or something. And I was waiting.

I'm even having a hard time breathing as I'm thinking about this. I'm waiting for them to give me the programs. And all of a sudden, there's this smell and it's sour and it's toxic. And it was me. I was having panic attack. And it was the worst. smell. I've smelled in my life. I was like, you've got to get your act together, kid.

And something, some peace came over me, some calm, took a shower. Wow, right. Put on a little deodoring and ended the show. And the rest is history. The rest, Willie Geh's, it's history. Those Christopher guest movies were amazing. And is it true

that they were the product of a Frosted Flakes commercial you did with him? For me, indeed. Yeah. I was doing a 1999 was a great year for me in commercials. I don't know if you caught any of my work for like nexium. Fantastic. And some kind of an insect spray. And I did a commercial. I auditioned for a commercial for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, and I got a callback, and it was a Christopher Guest commercial. They didn't tell us in the

beginning, because at that point, Chris was directing a ton of commercials. Anything on television that you laughed at was something Chris made. And so I did the callback. I met him, and I got the part. And we improvised. It was very much like waiting for Guffman, which was the movie I had seen that I was like, oh, my God, this is, I want to do this, I want to do this. And so that was a great experience. And he said to me at lunch, he said, you know, I do movies. And I said, yeah, I know. And he said, so maybe we'll work together someday. And I was, oh, my God. And so I ran into him at a restaurant like six months later, and he offered me a part of guest best in show. It's one of those that if it's on,

we always stop. It's like, it's such a classic. And it holds. And it holds. up, doesn't it? Oh, boy, does it? Yeah. It really does. So does Guffman. Yeah, Guffman. I mean, Spinal Tap was early in my life. Obviously, that's the icon. But Guffman, to me, opened like this new era of those kind of films. I think it says a lot about a person if they love those films. So congratulations.

Love, thank you. Yes. I passed the test. Obviously, that opened the door for you, and then Glee took things to a completely different level. Indeed. And it changed TV, and I think changed culture in some ways. What did you love about Sue Sylvester? Oh, she was so bad. She just said every, you know, she had no filter. Well, and also she said things to shock. You know, she would come up with the darkest, most violent things to say. And because she's not Hannibal Lecter, you laugh. It's laughable. And there's this writer he's no longer, I was going to say

this young man, he's like in his 40s now. But Ian Brennan, he was a young man then. He's from Chicago, Northside. And he conceived of Sue, and he wrote probably 95% of her lines. And he's like the nicest guy in the world with a dark side like you wouldn't believe that he expresses only through Sue Sylvester. And the same for me, you know, because I kind of go through life like this. And, but there's a, you know, you scratch the surface and there's some darkness. I don't buy that. No, it's there. It's there. It's integrated. Did you guys feel that in real time that something really special was happening. I did for sure.

Yeah, I did for sure. I don't know that the kids did so much because you're so young and so much is being thrown at you. Especially in the beginning, it was so much work. But I had a sense. I was like, oh my God, this is going to take off. And in the same way, people line up to see this show,

Funny Girl, it feels like the same phenomenon. It's like people love this stuff. They love music. They love when a character raises their voice and song in order to express which can only be expressed through song. It's like they have to. The music has to come out of them. And that happened with glee and that happens with really well-done musical theater, which I think we're doing here. Did you get to keep any of the track suits?

I did. You did? Three of them. And I think I have one left. But I hoard myself out at one point for a big paycheck. and hosted something in that suit. I always said to myself, I'll never do that. And I did.

Do you ever like sneak it on to go out to the grocery store and just mess with people? Always, always. You got to. Right. Stick around for more of my conversation with Jane Lynch right after a quick break. Welcome back now to the rest of my conversation with Jane Lynch. You've done so much. And I mentioned the weakest link.

Hollywood Game Night was so much. fun. And I just love the fact that you sort of take these things as they come, which raises the question, what else is out there, given everything that you've done? Is there some other formative? There are other things you want to do? I'm sure there is. And I have inklings of things. Like, I'd love to direct theater. That's one of the things that I've gotten in touch with here. I haven't had any ambition in a long time because I've been kind of pulled by universe or whatever. And so I find myself someplace, but I'm having some. But I'm having some. I'm thinking a lot about what makes scenes better,

how to get to a deeper place with something. And I'm like, I wonder if that's going to, you know, if that's like a prelude to me directing some theater. Interesting. Okay, maybe we made a little news here. Yeah. In the director's chair. Yeah, I don't see myself directing a movie.

I don't understand cameras. I don't understand lenses. I guess you don't, you have a good DP. Yeah. You don't need that. Like, I directed some commercials. for the Illinois Office of Tourism. That was so much fun.

I had a great DP. I had some great executives. I had a great advertising person. And basically, they taught me how to do that. But I think the format of theater is more my thing. The immediacy of it. Sure. You know, you describe as sort of being pulled along

and these things just come your way. There's a reason they come your way because you delight people. And you make people happy and you're good and everything you're in. Oh, my God. I don't want to create the impression that, oh, this is all just magically happened. You've created it, even if you're too humble to say it here.

Thank you. Thank you. I so appreciate that. And you were just married recently. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah, Jennifer and I've been together forever. Yeah. And we were shopping for insurance for her, and I said, let's just get married. So that's how romantic it was.

It was a practical matter. It was, but it turned out to be, it was a really beautiful thing. We live in Santa Barbara, and we went to their courtyard, our courthouse, which is a beautiful, old Spanish building. It's a mission building. And her son, Harry, became a minister with the Universal Life Church. I've done it too. I don't know if you've ever done that.

You can perform marriages if you do. I have friends who've done it. Yes. So he married us, and it was just the three of us out in the courtyard and at the courthouse. And it was lovely. And so, yeah, it's nice. It's a lovely thing. And is she excited to come out and see the show?

She must be. Yeah, yeah, we just booked her ticket. And, yeah, she's coming out for the opening. at April 24th. Great. Yeah. Well, congratulations. As someone who's been lucky enough to see it,

it is a wonderful show. You're great. Beanie's great. The dancing and the core, everybody. Crazy, huh? It's such a spectacle. And I think you're right. This is the time.

People want this now. So congratulations. Great to see you. Good to see you, too. My thanks again to Jane for a great conversation. You can catch her right now on Broadway in Funny Girl, which officially opens on April 24th. And my thanks to all of you,

as always for listening. If you want to hear more of my conversations with our guests every week, be sure to click Follow so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.