Jennifer Coolidge on Filming The White Lotus & Waitressing with Sandra Bullock in the 80s

you know our next guest from four american pies two legally blondes and a gaggle of christopher guest movies she is absolutely great as the weird and wealthy tawny mcquad in the white lotus on hbo max please welcome jennifer coolidge [Applause] you look fantastic how are you wow what an audience wow well listen i don't know if you're aware of this but i i ever since we started watching the white lotus which we consumed immediately i was like we've got to get jennifer coolidge on the show you're so fantastic in that show on an on a level beyond what we even might come to expect from even our our very very top actors and actresses i mean really i thought it was such a funny and odd performance in all the best possible ways well i i mean i mean it i really do you uh you know sandra bullock was here a few months ago yes and she was talking about working with you at a it was a bar in new york yeah it was a restaurant and a restaurant yeah it was called canistel's yeah right do you remember that time well she remembered a little bit of i remember it's so much better than sandra oh you do yeah oh good because well i mean i think you know just because maybe uh i was there longer than her and um i just remember those days because uh you know uh well let's just say you know sandra really had her act together and she was the hostess but but you know i was you know partying a lot you know in those years so it was like sort of 50 50 whether i made the shift or not um but yeah but i couldn't get fired for some reason there was this very forgiving uh major d moreno and all of us wanted to be actresses you know we all had you know all these little white coats and um and yeah and i had this i always my coat was always kind of stained and um so um one day moreno said you know you have to come to work with a white coat jennifer you can't have a stained coat whatever and so i said okay so i just started and you know like the laundry mat was like a mile from my my apartment and everything so i i just started buying white jackets every shift and um and and i had i thought i had close to a thousand jackets what's the hallway yes but i so i did make it to a lot of shifts you see but it went for years it went for years and you know most hospitals don't have that many whitetails i know and i was like you know i actually had friends come over and i'm like what could i do with these jackets do you think there's anyone that would like these jackets everyone was like no i used retinol but um and i tried to get um i tried to get uh fourth of july off because that was a big night at the restaurant and i um i ended up i it was one of those nights you really couldn't you know pull a no-show so um i went to roosevelt hospital and found an ambulance driver and he strapped a patch and a white thing around my head and um and i called the restaurant and um i got moreno he answered like a mourinho it's jennifer coolidge and you're not going to believe this but i was at a party last night and someone put a cigarette out in my eye [Laughter] and uh and he said moreno said well jennifer that's too bad you'll have to come to work anyway so i'll see you soon and so then i was like but i had the whole contraption on you know and i did i went and showed up and i knew this would happen i knew once he saw me with the whole thing and yeah and and once he saw me um yeah he said you you can't work here tonight really and then uh i went out and uh yeah how long did you keep the bandage on because the cigarette burn is serious i know i had that's the thing i had there were other waitresses that lived in hell's kitchen so i had to like i had to keep that on way too long and then what happens is you know if you ever have an eye patch you know this like one eye like works harder than the other so then it sort of messed up my vision for a short while another good reason to call in that right right this um now i'm understanding because mike white who's really a brilliant writer he came up with this show and really took advantage of the situation the covet situation you guys were in and this hotel didn't have any customers really at the time right and he wrote this part specifically for you and i was you know i was thinking like why did he write this but i feel like i understand it a little bit more after hearing that story did did you guys know each other very well um well we did we played a girlfriend and boyfriend in a movie uh this uh jared hess you know napoleon dynamite in this movie uh we were a boyfriend and girlfriend in um uh gentlemen broncos it was great and so i knew him from that you know and we had been friends over the years and stuff but i feel like you know africa going to africa i you know he he's his uh his boyfriend couldn't make the trip and so it was a very romantic trip oh you went to africa with him okay into africa with mike and um and so uh it was very you know intimate you know the tents are you know they're beautiful but you're you're you know you're right next to each other in them and so he got to see a very unedited version of it i see on vacation and yeah and i you know thank god it was like white lotus i mean he was looking for a crazy lady or something to play you know i mean i would have gone differently and someone else would have gotten this part but i think he was sort of amused by how uh strange i was on the commitment you um i think i did there's a scene where you guys were on a boat right and um you know the one where you have your mom's ashes yeah and you give this great crazy speech yeah was that uh at all improvised or was that written as i saw there was a little improvisation just just because um i i think it was to overcome the embarrassment of being surrounded by my cast mates everyone you couldn't really tell me we were filming but everyone was like six inches away on that boat it was a mike said we was gonna guess this big boat it was this little boat we're all really really close to each other and of course i have terrible seasickness i warned everybody i said i had to get very seasick this isn't going to be good and mike was like no it's going to be fine we're going to put this little thing around your wrist oh yeah those don't work no i don't know yeah no so no i had a big bucket and and i and i was so close to everyone doing it like getting sick in this bucket like i got small i got sick on the little boat on the way to the bigger boat i mean i get sick you know i get sick on a swing well that eulogy monologue was easily one of the best um uh performances by an actor who was vomiting but you know i think you know and i do want to say there was an advantage you know my mother had died uh you know earlier than she was supposed to that's lucky for you so that was yeah you know i mean there were parallels of you know the character that's sort of it that's looking at the bright side isn't it jennifer but you know what i mean like it was there was a lot of things that you know my mike sort of collaborated my weirdness was yeah and so it's sort of and you know i i get uh too hot and overheated and that really worked for the being in hawaii and everything so it all worked in my advantage like even my way of breathing uh sort of worked for the character because it couldn't possibly have been better there's he was absolutely right picking you for that role i mean it was absolutely perfect and i know you're doing a super bowl commercial for uber eats right yeah did they know you were a vomiter before they signed you on this yes they did no you know what i'm so funny about that you say that because um you i i don't know how i got that because i was like did they watch white lotus and go like she's our girl [Laughter] um we're gonna show actually some uh uh outtakes from your commercial in a moment here and the white lotus is on hbo max jennifer coolidge everybody thank you jennifer we'll be back [Applause] can i eat this there's a yummy in my tummy [Music] if you like that video then put a ring on it click the subscribe button below oh

Channel: Jimmy Kimmel Live

Views: 1,158,046

Keywords: jimmy, jimmy kimmel, jimmy kimmel live, late night, talk show, funny, comedic, comedy, clip, comedian, mean tweets, Live Audience, Hollywood, interview, Jennifer Coolidge, American Pie, Legally Blond, The White Lotus, HBO Max, Sandra Bullock, Canastel, Old Job, Cocktail Waitress, Mike White, Tanya, Super Bowl, Uber Eats, White Jackets, Getting Out Of Work, Sea Sick, Emerson

Id: -eaCklx4kJo

Length: 9min 0sec (540 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 08 2022