Welcome to the Jenaissance

We have officially entered the Jenaissance—that is, the renaissance of one Jennifer Coolidge. Since 2021, the comedy legend, known for her roles as Legally Blonde’s Paulette and Stifler’s mom in American Pie, has laid claim to our television screens in not one, but two breakout roles. She won an Emmy in September for her work as the mourning heiress Tanya McQuoid on Mike White’s The White Lotus, and in Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s The Watcher, released on Netflix earlier this month, she’s a scene-stealer as Karen Calhoun, a real estate diva with mysterious motives.

Fans have certainly taken notice of her buzzy work recently. “The Jennifer Coolidge renaissance should be taught as an important part of American history,” wrote one Twitter user. “How does Jennifer Coolidge not have an EGOT,” pondered another, sharing a clip of Coolidge as an extremely angry Karen. And she’s not done just yet: On October 30, Coolidge will reprise her role as the troubled (yet lovable) Tanya in Season 2 of The White Lotus, co-starring Aubrey Plaza and Will Sharpe.

Ahead of the HBO series’s much-anticipated premiere, Vogue chatted with Coolidge about her two big projects, finding humor through darkness, filming on location in Sicily, and what Hollywood roles she hopes to play next.

Vogue: Hi, Jennifer. How is your day going?

Jennifer Coolidge: It’s pretty good—it’s a sunny day in beautiful Los Angeles!

So, I’ve got to tell you: I’ve been binge-watching The Watcher all week. I was curious what drew you to your character, Karen, who is a real estate agent. That’s such a specific role.

A lot of my friends down in New Orleans are real estate agents. I don’t know if I really stole anything from them, but one thing I noticed about them is they’re so upbeat. When you run into them, you’re like, “I don’t feel good like that.” They become this over-energized cheerleader for your life. And of course, they’re selling something very big and expensive, so they have to be good at it. There’s something kind of scary about when they tell you certain things. You’re like, I hope that’s true. Then you find out the driveway doesn’t come with the house. I do believe that there are real estate agents who are very sincere, and love finding people that magical house. My favorite thing is open houses: I’ll stop at any open house. I love to look at a layout, or someone’s yard. It’s limiting for me, though, because I like the old stuff, and there isn’t a lot of old stuff in L.A.

I love the opening scene of The Watcher where Karen doesn’t even pay attention to her open guest houses—she’s barely looking up from her iPhone.

I mean, I’ve had that happen to me. Some people take a job and they know just enough to get by, out of pure laziness. Like, “Oh my God, I have to read these forms? Maybe I’ll sleep with a guy and he’ll read them for me.” Karen could do a lot of different jobs. Karen wants someone else to do all the work, but to get all the glory for it. She doesn’t want to be a real estate agent—she wants to live in a fancy house.

What I love about her too is how she presents herself, clad in expensive Chanel suits and bags. Where do you think Karen shops?

I think Karen is really into good fakes. When it’s not designer, I don’t think Karen would ever admit it. Karen likes to look like a fancy lady. I really sympathize with people who want a fancy life. When you turn on your TV, it looks like everyone’s having a fancy life. It’s hard to just go, “I want way less than that.” You see the Kardashians driving around in these beautiful SUVs, and they have beautiful homes and beautiful clothes on, and it’s just hard to go, “I would just rather sit in my mustard-stained onesie and eat beans out of a can.”

I assume you learned about the art of selling a house while researching and getting into character. Could you give us the real estate pitch of your own home?

I like my house in New Orleans. It’s a very cool house; you can really feel how old it is. It’s dark, and you feel like you’re in another world. There’s a lot of people that can’t handle that. If you had a one-night stand in my house, you could say, “Would you like to meet the rest of my dead family?” My house is kind of scary. That would be the anti-sell. It’s a big house and it was built in the 1860s, and it hasn’t really been touched inside. But I can handle being alone in an echo-y place.

The Watcher is a spooky thriller, and I’m curious if you’re a big horror movie fan?

Yes. But I can handle The Watcher more than I could handle Dahmer [Netflix’s Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story]. Dahmer was very scary. Thrillers are far more exciting if they’re creepy people. I’ve never been the kid that was afraid of a monster—they’ve never made me feel anything. It’s creepy people that I think can be so disturbing. In a perfect world, we're all supposed to be nice, thoughtful, and compassionate, and when you find out someone isn’t that, I think that’s really disturbing. That’s one of the scariest things in the world: When someone isn’t what they say they are. Now, will I sit in my house alone and watch these things? No way. Will I watch it on a laptop on a camping trip? No way. Maybe if I’m in the middle of an intersection, I could pull out my laptop and watch it.

One more spooky question before I ask you about The White Lotus. I know you’re a big Halloween fan, so what are your plans this year?

I’m not going to be able to do a big party this year, like I usually do. I haven’t had a big bash since COVID. But I want to do something celebratory, either in L.A. or New Orleans. It’s my most cherished holiday; it’s always been that way since I was a kid. I get excited about Halloween in March. My friends and neighbors have the most elaborate, amazing costumes that they come up with every year—everyone’s so creative and talented.

Have you ever run into someone dressed up as one of your iconic movie roles?

You know how I find out? People send me photos. I get a lot of gay men at Halloween dressed up as Paulette [from Legally Blonde], or Sophie Kaczynski from 2 Broke Girls. Last year, some people sent me photos dressed up as Tanya [from White Lotus]. I love Halloween because I don’t like normal life very much. If I could just live in New Orleans and have costumes and never have to go to an ordinary thing again, that would be a dream. I want wigs and I want to be overly made-up. That’s probably why a lot of people move to New Orleans: By the time you’ve done Mardi Gras and Halloween and all the different celebrations, you can spend most of your year dressing up.

The White Lotus’s second season is premiering this weekend. In Season 1, Tanya’s journey was very much about overcoming grief. What can we expect from her journey this time?

Tanya’s been married for a tiny bit now, and she’s finding that it’s not as easy as she thought it was going to be. She projected that Greg and being in love would fix everything–that she would feel a part of the world, and not be so lonely anymore. They go off to Sicily, and they’re supposed to have this romantic holiday. It takes Tanya on a very wild ride. Sometimes, it doesn’t take very long for you to realize your perception of someone doesn’t really match up with reality. Mike White is the most impressive genius that I know. He tells a story so well that when you’re acting, you feel like you’re there.

What I love about The White Lotus is how the setting almost acts as a secondary character.

That’s how I feel about my house in New Orleans: I feel like it’s its own character. It has its own personality and it’s operating without me. Mike finds these settings that are like a very heavy blanket, and you become completely enshrouded by it. I don’t feel like I have much to do with it: I’m just acting in it. It’s almost like the environment eats you. You become very vulnerable in the places that Mike puts you. There’s so much work that goes into choosing the settings. I bet you there’s no director that looks at more locations than Mike.

What was your main takeaway of Sicily, having shot the second season there?

The beauty of Sicily is undeniable. You look out at these giant rock formations in the water that have these Japanese cherry blossom trees on them, and it doesn’t look real. There’s something very surreal about it. Sicily is definitely a dramatic place—at least the places that we went. You’re high up on the top of a mountain with a church, and the giant bell is ringing, and then a storm happens—and all of a sudden you find yourself surrounded by stray cats. Then there’s a giant thunderclap, and the waves are crashing and hitting the rocks. It’s an incredibly old place with incredible history to it. That’s really where Mike and I come together; we have similar tastes. We love old, old buildings and beautiful architecture and beautiful people. We’ll never forget some of the Italian people that we met at the hotels or restaurants [in Sicily]—they were salt-of-the-earth people that made such an impression on us. It was very sad to leave.

The White Lotus is very much an ensemble show. What was different about this cast’s dynamic versus the one in Season 1?

This season, I had done a lot of jobs in a row this year, so by the time I got to Sicily, I was a little bit tired out. I purposely asked for a room on the other side of the hotel—the creepier part. It was an old monastery that was converted into this beautiful Four Seasons hotel, but it was an ancient building. I was trying to catch up on sleep and focus, so looking back, I wish I had more energy, because most of the [cast] stayed on the other side. There was a physical trek of having to go see the rest of the actors for all the social stuff. For [the first season] of The White Lotus, I didn’t have a choice: Fred [Hechinger] and John [Gries] were right across the hall from me. It was COVID, and there we were all locked up in that hotel in Hawaii. But we did have some big cast dinners [this season], and those were very fun. Hawaii had the waves and the water, and we all ended up in the sea every day after work. That was unbelievably special, to be frolicking in the waves after a long day of shooting. I’d love to take a job in another foreign land. The friends that I made on The White Lotus, I will always have them. Sometimes you leave a movie and you’re like, “I didn’t get one!”

You shot The Watcher and The White Lotus almost back-to-back. Did you find that Karen and Tanya had any similarities? Was it easy to separate them?

I didn’t have a problem because I felt like they were two different people. The only thing I felt they had in common was they both don’t have one drop of self-awareness. Tanya maybe has a few seconds of self-reflection here and there, but Karen has none. Karen lives for the moment.

Looking ahead, the trailer for your next film, Shotgun Wedding, came out earlier this month, and you went viral for the five-second clip of you shooting a gun. Did that surprise you?

I don’t have a theory on that, really! Is it because I was wearing a hat? My bad fashion choice?

I think it’s just because you’re naturally funny. But I’m wondering: Has it been refreshing for people to finally see your dimensions as an actor with these new projects?

Yeah! It has. Mike gave me [Tanya] two years ago—someone who’s complicated and fucked up—and it was such a gift, because sometimes I get things that are just very simple. I’m not going to condemn any job that I was given, but Mike was that person in the world that you hope exists. That person that gives you a challenge that makes a difference in your life, instead of having to walk into a room and beep the horn of the clown car. It was a lucky moment in my life, and it’s changed things drastically. To then get a call from Ryan Murphy [for The Watcher], I’m incredibly grateful for all that’s happening. [Ryan] actually filmed a scene from American Horror Story: Coven in my yard in New Orleans, and I remember thinking, “Maybe I can go out in the yard and bump into Ryan, and he could give me a part in this.” I was ready to donate my house and my services. For it to happen 10 years later, it feels just as good.

What do you think you’ll look for in scripts or roles moving forward?

I would like to continue to play troubled people. I feel like I can relate. I wouldn’t want to play anyone who's perfect; I think I'm more attracted to sadder people. A lot of comedy people are sad clowns. I’m not saying I go around and go, “Wow, I’m sad.” I love my life, and I love my friends and my family. I’ve been so lucky in this lifetime. But the world has a lot of sadness in it, and it’s hard to deny a lot of the time. The sad clown is more aware of a part of your brain that you can’t deny. Me coming up with comedy, and trying to be kooky, is just to deflect the other stuff so you can go on with your day!