David Stonehouse Features

Zen of Jane Curtin

The comedian's goals are simple: to live in her beloved Connecticut, to work on projects she deeply cares about, and most importantly, to keep on having fun.

By David Stonehouse

SAINT JOHN -- The shriek is high pitched, unmistakable: a child's yell pierces the door of the makeshift interview room. Thump! Feet crash to the ground in the hallway, growing louder with each passing second.

The door behind Jane Curtin bursts open, a breathless child swinging in with a clatter and a train-wreck rush of indecipherable words.

Curtin, a Saturday Night Live original, two-time Emmy Award-winner and cast member from the sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun, doesn't flinch. She slips out of quiet conversation with the interviewer. "Hi!" she exclaims. "What's up? Are you hiding?"

The young girl makes a dash underneath the desk. "I'll go here," says the girl, Leah, obviously engrossed in an intense game of hide-and-seek on the set of Curtin's next film.

"Okay, it's our secret," Curtin says in a conspiratorial whisper in this tiny office in a community centre next to the port in Saint John. The centre is jammed with more than 100 extras brought in for a scene of Piggy Bank Blues, the film adaptation of Quebec playwright Michel Tremblay's iconic play Les Belles Soeurs.

Leah is one of the extras gone astray, and Curtin calmly plays along -- shifting in and out of the interview to play up to the precocious Leah before the girl skips out. It fits well with the quick-witted, easy-going, grounded personality for which this comedic star is known.

A couple of years have passed since 3rd Rock wrapped, and Curtin has kept her herself busy. She packed up in Los Angeles and moved back to Connecticut -- her refuge here on Earth.

She did a run of Our Town with Paul Newman at a country playhouse in Westport, Conn., as a "lark," followed by a two-month stint on Broadway in Noises Off, followed by a Broadway production of Our Town. Two weeks after that ended, she started work on Piggy Bank Blues.

She plays the lead character, Geraldine, a down-on-her luck grocery-store clerk who attracts instant infamy in her blue-collar town after winning a spot on a popular game show where she stands to win a $2-million jackpot. Geraldine's notoriety becomes a bother when townsfolk hit her up for cash and gifts presuming that she will strike it rich.

Playing her brash, protective sister Rose is Mary Walsh of This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Director John N. Smith (Random Passage, The Boys of St. Vincent) revels in the chemistry between the two.

"They are a riot, that's all I can say," Smith says. "They each recognize in each other a kind of life force and they are just delighting in each other. That sets a tone for everybody else in the film."

Rounding out the cast are Peter MacNeill, Sheila McCarthy, Patrick McKenna and Pascale Montpetit. On this day, the headlining cast is all crowded around a table set among the gaggle of extras shooting the wedding-reception scene.

As a local band decked out in yellow polyester tuxes belts out Roll out the Barrel, a smoke machine pumps out a choking haze and the actors strain their voices to make themselves heard.

Geraldine quickly becomes the centre of attention when her presence is announced by the groom and the room breaks out into loud cheers. A used-car salesman asks her to dance, then tries to hit her up for a quick sale. Rose berates the man once he is out of ear shot and disparages just about everyone in the room she feels is after her sister for cash. Even the innocent bride is a target: "Here's to the bride: I've seen brighter lights on major appliances."

Later, Walsh admits to some initial nervousness about working with Curtin, expecting a huge ego to go with the woman's star status. "I've had some really bad experiences working with American actors," Walsh says during a break. "But Jane is not like that at all, she's just like a human being, as opposed to an actor or a star ... Jane is just a very bright, very witty, very charming person."

Curtin rocketed to fame in 1975 as one of Saturday Night Live 's Not Ready for Prime Time Players, where she won accolades for her performances, including a news anchor on Weekend Update and mother of the family in the movie Coneheads. In the 1980s, she walked away with two Emmys for her role as Allie in the TV series Kate & Allie.

But mention Walsh to Curtin and she brightens and that trademark million-watt smile lights up her face.

"Oh, Mary is a force of nature. Mary is unbelievable. God, she is so bright and very funny and has an energy that is just incredible," she says, and goes on to laud the solid talent of the cast. "You get to watch these extremely talented people who enjoy what they do and you get to enjoy it with them. There is no hierarchy, no one has to tiptoe. It is a very collaborative, convivial atmosphere.

"It's quite wonderful. I have to admit, I look forward to coming to work. Because it's different. It's like acting camp, you know," the 55-year-old says, and laughs. "Very relaxed. Just go in there and do what you do and have a ball."

That kind of work is what Curtin craves. She is not after work for the sake of it. She is not an actor who aggressively pursues roles. Instead, she is content to revel in her leisure time at home in Connecticut and take jobs that come to her, and which are appealing.

She almost didn't do 3rd Rock because it required her to be in Los Angeles, which is too far away from home.

But she agreed to it because her friend Bonnie Turner, the series's producer, begged her to sign on as Dr. Mary Albright and told her she would only have to do seven shows.

Well, seven shows turned into six years and so much fun, Curtin says, that she just couldn't pack it in just as it began. And it was a hoot for audiences as well, who stayed loyal even as the show was shifted from time slot to time slot. It connected with people, Curtin says, because "it was so damn funny. It was silly. It was stupid but smart at the same time.

"It was different. If you notice, there is a sort of sameness to a lot of the series that are on the air now, which I think has a lot to do with the networks owning them," she says. "3rd Rock wasn't owned by the network [but by independent studio Carsey-Werner], so we had the ability to deal with the mandate that we had, which was to do this particular show this particular way and not turn it into Friends. Networks don't
like things that are different, because it scares them."

If there were any doubts about her carefree attitude about work, her bashing of the big networks without blinking an eye certainly takes care of those. She is not anxious to take on another series: "If one came along that was shot in New York that was fun, I'd certainly give it a shot. But I wouldn't do one just for the sake of doing another series."

She doesn't believe in making plans, so she has no idea what she will take on in the future or how long she will take it on for. She is seeking no legacy, only that people remember her as a "good sport" who did a good job and played fair.

"The history books don't really interest me. I don't want a Biography special. I just want to keep on keepin' on, you know?"