The woman huffing in impotent rage in a frozen Marshall’s checkout line with an armful of bras. The jubilant loudmouth barely able to articulate the awesomeness of a Monster! Truck! Rally! The lady blithely terrorizing passengers with her wheelie as she pushes up to the boarding gate. Nobody wants to be these people. Except Lauren Lapkus. She loves them. She wants to inhabit them. If it means being odd or ugly, it’s also license to say and do anything she wants without repercussion. Oh, to be free of self-awareness and filters, if only for a few exhilarating moments. Oh, to be Lapkus, one of the best improvisers and sketch comics in the business. Just don’t look too hard at the fine print about exposing yourself on stage without a script, props or any idea what’s going to happen. Despite the thousands of people jumping into improv these days, she says – and proves – it’s not for amateurs.
The woman huffing in impotent rage in a frozen Marshall’s checkout line with an armful of bras. The jubilant loudmouth barely able to articulate the awesomeness of a Monster! Truck! Rally! The lady blithely terrorizing passengers with her wheelie as she pushes up to the boarding gate. Nobody wants to be these people. Except Lauren Lapkus. She loves them. She wants to inhabit them. If it means being odd or ugly, it’s also license to say and do anything she wants without repercussion. Oh, to be free of self-awareness and filters, if only for a few exhilarating moments. Oh, to be Lapkus, one of the best improvisers and sketch comics in the business. Just don’t look too hard at the fine print about exposing yourself on stage without a script, props or any idea what’s going to happen. Despite the thousands of people jumping into improv these days, she says – and proves – it’s not for amateurs.
The woman huffing in impotent rage in a frozen Marshall’s checkout line with an armful of bras. The jubilant loudmouth barely able to articulate the awesomeness of a Monster! Truck! Rally! The lady blithely terrorizing passengers with her wheelie as she pushes up to the boarding gate. Nobody wants to be these people. Except Lauren Lapkus. She loves them. She wants to inhabit them. If it means being odd or ugly, it’s also license to say and do anything she wants without repercussion. Oh, to be free of self-awareness and filters, if only for a few exhilarating moments. Oh, to be Lapkus, one of the best improvisers and sketch comics in the business. Just don’t look too hard at the fine print about exposing yourself on stage without a script, props or any idea what’s going to happen. Despite the thousands of people jumping into improv these days, she says – and proves – it’s not for amateurs.
We all have one or two turning points in life, but Michaela Watkins’ life seems like an endless string of them. There was the classical music camp that unleashed her inner comic. The spontaneous road trip that became five years of regional theater. There was the backstage decision that doing Shakespeare actually kinda sucked. And then the double epiphany: she should be on a TV show in Los Angeles and join The Groundlings. Getting cast on Saturday Night Live and then inexplicably dropped after one season was not a turning point she’d anticipated. It was never even in the plan. So, she found herself at yet another: Wallow, or move on? Well, the suspense isn’t killing anyone who’s been watching TV for the last 10 years, but watching one of the most gifted supporting actresses around finally show what she can do with a lead role is one of the best endings we can think of.
We all have one or two turning points in life, but Michaela Watkins’ life seems like an endless string of them. There was the classical music camp that unleashed her inner comic. The spontaneous road trip that became five years of regional theater. There was the backstage decision that doing Shakespeare actually kinda sucked. And then the double epiphany: she should be on a TV show in Los Angeles and join The Groundlings. Getting cast on Saturday Night Live and then inexplicably dropped after one season was not a turning point she’d anticipated. It was never even in the plan. So, she found herself at yet another: Wallow, or move on? Well, the suspense isn’t killing anyone who’s been watching TV for the last 10 years, but watching one of the most gifted supporting actresses around finally show what she can do with a lead role is one of the best endings we can think of.
We all have one or two turning points in life, but Michaela Watkins’ life seems like an endless string of them. There was the classical music camp that unleashed her inner comic. The spontaneous road trip that became five years of regional theater. There was the backstage decision that doing Shakespeare actually kinda sucked. And then the double epiphany: she should be on a TV show in Los Angeles and join The Groundlings. Getting cast on Saturday Night Live and then inexplicably dropped after one season was not a turning point she’d anticipated. It was never even in the plan. So, she found herself at yet another: Wallow, or move on? Well, the suspense isn’t killing anyone who’s been watching TV for the last 10 years, but watching one of the most gifted supporting actresses around finally show what she can do with a lead role is one of the best endings we can think of.
What makes a kid cry on her birthday? The occasional cake-induced stomachache or bouncy-house bruise, sure. For Zoe Kazan, it was a sense of what she was leaving farther behind, and she cried every year. A direct and unselfconscious view of our imagination and its creative expression gets harder and harder to find in the rearview mirror unless you cultivate and protect it. Kazan tries hard to do just that through work that she loves, in a business she often doesn’t. Acting is a joyful challenge (just watch Olive Kitteridge and The Big Sick); writing, especially stage plays, is a painful one. Both expose her voice and ideas – her soul – for all of us to judge. If you believe the only true art is personal, you must decide if you’ll risk your ego to make it. If the answer’s yes, you’re in the right place. It’s a thrilling, terrifying place, and Kazan rather likes the neighborhood.
What makes a kid cry on her birthday? The occasional cake-induced stomachache or bouncy-house bruise, sure. For Zoe Kazan, it was a sense of what she was leaving farther behind, and she cried every year. A direct and unselfconscious view of our imagination and its creative expression gets harder and harder to find in the rearview mirror unless you cultivate and protect it. Kazan tries hard to do just that through work that she loves, in a business she often doesn’t. Acting is a joyful challenge (just watch Olive Kitteridge and The Big Sick); writing, especially stage plays, is a painful one. Both expose her voice and ideas – her soul – for all of us to judge. If you believe the only true art is personal, you must decide if you’ll risk your ego to make it. If the answer’s yes, you’re in the right place. It’s a thrilling, terrifying place, and Kazan rather likes the neighborhood.
