“It thinks it’s an incredible time to be fun”, “Abbott Elementary” star Lisa Ann Walter said at Thewrap’s “Keeping It Fresh: Careers That Feed Evolving” panel as part of the inauguration Women of Comedy Emmy Showcase.
“And it doesn’t matter the age,” she continued. “I entered this city to start in my own TV shows, and if they had gone and I had been a big star, I would have died in a drunken car wreck somewhere. So to have had all this time in between to do a number of different jobs and raise my children and get into a show as a woman in my age.
Was united by other Emmy Challenger Iliza Shlesinger (“Iliza Shlesinger: Another Animal”), Sasheer Zamata (“Agatha all the time”), Julianne Nicholson (“Hacks”) and Bridget Everett (“Someone somewhere”), was the Wednesday evening panel moderated by Whitney Cummings and held on the Whitney Cumings Everyone shared that it was especially sweet to have success for them at their ages.
The youngest in the panel was the 39-year-old actress, stand-up and “Saturday night live” veterinarian Sasheer Zamata-but Walter, to his own recognition, was the oldest of gang: “The oldest Hottie,” she said.
Julianne Nicholson, who won an Emmy for her supportive dramatic role in “Mare of Easttown” and has been praised for her comedy trip in “Hacks”, echoed Walter. “I’ve been (acted) for 30 years, and I’m so happy that I didn’t do it in the 20th century,” she said, cracking up her colleagues. “I couldn’t be happier to get the best roles in my life now, and not when I was 20-something.”
Cummings added that for her to have many years of experience to pull on is a plus. “It has taken me a long time to understand that in order for art to imitate life you have to have a life.”
“Of course, we would have all wanted it before, but (it is fantastic) to be in comedy when there is something goes,” emphasized SHESSinger. Like Walter, she praised the current Egalitarian comedy climate. “Because of internet anification of that, it’s a meritocracy. There are so many kingmakers out there. It’s not just” The Tonight Show. “It’s not just a video.
Everett, the star, the executive producer and the author of “someone somewhere”, offered advice she had come to embrace in her own career and said it is important to “set up an environment where everyone feels that they can fail, so then you will succeed.”
She continued: “If you surround yourself with people who want you to win, you will win. I know it sounds really stupid, but I have worked with people trying to erode my trust. And I got rid of these people. And as soon as I got rid of these people, then my life, my career, everything changed.”
The five panelists also agreed to have other women behind the scenes made a world of difference in their respective projects.
“There is something (special) when you share a woman behind the camera,” Everett said. “I really wanted a female DP because it just feels like your sister right there. For me, for this experience, it was really important.”
Zamata, who played magician Jennifer Kale on “Agatha all the time”, added that starring on “Woman-forward” Marvel series is “So Cool.”
“Every episode was directed by a woman. There are so many women in the role and written by women. It feels so good, and it’s queer, and I play a queer character, and it’s so amazing and rare,” she said. “We are in a really good time where it can enjoy it, and there is an audience that is hungry for that content.”
Nicholson, who likes several others on the panel, is a mother, laughs when she noted: “You can’t help but keep it real when you are in family life. Like the day after” Sto by Easttown “won at Emmys, I was from our junk.
Thewrap’s Women of Comedy: An Emmy Season Showcase is presented in collaboration with Comedy Gives Back and Sponsored by ABC, Apple TV+, Disney+, FX, Max, NBC, Prime Video, Universal Television Group, Warner Bros. TV and 21seeds, Our Spirit’s partner.
