When Jackie Hoffman auditioned for the role of Deputy Principal McGee in the Grease: The Rise of the Pink LadiesSays a result“You were supposed to do a modern pop song, and I don’t know which one.”
So instead, she said, “I sang ‘The Star Spangled Banner. ‘”
She landed the role, and it also speaks to the rebellious force she has become as a character actress working on some of today’s most exciting projects, with high-profile roles in films and TV shows including Only murders in the buildingAnd Glass Onion: Takes the mystery out of the cutleryAnd The wonderful Mrs. Maisel. (You might also remember her from her role as Billy Eichner’s brother-in-law Rucchel from Hulu’s difficult charactersor as an arsonist 30 rock episode “The Funcooker.”)
While Hoffman’s presence has become impossible in film and television in recent years, her career began in the 1990s with “a lot of commercial work”, before she began to focus more on the stage, including several years with The Second City of Chicago. and roles in Broadway productions HairsprayAnd XanaduAnd Addams family. Then, she says, “As I became more visible in theatre, I think TV and movie jobs started creeping in a little bit. So now they’re creeping in more, which I’m very happy about.”
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All this time, she hasn’t stopped auditioning, even for the smallest roles — “all the awful shit I had to audition for,” as she puts it, such as her role as “The Lady on the Balcony” in 2014. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). I had to scream, is this for real? Are you people shooting a movie? I actually had to test that out. “
From her hotel room in Los Angeles, one morning The rise of the pink ladiesHoffman says she first heard about the pink carpet in Hollywood fat spin-off series while she was working on an Off-Broadway play firecakes. “We’re backstage, and I was between two amazing comedians—Ann Harada, who works full time, and Julie Halston, who works full time. I’m sitting between the two of them and they’re like, ‘Do you get this? fat he heard? Do you see how much they want us to do? There’s a song and a dance, and you have to dress that way — it’s like, what do they ask of us? And I said, “Oh, no, I haven’t looked yet,” and I looked at it like, “Oh, geez, here we go.”
The role of Mrs. McGee originated in the first fat the film featuring Eve Arden as the principal of Rydell High; witty The rise of the pink ladies A prequel, the show begins with the character as the Deputy Principal, infuriated by the fact that the actual Principal leaves her to do all the actual work. “It’s the unsung hero when he’s completely helpless,” she says, “but he gets all the glory because he’s the man.” “You know it still happens.”
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