It may be surprising that Molly Shannon is so shy. She plays such outgoing, boisterous characters, but when confronted with a swarm of journalists, she sort of retreats. With conversation centered around her new TV show, Kath and Kim (she’s Kath), Shannon opened up about her latest character to follow the tradition of Mary Katherine Gallagher and the Joyologist.
Crave Online: How far into Kath and Kim are you?
Crave Online: How far into Kath and Kim are you?
Molly Shannon: We’re on our sixth episode. I live in New York but I moved my kids and my husband, our family’s out here now. But it’s going well.
Crave Online: How have the stories developed?
Molly Shannon: Really well. We have a great exec producer, Michelle Nader. She’s such a great writer. She runs the show really well.
Crave Online: Have you and Selma Blair found a rhythm?
Molly Shannon: Yeah. It takes a while because we’d never worked together before. I’d only met her briefly at a show business event. It’s wild, you have to be immersed playing mother and daughter with somebody you’re just meeting. I’ve gotten to know her better and we’ve gotten into more of a rhythm. She’s such a great addition to the show but it’s funny because we are just really getting to know one another in real life so it’s a funny thing where you’re playing mother/daughter and this intimacy, I don’t even, I’m just getting to know her.
Crave Online: Where had you met before?
Molly Shannon: I actually met her at a premiere once in New York and she was so nice. I went, "You know, she’s really sweet." I met her at The Sweetest Thing. She was in that movie and I went to the premiere and I just happened to talk with her. Then I just met her through the show and now we’re a team.
Crave Online: How do you anticipate evolving and growing with Kath over potentially a long run versus short sketches?
Molly Shannon: Yeah, it is interesting because I’m used to switching around but in a way it’s fun because you can develop it and really live with it and develop it more and more as you do it. So I really like that. It’s fun playing a character. I find it freeing. It’s different than myself. Sometimes I’ll act close to myself, I’m more critical or I think, "Ooh, I don’t like my hair." Playing a character, you feel freed in a way because it’s so different than yourself. I prefer it I would say.
Crave Online: Were you on the lookout for a TV show?
Molly Shannon: They had sent me the script about a year before with another writer who developed it. It wasn’t so hot. I didn’t like it so I passed on it and then they ended up redeveloping it with Michelle Nader, this writer, and brought it back to me and I was like, "Oh, this is much better" because you’re really partnering with the writer. You really have to take a chance believing them. They’re helming the ship so I was like, "This is good." But it’s scary. You want to make the right decision. It’s such a crap shoot. You shoot for the best but I really like the writing and then Selma came aboard and they put the whole cast together.
Crave Online: Did you want a regular TV gig?
Molly Shannon: I think TV’s a great place for women if you can find your vehicle. I think it’s great and I love female driven comedy. I think there isn’t enough of it and I think in that way, I feel like there’s so much stuff for guys in the movies. I just get like where are the women? So I feel like at least we’re really trying and I hope that we can do a good job. I feel really proud of that.
Crave Online: How do you Americanize this Australian show?
Molly Shannon: Well, let’s see. I think the Australian women who created Kath and Kim, Jane Turner and Gina Riley, think of the equivalent as kind of Orange County. They’re like Midwesterners in Florida, kind of like French manicure.
Crave Online: Like The Real Housewives of O.C.?
Molly Shannon: They’re a little wealthier. I think these people don’t have as much money but that kind of thinking your classy but not so. Kind of tacky but they really idolize celebrities and they worship US Magazine and Vanity Fair and they love fantasizing about these great celebrities’ lives and they like to read about pop culture and they’re really into that.
Crave Online: Where did Kim get the idea for being a trophy wife? It doesn’t seem to come from Kath.
Molly Shannon: From magazines. I think she thinks of herself like, "I’m like an Angelina Jolie or Melania Trump." It’s from US Magazine. She’s a product of the magazine and how big they are in our culture. We both are. These are our bibles. We eat it up and devour it.
Crave Online: What does Kath do for a living?
Molly Shannon: She raised her daughter on her own. She struggled to make a buck. She’s like a jack of all trades. She does all different kinds of jobs. She has a beauty salon in her house but she also tries other businesses. Like she’ll do a little bit of this for a while, maybe try to be a life coach. She tries to do different businesses and thinks of herself as a businesswoman, whatever that may be. And she’s together.
Crave Online: Like Avon?
Molly Shannon: Yeah, she would do that. I don’t know exactly where it will go but that’s the general idea but she’s together. She bought her own house. She makes her payments, she owns a nice car, she put her daughter through school. She’s a together single woman.
Crave Online: Comedy sometimes comes from a dark place. Is there darkness underlying this?
Molly Shannon: Oh, well, let me see. The darkness would be like the kind of dysfunctional family relations everybody can relate to which is like I said, she’s trying to get her life on but the daughter’s coming back into the house and she’s like ugh. She’s really sucked back into that dynamic with her daughter as mothers and daughters know with that struggle. They fight but they love one another. Fighting is part of love so it’s that kind of relationship, so that’s the dark side is being sucked back into that vortex of Kim. But she is a positive, together woman who’s trying to move forward and not get back in because she feels like this is her time, Kath time to start her life and date. She’s like, "This is my time for me." That kind of thing.
Crave Online: Will there be very special moments where they learn something?
Molly Shannon: Yeah, yeah, there is. Not in a corny way. Yeah, it kind of wraps up I would say. There is heart in it but it’s not tied up so neatly. It’s still in a funny way I would say.
Crave Online: Will the fanatical Australian fans like it?
Molly Shannon: Oh God, that’s hard because personally, I’m a fan and I think it’s so well done so it’s always hard to. People feel they own that, they’re protective of it because it’s so good. So I understand how they feel. I felt that way with The Office. I was like, "I love the English Office. I love Ricky Gervais" so I was one of those people so I do understand the other side, but I do think that we also, there are very Australian things that are typical of Australia only that couldn’t necessarily translate so we have to do our own and people don’t know how excited these women are, Jane Turner and Gina Riley. They want this to do well. They’re so excited.
Crave Online: They’re involved?
Molly Shannon: They’re participating in it. They knew about the casting, they read the scripts. They’re so into it. They would love, then more people become aware of their show so I just kind of look at it as I look at oh wow, the dynamic of the relationship, the essence, that’s the same but then we have to create our own characters. I could never imitate her, and also it would be hard to do that. She’s so amazing. I could never touch that but I had to do my own version of it. I also heard that Steve Carell had never even watched the English Office because he just wanted to do his own fresh thing.
Crave Online: What about your wig?
Molly Shannon: Oh, I have a wig, fake hair, with color kind of cut Lisa Rinna style, blonde, adorable.
Crave Online: Will you be back on Pushing Daisies?
Molly Shannon: Oh, I love Bryan Fuller and the show’s so great but I committed to do it before the strike and I was going to do a bunch of episodes but then the strike happened and I was also committed to this so it didn’t work out unfortunately. But maybe I could go back. It would just depend on the schedule and what happens with this show.
Crave Online: Will they recast that role?
Molly Shannon: I don’t know, not yet. I think that set still exists. Bryan is amazing. No, it’s not recast yet so we’ll see.
