Allison Janney on her 'extraordinary' year: 'This is a test to my stamina'
— -- It’s hard to imagine anyone rejecting actress Allison Janney for any role. But the seven-time Emmy winner reveals that as a young actress, it was tough for her to catch a break.
“I think I just didn’t fit in. I was too tall and not right for an ingénue role,” Janney said in a recent appearance on ABC News’ “Popcorn With Peter Travers.” “I was too young to play a lot of the character roles that I would be playing. I think I just had to marinate a little before people saw a use for me. My Broadway debut was when I was 38. So things didn’t happen to me for a while.”
Watch the full interview with Allison Janney on ABC News’ “Popcorn With Peter Travers” in the video above.
Now, Janney’s schedule is plenty busy. She has her hit TV series, “Mom,” which was just renewed for a fifth season. She’s also starring in the Tony-nominated Broadway show, “Six Degrees of Separation.”
“It’s been an extraordinary year this year and I’ve not had much of a rest. This is a test to my stamina,” Janney, 57, told Peter Travers.
On Broadway, Janney is starring with John Benjamin Hickey in the revival of John Guare’s “Six Degrees of Separation.” It’s the story of a couple swindled into taking in a young man who claims to know their children. The show marks Janney’s first return to Broadway since a 2009 role in the Broadway musical “9 to 5.”
“I never even knew that could be on my bucket list of things to do, because I never thought I’d be offered a Broadway musical, because I’m not a singer,” Janney said of her first Broadway stint. “But Joe Mantello [the director] was like, ‘I don’t want a singer. I want you.’”
“And that was right on the tails of 'West Wing' and I wanted to do something completely different,” she added. “And I was like, ‘Well, a Broadway musical could not be more different than 'West Wing.’”
Be sure to watch the full interview with Peter Travers to see Janney talk about other roles in her career and her most recognizable role of all time.
Download the all new "Popcorn With Peter Travers" podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music and Stitcher.
