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Allison Janney was the first guest on CNN’s new interview series “Coming Up,” hosted by former Variety chief correspondent Elizabeth Wagmeister, and the Emmy winner revealed the dispiriting advice she heard from a Hollywood
agent when she was first starting out in the industry.
“I remember when I was very young trying to find an agent and I had a meeting with one — she said, ‘What can you play? Aliens and lesbians,'” Janney revealed. “That’s what she said to me because I’m so tall. I’ve played lesbians. I haven’t played an alien yet. So maybe I’ll play an alien! Yeah, why not.”
“People think because I’m so tall and imposing that must be the way I feel inside, and it never has been,” Janney continued later in the interview about her six-foot height. “I’ve always been very shy and not totally comfortable speaking as myself. I think that’s why I love acting so much. I don’t have to be myself. I get to jump into Grace [in ‘The Diplomat’] or whoever I’m playing. But just as me now, I feel just not as confident as my characters are.”
Janney added, “At this point in my career, I should be confident, but I don’t know. I don’t know why it never happened that way.”
Over an acting career that has spanned 37 years and counting, Janney has won seven Primetime Emmy Awards (four for “The West Wing,” two for “Mom” and one for guest starring on “Masters of Sex”) and an Oscar for her supporting performance in “I, Tonya,” among accolades from the BAFTAs, Critics’ Choice Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards and more. She most recently appeared on the hit Netflix thriller series “The Diplomat.”
During her CNN interview, Janney said she is “living proof” that women in Hollywood can persevere as they get older. She noted: “My career has only gotten better as I’ve gotten older. And I’m like, thank God. I mean, I’m still — I know there’s still ageism out there and, and other things that we still have not completely gotten rid of, as far as equality with women and pay. But the roles are far more interesting for women nowadays.”
Janney’s full episode of “Coming Up” is now streaming on CNN.com.
