Click here to read the full article.
Lauren Weedman could never really let loose on stage.
“I remember I was doing other people’s plays when I was younger, and I never got to fully get my yayas out,” she tells Variety. “I always felt like I had more energy
or more stuff going on in me that I had to kind of control, and I couldn’t bring to characters, because I was supposed to be a certain thing to fit into the story.”
Don’t get her wrong. The actress and writer is happy to serve a story. As a playwright herself, she knows what it’s like to wrangle all the elements of the creative process. But purely from an acting standpoint, the stage didn’t offer her that boundless outlet she expected. A few decades later, she looks back on an on-screen career largely defined by recognizable and always entertaining character work, and she can point to a handful of roles where she was able to channel that energy.
But few have been as freeing as her recurring turn as unpredictable Las Vegas mayor Jo Pezzimenti, who often crosses paths with comedy legend Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) on HBO Max’s “Hacks.”
She credits series creators Lucia Aniello, Jen Statsky and Paul W. Downs with encouraging improvisation from day one and for giving her the breathing room to fuel her best work.
“We’ve had a pretty magical relationship because what I really dream of is people letting me play and be excited about it,” she says. “They’re so good about giving me a chance to [try something] … They just gave me this room around me and it’s what I want. It’s so what I crave.”
Appearing at least once in each of the comedy’s five seasons, Weedman did what she’s always done — made her mark, left people in stitches and then moved on. Despite returning, she never dreamed up what might await the zany, often copiously inebriated mayor. “When you are a guest star, you don’t hope,” she says. “Really, I was just hoping I’d be included.”
For the final season, she appears in more episodes than any previous season, including the series finale. More Mayor Jo, on top of her fan-favorite appearances across the series’ run, earned Weedman her first Emmy nomination. On the morning of the nominations, she was inundated with so many messages from fans claiming this was long overdue and retroactive for all the previous roles they felt she was overlooked for, specifically HBO’s dramedy series “Looking.”
“I don’t think that’s true, but it’s so sweet that people say that,” she says of the chorus of support. “The day I found out, they were [people] whose names I recognized because they’ve followed me forever, and they were like, ‘You did it! We knew you would do it!’ I’ve never experienced that feeling that there are people really supporting me like that.”
“Looking,” which still boasts a mighty fanbase within the queer community, allowed Weedman to blur the line between comedy and drama, letting some of her more self-deprecating humor expose deeper layers of her character, Doris, than just drawing a well-deserved laugh. Weedman always wants more of that, and she found it on “Hacks.” During a scene in Season 4, when a scandal-ridden Mayor Jo appears on Deborah’s talk show, the emotion of her character’s precarious predicament overcame Weedman and she leaned into it — with the full-throated support of Smart.
“I remember Jean was like, ‘She’s crying. Don’t cut her off. Let her go. She’s feeling something,’” Weedman says. “I was like, ‘Isn’t that part of it? Aren’t we all supposed to do that?’ But it’s not always a given in comedy environments. It’s definitely why I loved working with HBO back in the day. This was the one place you were allowed to do both.”
But in its final season, “Hacks” also became deeply personal for Weedman, who was diagnosed with Bell’s palsy in 2024, which causes facial paralysis on her right side, among other effects. With a better handle on how it impacts her life, she no longer minces words about the diagnosis and how tough it was, on “Hacks” specifically, to work through the early stages of it.
“When I first had Bell’s palsy, working with that on that show, that changed things,” she says. “That shifted a bit for me. Like all the shows that I worked on when I was sick, I’ve never experienced being that vulnerable in a working environment.”
She worried, initially, that she wouldn’t work at all. When she was diagnosed, she immediately informed the “Hacks” creative team about what was happening, as well as Quinta Brunson, the creator of “Abbott Elementary,” on which Weedman has appeared as a recurring character for years.
“I just imagined everybody hanging up the phone and going, ‘I can’t fire her, but you go on and fire her,’” she says with a laugh.
That didn’t happen. Both shows not only assured her it wouldn’t affect her recurring status, but both incorporated the Bell’s palsy into Weedman’s respective characters.
Still, the diagnosis exposed something unexpected to Weedman about herself. She admits that she has always taken roles that interested her, even if she feels like her Hollywood-prescribed brand as a character actor included some less-than-flattering traits.
“If there was ever a character [description] that says she’s been beaten with a brick and she owns a trucking company and her nickname is Gorilla, they’d be like, ‘Lauren, that’s you,’” she says.
But she wanted to work, she wanted to find the outlet for her energy, so she took the roles that had any substance she could play with and internalized the physical appearance box in which she had been placed. After her diagnosis, though, she found liberation in embracing the things Hollywood had previously defined her by.
“I’m a hyperactive person who just wants to keep playing and playing, and then I’ll do whatever,” she says. “But it felt really freeing to go, ‘Now I look like shit. This is not on purpose. I cannot control it, and I don’t feel good, and this is really tough.’ Now I get to really act. Now, I’m not going to hold on to anything. That’s pretty great.”
All of it, especially the “Hacks” experience, has reinforced why Weedman has stuck with a business that has never been easy. “‘Looking’ felt meaningful, and it connected me to people that I care about and allowed me to be part of stories that I care about,” she says. “I was really needing that kind of community, and I can’t believe ‘Hacks’ turned into that, too, where I was like, “Oh, my God, I’m back home in this environment.’”
Even beyond “Hacks,” Weedman’s recent body of work will be well represented at the Emmys this year. Four series she appeared in this year garnered nominations: “Hacks,” “Abbott Elementary,” “Nobody Wants This” and “Wonder Man.” It’s not the first time she’s been close to recognition, but finally being welcomed as a nominee herself has her violating her own rule about wishing and hoping.
“I’ve touched some glory, as they say, with the mayor,” she says. “I would love to be able to continue to work with creators who are really into the art form, who just want to create and let me play. Who believe in me.”
