Jennifer Coolidge Told A Big Lie To Land Her Seinfeld Role
Jennifer Coolidge revealed she lied about shows she was in to get a part on Seinfeld.
The years 1999 and 2001 were big years for comedic actress Jennifer Coolidge, and those were the years that the actress landed her first two most iconic roles—Stifler’s mom in American Pie and Paulette in Legally Blonde. However, almost a decade before becoming the world’s best-known manicurist, Jennifer Coolidge was known for something else: being a “Jerry Girl” on Seinfeld—a role she had to fill her resume with lies to get, as The White Lotus star told GQ in a recent interview. According to Coolidge, “I’d gone to a school called the American Academy of Dramatic Arts up in Pasadena, and I’d just named all these shows and all these different theaters at the school as if they played there.”
With more than 120 acting credits to her name, Jennifer Coolidge has appeared on many television shows, including her most recent escapades on The White Lotus to as far back as her very first acting gig on Seinfeld. In 1993, Coolidge was 32 years old and doing her best to make a career in acting so she could leave the waitressing world. Luckily, the actress landed what would be a career-turning opportunity for her, largely because of a bunch of lies she told on her resume.
Jennifer Coolidge described the day she got the Seinfeld audition as a strange day because not only did she land that tryout, but she also had an audition for an all-women sketch show on ABC called SheTV. The actress explained that this was odd because prior to that day, she hadn’t had any professional acting jobs, which was why she’d filled her resume with fictional roles. The A Cinderella Story actress said that she’d gone to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Pasadena, and when it came time to fill out her resume, she’d made up several lies with the intent of erasing the lies once she started booking actual acting jobs.
Luckily, it didn’t take long for Jennifer Coolidge to begin replacing the fictional roles on her resume with real ones after she played Jody, the massage therapist, on Seinfeld. Jody was one of 73 different girlfriends Jerry Seinfeld had across the sitcom’s 180-episode and nine-season run. And though she only lasted one episode, Jody was the kickstart to what would become Coolidge’s iconic comedic career.
As Jennifer Coolidge recalled the day she auditioned for Seinfeld, she remembered how she didn’t have any cute clothes to wear, so she had to go on an emergency shopping spree before she showed up at the studio. The actress remembered how when she showed up at a certain boutique, she told the mother and daughter who worked there about her audition, and they fixed her up in an outfit that the actress insists landed her the gig. Later on, at the audition, the A Mighty Wind actress remembered Julia Louis-Dreyfus (who played Elaine) coming up to her to tell her how amazing she’d done.
Now an iconic actress, Jennifer Coolidge attributes her success to that one episode of Seinfeld, saying that after she appeared on the show, many directors who wouldn’t even look at her falsified resume before were now booking auditions with her. While, like many, the actress’s career has been full of ups and downs, Jennifer Coolidge has become a household name. Recently, there has been a spike in her career, with Coolidge even winning a Primetime Emmy for her most recent role in The White Lotus (2021-2022).
