Fill 1
Fill 1
June 22, 2015
In The Mix

From the Back Seat to Front and Center

A performer who found out she was funny on long family drives now helps steer the comic course on FX’s The Comedians.

Sarah Hirsch

Actress-comedian Stephnie Weir — best known as a cast member on the sketch show MADtv — has lately been stealing scenes as Kristen Laybourne, a put-upon producer in FX’s new sketch show–within-a-show, The Comedians.

Opposite Billy Crystal and Josh Gad, the Second City alum infuses her role with enough self-doubt and anxiety to more than make up for the self-important versions of themselves that Crystal and Gad play.

After working as a consulting producer on Fox’s Raising Hope, and as a writer on CBS’s The Millers, Weir is back to her performing roots, and — as she tells emmy’s Sarah Hirsch — loving it.

How did you become interested in comedy?

I grew up in West Texas, very working-class. My dad was a truck driver, and he owned a car lot and a salvage yard. But at night he liked to do community theater and was a bit of a celebrity in Odessa, Texas.

I watched him on stage a lot and was really drawn to the idea of acting. He was a bit of a frustrated actor — he never broke out. So I think I had a little bit of that desire.

You moved to Chicago and joined the prestigious improv troupe, Second City….

With the help of a community college professor, who said, “You should go to Chicago,” I stumbled into comedy and got involved with Second City, and then got hired for MADtv. So that was my journey here to L.A.

Who recruited you to MADtv?

Dick Blasucci, who was a Second City alum, was the showrunner of MADtv at the time. He came and saw me on stage and asked me a couple of years in a row to come out and audition for MADtv. Eventually I did and got the job.

You were hysterical on that show. Your Anna Nicole Smith impression, in particular, was great.

Thank you. I was never very good at celebrity impressions, but she and I happen to have the same voice, and we were born on the same day, and she came from the area of Texas I’m from. So I was able to nail that one impersonation.

You’ve also worked as a writer and producer. What side of entertainment do you prefer?

I really love them all. The writing-producing side has served me very well, when it comes to spending more time with my family — also you feel like you have a little more power in this industry. But there’s nothing like performing. There’s nothing, for me, as creatively rewarding, as when you get to show your stuff. So right now that’s my favorite.

Plus, being on a show that I really love doing — you can’t beat it… until you’re sitting in a makeup chair, and you’re feeling 90 years old, and people are lathering things on your face, and it’s not helping, and then you think, “I wouldn’t mind being a writer today.”

Are you able to use your improv skills on The Comedians?

We do a lot of improvisation. The scripts come in really strong, and everything’s already there, and we always get a take of doing just that. Then [creator–executive producers] Larry Charles and Ben Wexler [will say] “Just try something.”

They let the cameras run for a really long time while we just improvise. I’m always surprised at how much of that makes it into the show. They do a nice blend of what was on the page and moments that we come up with on the spot. As a writer and an actor, that’s a dream scenario for me.

Who are your comedic influences?

Madeline Kahn is one of my all-time favorite actresses, but she’s such a fantastic comedian, though maybe not in the traditional sense. She had such a depth to her comedy. You were watching her and thinking, “How is she doing this? How is she digging that deep and at the same time being this ridiculously funny?” And I love Carol Burnett, too.

Is your character, Kristen, based on anyone?

Not anyone specific. She’s got a lot of my elements — my awkwardness, my twitches and tics that will arise when I get nervous, and I heightened those.

You know, producers in general want to be involved in the creative process, want to be around creative people, maybe without having the talent themselves sometimes. I leaned in on that, asking myself, “Why does she keep coming back to all of this abuse?” I think there’s a part of this personality that wants to be near the creative types even if they can’t do it themselves.

What has it been like working with Billy Crystal and Josh Gad?

Delightful. Wonderful. Very inspiring. Just watching them work, I learned so much. And obviously I kept pinching myself that I was getting to go to work and perform and improvise with Billy Crystal every day. I’m a big fan of Josh’s work as well — he’s a fantastic actor and comedian, so it was a joy.

You had quite a few funny scenes with Denis O’Hare, who plays the network head.

Improvising with him was a whole different ball of wax because he’s such an incredible actor. Everything is so real and so grounded, that I would have to check in playfully after we would call “Cut!”

I’d just want to make sure he really did like me in real life, because he’s so convincing as an actor. I would have to test the water like, “We were just playing, right? Right?”

Was there a moment when you first knew you were funny?

Probably in the back seat of my dad’s car. My brother and sister and I would ride in the back seat, while my dad drove and my mother sat shotgun. He’d like to go for these long drives, and maybe we would find some hubcaps on the side of the road, or he would buy an old refrigerator.

It was just hours in the backseat, and I learned I could keep one eye shut for a really long time. I looked like a dead doll, and it’d make my brother and sister howl.

I think it was with them, in those long car rides, that I realized, “Hey, I think I’m funny.” Plus, I have a really beautiful, smart little sister. And because she was smart and pretty, I went with funny. And my brother was tough, so that was taken, too.

So, you found your role in life.

I did! I found it, and I use it to my benefit. I’m doing well, and I get the last laugh with my brother and sister.

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