“It think it’s an incredible time to be funny,” “Abbott Elementary” star Lisa Ann Walter said at the TheWrap’s “Keeping it Fresh: Careers That Keep Evolving” panel as part of the inaugural Women of Comedy Emmy Showcase.
“And it doesn’t matter the age,” she continued. “I came into this town to star in my own TV shows, and if those had gone and I had been a big star, I would have died in a drunken car wreck somewhere for real. So having had all this time in between to do a number of different jobs and raise my children and come into a show as a woman of my age, and owning my talent and my power is incredible for me.”
Joined by fellow Emmy contenders Iliza Schlesinger (“Iliza Shlesinger: A Different Animal”), Sasheer Zamata (“Agatha All Along”), Julianne Nicholson (“Hacks”) and Bridget Everett (“Somebody Somewhere”), the Wednesday night panel was moderated by Whitney Cummings and held at the The Crescent Theater in Beverly Hills. All shared that having success come to them at their ages was especially sweet.
The youngest on the panel was 39-year-old actress, stand-up and “Saturday Night Live” vet Sasheer Zamata — while Walter, to her own acknowledgement, was the eldest of the bunch: “The oldest hottie,” she quipped.
Julianne Nicholson, who won an Emmy for her supporting dramatic role in “Mare of Easttown” and has drawn praise for her comedy turn in “Hacks,” echoed Walter. “I’ve been [acting] for 30 years, and I’m so happy I didn’t make it in my 20s,” she said, cracking up her fellow comedians. “I couldn’t be happier to be getting the best roles of my life now, and not when I was 20-something.”
Cummings added that, for her, having years of experience to draw on is a plus. “It’s taken me a long time to understand that in order for art to imitate life, you have to have a life.”
“Of course, we all would have wanted it sooner, but [it’s great] to be in comedy when it’s anything goes,” Schlesinger emphasized. Like Walter, she praised the current egalitarian comedy climate. “Because of the internet-ification of it, it is a meritocracy. There are so many king-makers out there. It’s not just ‘The Tonight Show.’ It’s not just one video. You can find something for everyone,” she said.
Everett, the star, executive producer and writer of “Somebody Somewhere,” offered advice she’d come to embrace in her own career, saying it’s important to “set up an environment where everybody feels like they can fail, so then you will succeed.”
She continued: “If you surround yourself with people that want you to win, you’re going to win. I know that sounds really stupid, but I’ve worked with people who are trying to erode my confidence. And I got rid of those people. And as soon as I got rid of those people, then my life, my career, everything changed.”
The five panelists also agreed that having other women behind the scenes made a world of difference on their respective projects.
“There’s something [special] when you’re sharing with a woman behind the camera,” Everett said. “I really wanted a woman DP because it just feels like your sister’s right there. For me, for this experience, that was really important.”
Zamata, who played sorceress Jennifer Kale on “Agatha All Along,” added that co-starring on the “woman-forward” Marvel series is “so cool.”
“Every episode was directed by a woman. There’s so many women in the cast and written by women. It feels so good, and it’s queer, and I play a queer character, and that’s so awesome and rare,” she said. “We’re in a really good time where that is able to thrive, and there’s an audience that’s hungry for that content.”
Nicholson, who like several others on the panel, is a mother, drew laughs when she noted, “You can’t help but keep it real when you’re in family life. Like the day after ‘Mare of Easttown’ won at the Emmys, I was hosing out maggots from our trash bin. There’s no glamor. Glamor is one side of it, but there’s a whole world of [having to] clean s–t, which just keeps it real all the time.”
TheWrap’s Women of Comedy: An Emmy Season Showcase is presented in partnership with Comedy Gives Back and sponsored by ABC, Apple TV+, Disney+, FX, Max, NBC, Prime Video, Universal Television Group, Warner Bros. TV and 21SEEDS, our spirits partner.
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