Janeane Garofalo

Janeane Garofalo (/dʒəˈniːn ɡəˈrɒfəloʊ/; born September 28, 1964) is an American actress, stand-up comedian, and writer.
Garofalo began her career as a stand-up comedian and became a cast member on The Ben Stiller Show, The Larry Sanders Show, and Saturday Night Live, then appeared in more than 50 movies, with leading or major roles in The Truth About Cats and Dogs, Wet Hot American Summer, The Matchmaker, Reality Bites, Steal This Movie!, Clay Pigeons, Sweethearts, Mystery Men, and The Independent, among numerous others. She has been a series regular on television programs such as Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, 24, and Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce.[1]
Garofalo is an outspoken progressive activist. From March 2004 to July 2006, she hosted Air America Radio's The Majority Report with Sam Seder.
== Early life ==
Garofalo was born in Newton, New Jersey, the daughter of Joan and Carmine Garofalo. Her mother, a secretary in the petrochemical industry, died of cancerwhen Janeane was 24. Her father is a former executive at Exxon.[2][3] Garofalo was raised in a conservative Catholic family,[4] and is of Italian and Irish descent.
She grew up in Ontario, California; Madison, New Jersey; and Katy, Texas, among other places. She was quoted as having disliked life in Texas because of the heat, humidity, and the emphasis on prettiness and sports in high school.[2][3] While studying history at Providence College, Garofalo entered a comedy talent search sponsored by the Showtime cable network, winning the title of "Funniest Person in Rhode Island". Her original gimmick was to read off her hand, which was not successful in subsequent performances. Dreaming of earning a slot on the writing staff of the TV show Late Night with David Letterman, she became a professional standup comedian upon graduating from college with degrees in History and American Studies.[5]
She struggled for a number of years, working briefly as a bike messenger in Boston.[6] She has described herself thus: "I guess I just prefer to see the dark side of things. The glass is always half empty. And cracked. And I just cut my lip on it. And chipped a tooth."[7]
== Entertainment career ==
=== Stand-up comedy ===
Garofalo was initially known as a stand-up comedian, making numerous stand-up appearances on television and in live clubs and larger venues beginning in the 1990s and continuing today. She said she does not tell jokes as much as make observations designed to get laughs.[citation needed] She was part of the alternative comedy scene in Los Angeles in the early 1990s, appearing at Un-Cabaret and other venues, and she co-created the Eating It weekly stand-up comedy series, which ran at the Luna Lounge on the Lower East Side of New York City between 1995 and 2005, frequently hosting the show and appearing as a performer.[citation needed]
She did an HBO Comedy Half-Hour special in 1995, among similar subsequent appearances, including a one-hour stand-up special in June 2010 entitled "If You Will," performed at Seattle's Moore Theatre, that aired on Epix in June 2010 and was released on DVD in September 2010.[8]
During her filmed stand-up show in Seattle, she proclaimed herself asexual, and brought up her ten-year sexless relationship with her boyfriend.[9]
=== Film career ===
Garofalo has performed a variety of leading, supporting and cameo roles in more than 50 feature films, playing leading or large roles in Reality Bites, The Truth About Cats and Dogs, I Shot a Man in Vegas, The Matchmaker, Clay Pigeons, Steal This Movie!, Sweethearts, Mystery Men, The Independent, Wet Hot American Summer, Manhood, Ash Tuesday, and Bad Parents, among others, and supporting roles in The Cable Guy, Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, Cop Land, Half Baked, Permanent Midnight, Dogma, 200 Cigarettes, and The Wild.
Garofalo's first movie role, filmed the year before she appeared on national television, was a brief comical appearance as a counter worker in a burger joint in Late for Dinner in 1991, but her real breakthrough into film came in Reality Bites (1994) as Winona Ryder's character's Gap-managing best friend Vickie. The role helped solidify Garofalo's status as a Generation X icon.
She remained visible from television work and supporting roles in feature films such as Bye Bye Love and Now and Then, and a leading role in I Shot a Man in Vegas, until 1996 when she was cast in the starring role in the critically acclaimed romantic comedy The Truth About Cats & Dogs, a variation on Cyrano de Bergerac which featured top-billed Uma Thurman as a beautiful but dim-witted model, while Garofalo played the much larger role of Abby, a highly intelligent radio host. Initially an independent film, it became a studio movie when Thurman was signed. The film was a modest hit, but Garofalo disparaged it back in 2003, saying:[10]
Based on the success of this film, a producer then offered her the leading ladyrole in Jerry Maguire with Tom Cruise if she could lose weight; after trimming down, however, she learned that Renée Zellweger had won the part instead.[11]
She turned down the role of television reporter Gale Weathers in Wes Craven's Scream because she thought the film would be too violent: "I said I didn't want to be in a movie where a teen girl was disemboweled. I didn't know it turned out so good, and it was a funny movie."[12]
Garofalo had been David Fincher's first choice for the role of Marla Singer in the film Fight Club, but she turned it down, uncomfortable with the film's unusual sexual content (Fincher later noted that she was "uncomfortable with the idea of all this sex"), and Helena Bonham Carter eventually accepted the part.[13]
Following up the successful The Truth About Cats and Dogs in 1996, Garofalo played the leading role in The Matchmaker, a 1997 romantic comedy film about the misadventures of a cynical American woman who reluctantly visits Ireland. That same year, she played a supporting role as a deputy sheriff in the drama Cop Land, a police gangster film. In 1998, she performed her first voice-acting job playing "Ursula the Artist" in Disney's English dub of Studio Ghibli's Kiki's Delivery Service and briefly appeared in Permanent Midnight. In 1999, she starred as "The Bowler" in the film Mystery Men, about an underdog group of super heroes.[1]
In 2000, she portrayed Abbie Hoffman's wife Anita Hoffman opposite Vincent D'Onofrio as Hoffman in Steal This Movie!, involving the couple's political activism during the Vietnam War era. Later that same year, she received second billing under Jerry Stiller in a comedic film about a low-budget movie producer entitled The Independent. The following year, Garofalo was top-billed in Wet Hot American Summer, the 2001 cult comedy about an American summer camp, and starred in The Search for John Gissing.[1]
In 2002, she played Catherine Connolly in The Laramie Project and in 2003, she starred in Manhood and Ash Tuesday, and appeared in the crime film Wonderland. She played a supporting role in Jiminy Glick in Lalawood in 2004.[1]
A puppet version of Garofalo appeared (and was graphically killed off) in the 2004 movie Team America: World Police; while Garofalo was irritated by the parody, she was more upset by the filmmaker's lack of correspondence. "I ran into them in the street, Trey and the other guy, and I said to them, 'The least you could do is send me a puppet.' And they said OK, took my address down ... and never sent me a puppet! So while Team America bothered me, the fact they didn't send me my puppet, that bothered me even more."[14]
In 2005, she played the ex-wife of a man coping with the reverberations of a divorce in Duane Hopwood. In 2006, she performed Bridget the giraffe's voice in the computer-animated Disney feature film The Wild. In 2007, she provided the voice of Colette, a chef in the Pixar/Disney feature film Ratatouille, in which Garofalo affected a pronounced French accent for the role, appropriate for a character based on a French cook described as the world's best female chef.[15]She made cameo appearances in The Guitar in 2008 and Labor Pains in 2009, and starred in Bad Parents in 2012, a comedy about New Jersey soccer momsobsessing over their children's experiences playing the sport. She starred in the 2015 film 3rd Street Blackout.[1]
Janeane Garofalo appears as herself in the documentary film Sticky: A (Self) Love Story, released on Amazon in 2016, in which she claims that she had to get drunk on tequila to do her masturbation scene in the film Truth About Cats and Dogs.[16][17][18]
=== Television ===
Garofalo's big break came in 1990 after meeting Ben Stiller at Canter's Deli in Los Angeles, where they were hanging out with stand-up friends. They bonded over their "love of SCTV, early Saturday Night Live, and Albert Brooks."[19]
Her first exposure on national television came soon thereafter by way of her appearance as a stand-up comic on MTV's Half Hour Comedy Hour. Subsequently, her first television series debut was on the short-lived Ben Stiller Show on Fox in 1992, on which she was a cast member alongside longtime friends Bob Odenkirk and Andy Dick.
A chance meeting on the set of that show led her to being offered the role of Paula on The Larry Sanders Show on HBO, earning her two Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series[20] nominations in 1996 and 1997. For a time, she was actually working on both series during the same period.[citation needed]
After The Ben Stiller Show was cancelled, Garofalo joined the cast of Saturday Night Live (SNL) for its 1994–95 season. She left SNL in March 1995 (mid-season) after only six months, saying that the experience left her "anxious and depressed" and that a sexist attitude pervaded the show and she called many of the sketches "juvenile and homophobic".[21] According to New York Magazine, Garofalo was "largely stuck in dull, secondary wife and girlfriend roles" and her friends said that she considered the stint "the most miserable experience of [her] life."[22]
Following SNL, Garofalo appeared in a plethora of guest star roles: the grown-up daughter of the Buchmans on the final episode of Mad About You; Jerry Seinfeld's female counterpart (and, briefly, fiancée) Jeannie Steinman on Seinfeld; a recurring correspondent on Michael Moore's TV Nation, and a former girlfriend of Dave Foley's character on Newsradio. She provided the voice for the weekly telephone conversations between the series lead and an older friend (Garofalo) in Felicity. Two television pilots starring Garofalo, the 2003 ABC show Slice O'Life about a reporter consigned to sappy human interest stories appearing at the end of news broadcasts, and the 2005 NBC program All In, based on the life of poker star Annie Duke, were not picked up by their respective networks.
Throughout the 2005–06 television season, Garofalo appeared on The West Wing as Louise Thornton, a controversial campaign adviser to the fictional Democratic presidential nominee. Garofalo participated in the series' first live episode, most of which was a debate televised live on the East Coast and then reshot live for the West. Garofalo's character can be seen walking backstage advising before the start of each debate. In 2006, she provided the voice for the animated character "Bearded Clam" on Comedy Central's Freak Show. In 2007, she wrote a dedication for the mini-book included in the six-DVD box-set of the 1994 cult series My So-Called Life.
Garofalo had segments entitled "the disquisition" in several episodes of the 2007 season of The Henry Rollins Show which took place in her apartment, much in the same way Rollins' segments take place at his house.[citation needed] In 2009, Garofalo joined the cast of 24, where she starred as Janis Gold. In 2010, Garofalo joined the cast of Ideal as Tilly. She was a cast member of the Criminal Minds short-lived spinoff TV series Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior in 2011.[23]
In 2014, she portrayed Lyla, an entertainment lawyer, in seven episodes of the TV series Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce. In 2015, she starred alongside most of the original cast in the Netflix eight-episode prequel to the 2001 comedy film Wet Hot American Summer. In 2017, Garofalo starred in E4's comedy-dramaseries Gap Year.[24]
=== Writing ===
Garofalo co-wrote a comedic New York Times bestseller with Ben Stiller in 1999, entitled Feel This Book: An Essential Guide to Self-Empowerment, Spiritual Supremacy, and Sexual Satisfaction, a spoof of the self-help books so prevalent at the time. She wrote her HBO Comedy Half-Hour along with similar appearances and programs, co-wrote some sketches on The Ben Stiller Show, wrote an episode of the television series Head Case, and wrote and directed a 2001 comedy short entitled Housekeeping.[25]
== Political views ==
Garofalo has been open and outspoken regarding her progressive political views. She is a staunch feminist. In an interview for Geek Monthly magazine, she stated that she was raised in a conservative family.[26]
She has appeared with political figures such as Ralph Nader (whom she supported in the 2000 election, but opposed in 2004[citation needed]) and Jello Biafra at various events. In 2007, Garofalo described herself as an atheist,[27]and participated in a radio interview by Freethought Radio, a show by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.[28]
She became more prominent as a progressive when she voiced opposition to what became the 2003 Iraq War, appearing on CNN and Fox News to discuss it. She said that she was approached by groups such as MoveOn.org and Win Without War to go on TV, because these organizations say that the networks were not allowing antiwar voices to be heard. Garofalo and the other celebrities who appeared at the time said they thought their fame could lend attention to that side of the debate. Her appearances on cable news prior to the war garnered her praise from the left and spots on the cover of Ms. and Venus Zine. Garofalo has had frequent on-air political disputes with Bill O'Reilly, Brian Kilmeade, and Jonah Goldberg.[29]
Prior to the 2003 Iraq War, she took a position on the alleged threat posed by Saddam Hussein. For example, in an interview with Tony Snow on a February 23, 2003 episode of Fox News Sunday,[30] Garofalo said of the Iraqi dictator:
In March 2003, she took part in the Code Pink anti-war march in Washington, D.C. That autumn, she served as emcee at several stops on the Tell Us the Truthtour, a political-themed concert series featuring Steve Earle, Billy Bragg, Tom Morello, and others. Throughout the year, Garofalo also actively campaigned for Howard Dean. While on Fox News' program The Pulse, O'Reilly asked Garofalo what she would do if her predictions that the Iraq war would be a disaster were to turn out wrong. Garofalo stated:[31]
Garofalo said she had misgivings in 2007 about the depiction of torture in the television series 24 but joined the cast because "being unemployed and being flattered that someone wanted to work with me outweighed my stance".[32]
In April 2009, Garofalo drew criticism from The Washington Times when she denounced Tea Party protests, which she referred to as racist.[33] She has continued to criticize Tea Party protesters.[34]
=== Air America Radio ===
In late March 2004, Garofalo became a co-host for Air America Radio's new show The Majority Report, alongside Sam Seder. The early days of Air America Radio are chronicled in the documentary Left of the Dial, which includes a debate between Garofalo and her conservative father Carmine, who was initially a regular guest on The Majority Report.[35]
Garofalo commented on her show of April 28, 2006 supporting the Scientology-linked New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project, a controversial treatment for workers suffering ailments from 9/11 clean-up efforts in New York City.[36]
== Personal life ==
Garofalo married Robert Cohen, who was then a writer for The Ben Stiller Show, in Las Vegas in 1991. She later explained it was intended to be a joke, thinking the marriage was not binding unless it had been filed at a local courthouse. It was discovered later, when Cohen tried to actually marry someone else, that the marriage was indeed legal. The union was dissolved in 2012.[37]
In Garofalo's 2010 stand-up show, If You Will, she says "I don't have a fear of intimacy, I have sort of a genuine lack of interest", adding jokingly, "which is not good for my boyfriend of ten years".[38]
== Filmography ==
=== Film ===
Year	Title 	Role 	Notes 	
1991	Late for Dinner 	Cashier 	 	
1992	That's What Women Want 	Jennifer 	Short 	
1994	Reality Bites 	Vickie Miner 	 	
1994	Suspicious 	Woman 	Short film 	
1995	Bye Bye Love 	Lucille 	 	
1995	I Shot a Man in Vegas 	Gale 	 	
1995	Coldblooded 	Honey 	 	
1995	Now and Then 	Wiladene 	 	
1996	The Truth About Cats & Dogs 	Abbey Barnes 	 	
1996	The Cable Guy 	Medieval TimesWaitress 	 	
1996	Larger Than Life 	Mo 	 	
1997	Sweethearts 	Jasmine 	 	
1997	Touch 	Kathy Worthington 	 	
1997	Romy and Michele's High School Reunion	Heather Mooney 	 	
1997	The Matchmaker 	Marcy Tizard 	 	
1997	Cop Land 	Deputy Cindy Betts 	 	
1998	Clay Pigeons 	Agent Dale Shelby 	 	
1998	Kiki's Delivery Service 	Ursula 	Voice — English version 	
1998	Thick as Thieves 	Anne 	 	
1998	Permanent Midnight 	Jana Farmer 	 	
1998	Half Baked 	"I'm Only Creative When I Smoke" Smoker	 	
1998	The Thin Pink Line 	Joyce Wintergarden-Dingle 	 	
1999	The Bumblebee Flies Anyway 	Dr. Harriman/Handyman 	 	
1999	Torrance Rises 	Herself 	Short 	
1999	Can't Stop Dancing 	Belinda Peck 	 	
1999	Mystery Men 	The Bowler/Carol 	 	
1999	Dogma 	Liz 	 	
1999	The Independent 	Paloma Fineman 	 	
1999	200 Cigarettes 	Ellie 	 	
1999	The Minus Man 	Ferrin 	 	
2000	Dog Park 	Jeri 	 	
2000	Steal This Movie! 	Anita Hoffman 	 	
2000	Titan A.E. 	Stith 	Voice 	
2000	The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle	Minnie Mogul 	 	
2000	The Cherry Picker 	 	Short film 	
2000	What Planet Are You From? 	Nervous Woman 	 	
2001	The Laramie Project 	Catherine Connolly 	 	
2001	The Search for John Gissing 	Linda Barnes 	 	
2001	Wet Hot American Summer 	Beth 	 	
2001	Housekeeping 	Hotel Employee (voice) 	Short film 	
2002	Martin & Orloff 	Hairdresser 	 	
2002	Big Trouble 	Officer Monica Romero 	 	
2003	Manhood 	Jill 	 	
2003	Wonderland 	Joy Miller 	 	
2003	Ash Tuesday 	Liz 	 	
2003	Nobody Knows Anything! 	Patty 	 	
2004	Jiminy Glick in Lalawood 	Dee Dee 	 	
2005	Duane Hopwood 	Linda 	 	
2005	Nadine in Date Land 	Nadine Barnes 	TV Movie 	
2005	Stay 	Dr. Beth Levy 	 	
2006	The Wild 	Bridget the Giraffe 	Voice 	
2007	Ratatouille 	Colette Tatou[39] 	Voice
Nominated - Annie Award for Voice Acting in a Feature Production	
2007	Southland Tales 	General Teena MacArthur 	 	
2007	The Ten 	Beth Soden 	 	
2007	Then She Found Me 	Herself 	 	
2008	The Guitar 	Dr. Murray 	 	
2009	Labor Pains 	Claire 	 	
2009	Love Hurts 	Hannah Rosenbloom 	 	
2012	General Education 	Gale Collins 	 	
2012	Bad Parents 	Kathy 	 	
2012	Mighty Fine 	Older Natalie (voice) 	 	
2013	Satan, Hold My Hand 	Sheryl 	Short 	
2014	A Little Game 	Sarah Kuftinec 	 	
2014	Free the Nipple 	Anouk 	 	
2015	3rd Street Blackout 	June Sherman 	 	
2016	Little Boxes 	Helena 	 	
2016	The American Side 	Agent Barry 	 	
2016	The Happys 	Luann 	 	
2017	Sandy Wexler 	Herself 	 	
2017	Speech & Debate 	Marie 	Submission 2017 -Submission	
=== Television ===
Year 	Title 	Role 	Notes
1992–1993 	The Ben Stiller Show 	Various characters 	13 episodes
1992–1997 	The Larry Sanders Show 	Paula 	47 episodes
1993 	Tales of the City 	Coppola Woman 	Miniseries
1994 	The Adventures of Pete & Pete 	Ms. Brackett 	Episode: "X=WHY?"
1994–1995 	Saturday Night Live 	Various characters 	14 episodes
1995 	Duckman 	Moonbeam (voice) 	Episode: "The Germ Turns"
1995 	NewsRadio 	Nancy 	Episode: "Sweeps Week"
1995 	Mr. Show with Bob and David 	Wife 	Episode: "What to Think"
1995 	TV Nation 	Correspondent 	
1996 	Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist 	Janeane (voice) 	Episode: "Drinky the Drunk Guy"
1996 	Ellen 	Chloe Korban 	Episode: "Two Mammograms and a Wedding"
1996 	Space Ghost Coast to Coast 	Herself 	Episode: "Late Show"
1996 	Seinfeld 	Jeannie Steinman 	2 episodes
1996 	1996 MTV Movie Awards 	Co-host 	With Ben Stiller
1997 	Home Improvement 	Tina 	Episode: "A Funny Valentine"
1997 	Law & Order 	Greta Heiss 	2 episodes
1997 	The Chris Rock Show 	Girlfriend (voice) 	Episode: "#2.12"
1998 	Felicity 	Sally Reardon (voice) 	14 episodes
1998, 2011	The Simpsons 	Herself (voice) 	2 episodes
1999 	Mad About You 	Mabel Buchman 	Episode: "The Final Frontier"
2000 	The Sopranos 	Herself 	Episode: "D-Girl"
2000 	Strangers with Candy 	Cassie Pines 	2 episodes
2000 	Ed 	Liz Stevens 	Episode: "Pilot"
2003 	King of the Hill 	Sheila (voice) 	Episode: "Night and Deity"
2004 	The King of Queens 	Trish 	Episode: "Cheap Saks"
2004 	Aqua Teen Hunger Force 	Donna (voice) 	Episode: "Hypno-Germ"
2004 	Tanner on Tanner 	Herself 	2 episodes
2005 	Stella 	Jane Burroughs 	Episode: "Novel"
2005–2006 	The West Wing 	Louise Thornton 	15 episodes
2006 	Freak Show 	The Bearded Clam (voice) 	7 episodes
2006 	Tom Goes to the Mayor 	Herself (voice) 	Episode: "Couple's Therapy"
2007 	Two and a Half Men 	Sharon 	Episode: "Media Room Slash Dungeon"
2008 	Girl's Best Friend 	Mary 	Television film
2008 	Wainy Days 	David's Mom 	Episode: "Angel"
2009 	Greek 	Professor Freeman 	Episode: "Endangered Species"
2009 	24 	Janis Gold 	21 episodes
2009 	Head Case 	Herself 	Episode: "The Wedding Ringer"
2010 	The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret 	Brent's Boss 	Episode: "Where Todd and Brent Misjudge the Mood of a Solemn Day"
2010–2011 	Ideal 	Tilly 	13 episodes
2011 	Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior 	Beth Griffith 	13 episodes
2012 	Metalocalypse 	Abigail Remeltindrinc (voice)	5 episodes
2012 	Ugly Americans 	(voice) 	Episode: "The Dork Knight"
2012–2013 	Delocated 	Susan Shapiro 	9 episodes
2014 	Inside Amy Schumer 	Sharon Overwood 	Episode: "Slow Your Roll"
2014–2015 	Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce 	Lyla 	7 episodes
2014–2015 	Broad City 	Monica 	2 episodes
2015 	Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp 	Beth 	7 episodes
2015 	The Jim Gaffigan Show 	Eve 	3 episodes
2016 	Nightcap 	Janeane Garofalo 	Episode: "The Horny Host"
2017 	Michael Bolton's Big, Sexy Valentine's Day Special	Herself 	Variety special
2017 	Gap Year 	Sam 	2 episodes
2017 	Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later 	Beth 	7 episodes
Category:Gracie Films
Category:Comedians