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Leslie Grossman has, as she puts it, a specific flavor for specific tastes.
Again, it was for a particular taste.
Theres gonna be a kerfuffle or a scuffle.
Somethings gonna happen so just bear down, okay?
What kind of dogs are they?Theyre all half-Chihuahua mutt.
The more sick and fucked-up they are, the more I wanna adopt them.
My newest one, whos named Popcorn, I dont think had ever been inside of a house.
But this new one has really upset the balance, so theres a lot of jockeying for position.
Theyre the cutest dogs youve ever seen, but theyre all monsters.
And this is what it is.
I just love Ryans sense of humor.
He and I are incredibly simpatico in what we think is hilarious.
He called to tell me and I fell out.
I was like,Amazing.
And the storys not over.
This season is really about female solidarity, which has a lot of political resonance right now.
Ive been at this game for a while now.
Look, just trying to make it in the entertainment industry pits people against each other.
And I dont think thats specific to women.
It is a cut-throat, dog-eat-dog environment.
But Ive never participated in that, and maybe thats been to my detriment.
I refuse to compete with other people.
I am only in competition with myself.
You have to look a certain way.And I dont ascribe to those rules.
Sorry, I just dont, and I dont have to be part of that.
And I dont have to play that game.
I also refuse to knock other women down to make myself feel better.
But I do think that absolutely, in the past couple years, there is a solidarity among women.
I have so many wonderfully brilliant, talented actress friends who agree.
I would never ever do that.
Have I taken jobs that Im like,This writing is terrible.
You think that Im in some position to pick and choose everything that comes my way?
I have health insurance I need to get for my family.
I want to keep working.
I need to make money.
I wanna be able to pay my dues.
I dont mean pay my dues in the business, I mean literally pay my SAG dues.
I just never felt like I wanted to quit.
I was never an ingenue.
I didnt get into acting because I was some super-hot leading lady.
What do you think that specific flavor is?[Chuckles.]
Its hard for me to say, because I cant be outside of myself.
Im a strong flavor.
I just am who I am, you know what I mean?
Im a unique and specific person.
Thats worked for me and thats worked against me.
It took me a long time to live that down.
Look, I have a really expressive face.
I have a very specific voice.
I dont know how to be anything other than who I am.
When Ive tried to be something else, it fails miserably.
Im not a good straight person, and many times women are shoved into that category in comedy.
I absolutely think thats changing.
Well say like, No, not going in on that.
Thats the Blank role.
Im telling you, I can see it my minds eye.
Then she looks at the kids, and shes like, Dads crazy!
It just makes my skin crawl, but I think that now that is absolutely changing.
Theres a lot now for young actresses out there that we didnt have.
Look at someone likeYara Shahidi.
If I had that when I was a kid, you know?
You play Kristen Bells mother onThe Good Place, and you return forThursdays episode.
I was like, Well, here it is.
Heres that phone call where you are officially an older actress.
Then she said, No, no, wait.
Its to play the mother of her character in flashback.
Initially, it started off as playing the mother of a little girl.
Look, dont get it twisted.
I know Im older than her, but Im not old enough to be her mother.
Like, What are you going to look like?
They were like, We dont want to do aging makeup on you.
Thats not something we want to do.
They came up with a brilliant idea to justReal Housewivesher and to make her look really pulled and surgeried.
We put in extensions.
We gave me a really insane tan.
Pulled my face up with tape.
Wore really crazy makeup, really intense,Real Housewives-ish makeup.
I just really was channeling some of theOrange Countyladies.
ForApocalypse, I really did think about Tinsley Mortimer.
It wasnt the whole thing, but I would say she was 30 percent Tinsley.
In nice Coco and not-nice Coco, I felt that there were shades of Tinsley there a woman-child.
Is there a Real Housewife that you would like to play?Oh my God.
Theres been over 100 Housewives now, so theres such a large pool to pick from.
I have to say I really love Bethenny.
I think that her whole story is so endlessly fascinating to me.
I have to say it would probably be Bethenny.
Id have to lose 50 pounds to do that and really work on my fitness.
I think shes a really amazing character.
I mean, Id die for Dorinda.
I love all the Housewives.
I really do, butNew Yorkis really a perpetual favorite of mine.
Where does that comes from?Ive been married for 19 years.
Im very, very close with my family.
We have a very traditionally enmeshed Jewish family.
As corny as this sounds, the most important thing to me is being a parent.
In my real life, Im a very grounded, normal person.
I care deeply about the world.
Im very politically aware.
I feel like Im a solid citizen.
I dont really know why Ive gotten into playing these kind of characters.
I get to say and do things I would never, ever do and say in my real life.
Look, we all cant be chameleons.
Im well aware of my lane, and Im happy in my lane as an actor.
Thats okay with me because I enjoy it.
First of all, I like working.
But also, I have a lot of fun playing these characters because its so different from me.
Theyre not boring and I love that.
Shes just living her truth.
Thats what I was always sort of trying to play.
Every time I said a word.
Every look that I gave.
I would just think to myself, Ryans gonna fall out when he sees this.
I was weaned on John Waters movies.
To me, Mary Cherry was a John Waters character.
Do you know a lot of 13-year-old kids that were obsessed with Divine?
That was something that I felt very connected to.
First of all, it was the humor that absolutely got me.
But it was also that otherness.
I was born and raised in Los Angeles.
And it makes me sick and I cannot stand it.
I wont stand for that.
There was a guy in her study group who was just fantastic.
I was probably about 8 years old.
He and I really connected.
I had a big personality as a kid and he really saw me.
Like, really got me.
That affected me deeply.
It changed who I was.
I was a spaz!
I had a lot to say and he was like,Tell me everything.I just adored him.
He ended up dying of AIDS when I was about 12 years old.
It was devastating to my mother.
I went to his funeral.
He changed my life.
I think that that connection really left this imprint on me.
You have to understand that this was the early 80s.
Actually, if Im being perfectly honest, it was really like the late 70s, early 80s.
And that really drew me in, being an outsider and having to fight for who you are.
That was my connection to that community.
I feel like its my people.
And theres a feedback loop.
Mary Cherry, for instance, is a queer icon.Yes.
People come up and tell me, I realized I was gay because of Mary Cherry.
And that maybe they were young at the time, so maybe they didnt even know what that meant.
But it was because they were drawn to the character.
And learning later, Why was I drawn to that?
What was it about that character that drew me?
It was my inherent gayness.
Nothing could make me happier than that.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
