Swoosie Kurtz on Mike and Molly, a Pushing Daisies Film and Finding Herself Onstage

Of all of the characters you've played in television and film, which would you say was the most well-developed?

I have done so many guest shots in the last year. I don't know. Sisters was more of a real situation. Pushing Daisies was so wonderfully bizarre. Ordinary People was one of my favorite movies that came later when I was already an actress.

When did you know that you wanted to be an actress?

Well, I originally wanted to be a prima ballerina, and I was pretty good at ballet. I just knew when I got to high school that I wanted to act. I did a scene from Dark Victory, which was a Bette Davis movie, in school. I did that monologue when she is going blind, and that scene and I somehow connected, felt that eureka, that epiphany moment when you find you identify with something. I felt like I could connect better with a group of people when I am being someone else than I can when I am myself, one-on-one. It's kind of nuts.

Even if you are in front of a theater full of people?

Yes. It's easier for me to go onstage in front of a thousand people than it is to have a one-on-one with a person. I am talking about a person that I don't know terribly well. If they were to say, "Let's have dinner," that would make me a little nervous to be in that situation. But whenever I step onstage, I can just relax. That is kind of where I live. But that first time onstage in high school was the first time I had that unbelievable connection with the audience. I thought, "Whoa, I want to do this all day long." I am sure it's the same as the geek in high school who discovers science.

Why do you think you responded so powerfully to the feeling of being onstage?

I was very shy and it was made worse by the fact that we had to move around all the time because my dad was in the Air Force. I remember once when I was in seventh grade something happened that was like magic. I was plain and very shy. I remember that I made a remark to a few people and they laughed. They really looked at me for the first time, and they engaged me in conversation. It wasn't a sexual thing -- that they wanted to sleep with me or anything. Discovering that I could make them laugh was like finding another identity. That happened before I knew that I wanted to be an actress.

Some comedians talk about this obsessive desire to please their audience -- they need those laughs and that approval. Do you feel that you want to please your audience similarly or is your onstage experience more about just connecting with people?

It wasn't about pleasing the people, for me. It was about this amazing connection that I could have that I couldn't have as me, as Swoosie, but that I could by being another person. I got to do and say things I never would. The further my character is from me, the more fun it is to play. Sometimes, it is hard to just be yourself.

[Getty Images / David Livingston]

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