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Janeane Garofalo
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.
— Janeane Garofalo
IF you keep spoon-feeding people s–t, that’s what they’re going to ask you for,” concludes actress and comedienne Janeane Garofalo. Clearly, this is one woman who will never be accused of reticence. In fact, her unbridled cynicism and outspoken attitude have invited the media to label her a spokeswoman for Generation X, a title Garofalo doesn’t want (and doesn’t even qualify for, really: well into her mid-thirties, she’s a card-carrying ‘tweener). Her penchant for candidly answering every question, be it about religion, sexism, selling out, or her next project, has proved to be both the blessing that drives her career forward and the curse that occasionally sets it back. She is just as blunt about her willingness to shelve her point of view for the sake of career advancement: “I am a sellout, I admit it. I will not pretend. I joined the other side, the wrong team. I am not proud of it. It was a calculated career move.”
Born to Carmine and Joan Garofalo, Janeane had an average middle-class upbringing that didn’t exactly inspire great ambition. As a child, Garofalo aimed her aspirations at her mom’s secretarial position. A move from New Jersey to Houston her senior year of high school provided just the right amount of warping angst that seems necessary for performers: she gained weight (a continuing battle the 5′1″ star speaks openly about), became a recluse, found solace in memorizing Cheech & Chong and Steve Martin bits, and religiously watched Letterman and SCTV. Attending college in Rhode Island was just as unpleasant as her high school experience, until her senior year, when she attended an open-mike night and caught the stand-up bug. Garofalo soon was crowned Funniest Person in Rhode Island, an honor which she insists, in her typical self-deprecating manner, was “a testament to the lack of talent among the other participants.” She stuck to her resolve despite her mother’s impassioned pleas that she enter Bloomingdale’s management-training program, and committed herself to comedy.
Garofalo moved to Boston, where she whiled away several years supporting herself as a shoe salesperson, a bicycle messenger, a movie-theatre usher, and a chat-line moderator (the latter job didn’t last long, because she refused to talk dirty). She spent her evenings at any microphone she could find, developing a brand of humor that she says is “a cross between spoken word and stand-up,” but is now commonly referred to as alternative comedy. One evening, manager Jimmy Miller (brother of comedian Dennis Miller) handed her his card. Garofalo plucked up the courage to move to Los Angeles in 1989, but failed to impress the masses that flock to established comedy clubs like the Comedy Store and the Laugh Factory. Miller was less than enthused, but luckily Rick Messina, another big-shot agent, caught her act and saw her potential. Under his auspices, Garofalo became a staple on shows like The Dennis Miller Show and MTV’s Half-Hour Comedy Hour.
Nineteen ninety-two was undoubtedly one of Garofalo’s best years. After bumping into actor-writer-director Ben Stiller at a deli in Los Angeles, she was offered a part on his new Fox program, The Ben Stiller Show. While sitting in the makeup chair for the very first Stiller, Garry Shandling, who was making a guest appearance, offered her the role of Paula the talent booker on HBO’s The Larry Sanders Show. Although Fox dumped The Ben Stiller Show prematurely, it went on to win an Emmy, which raised Garofalo’s coolness cachet considerably. The Stiller connection also landed her a feature-film break: Stiller’s 1994 Reality Bites gave Garofalo a chance to steal scenes from Winona Ryder and further entwined her, for better or for worse, with the marketing cliché of the moment, “Generation X.” Her role in the film also introduced her to one of the more banal realities of Hollywood: “I was contractually forced to lose weight for Reality Bites, against my will,” Garofalo says. “I lost 12 pounds; they wanted me to lose 26. I fought every step, because I thought it was important that I make my movie debut as a person with some heft—as a normal-looking person. I’m trying to be one of the few people in my job who don’t make teenage girls feel bad about themselves.”
Her film debut effort was almost overshadowed by her partial season as a cast member of Saturday Night Live. Before jumping aboard, Garofalo had given some interviews in which she criticized the show for not being funny, and characterized Adam Sandler’s comedy as “childish.” Sandler ripped into her on her first day, and then refused to speak with her for several weeks thereafter. The rest of the cast and crew were similarly put off by her sentiments and the media perception that she was a potential “savior” for the show. Before the season ended, Garofalo left the show in a swirl of publicity: “It turned out disastrously. That was the year the bad karma came to a head. I didn’t have the self-esteem to make it through it, so I left.” Garofalo believes she would have fared much better if she had debuted during the 1995 season, and wishes to this day that she had the job.
Thankfully, Garofalo had Larry Sanders to fall back on, as well as her first starring role, opposite Uma Thurman in The Truth About Cats and Dogs. Garofalo ran away with that movie and made it a certifiable middling hit ($34 million in box-office receipts), but the process was filled with angst. Garofalo says that studio executives, who viewed her as dour and unlikable, “weren’t shy about letting me know they weren’t happy.” She wasn’t allowed to improvise, and every scene was shot numerous times. At one point, Uma Thurman had to talk the executives out of firing Garofalo. But Garofalo garnered rave reviews, with many critics questioning only her believability as the “ugly girl” in this distaff version of the Cyrano de Bergerac tale.
In an effort to land more film roles, Garofalo shed 35 pounds and granted any number of interviews in which she demeaned herself for selling out. While the strategy helped her get auditions, she gained back all the weight, despite how much “more talented” weighing a trim 105 made her in the eyes of Hollywood dealmakers. Her roller-coaster weight and self-deprecation haven’t put a hold on her career, however, judging from her flood of film appearances in the last several years. She co-starred alongside Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino in the airhead comedy Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion; with Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro in the drama Cop Land; opposite Vince Vaughn (Swingers) in the noirish Clay Pigeons; and with longtime associate Stiller in the mordant Jerry Stahl biopic Permanent Midnight. Garofalo reteamed with Stiller for the summer 1999 comedy actioner Mystery Men, an adaptation of Bob Burden’s cult-fave comic (they are also set to collaborate on the forthcoming McClintock’s Peach), a film she followed up with turns in a succession of quirky projects, including the serial-killer-comes-to-town indie The Minus Man; Dog Park, the oddball directorial debut offering of Kids in the Hall’s Bruce McCulloch; and Kevin Smith’s infectious studio hot potato Dogma. Garofalo has also established a production company, appropriately titled I Hate Myself Productions.
Occupation: Actress, Comedian
Date of Birth: September 28, 1964
Place of Birth: Newton, N.J., USA
Sign: Sun in Libra, Moon in Cancer
Relations: Companion: Craig Bierko (actor)
Education: Providence College
Fan Mail: C/O United Talent Agency
9560 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 500
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
USA
Janeane Garofalo: Credits
MOVIES
Actor
The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle — 2000
Titan A.E. — 2000
What Planet Are You From? — 2000
Dogma — 1999
Dog Park — 1999
The Minus Man — 1999
Mystery Men — 1999
200 Cigarettes — 1999
Half Baked — 1998
Permanent Midnight — 1998
Clay Pigeons — 1998
Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion — 1997
Cop Land — 1997
Touch — 1997
The Matchmaker — 1997
The Truth About Cats and Dogs — 1996
Brain Candy — 1996
The Cable Guy — 1996
Larger Than Life — 1996
Coldblooded — 1995
Bye Bye Love — 1995
I Shot a Man in Vegas — 1995
Now and Then — 1995
Suspicious — 1994
Reality Bites — 1994
Late for Dinner — 1991
BOOKS
Feel This Book — 1999
TV
The Sopranos — 2000 (Series; episode)
Law & Order — 1997 (Appearance)
Home Improvement — 1997 (Series; guest appearance)
The 1996 MTV Movie Awards — 1996 (Hostess)
Seinfeld — 1996 (Appearance)
Kicking Aspen:Extreme Comedy — 1996 (Special)
Catch a Rising Star 50th Anniversary–Give or Take 26 Years — 1996 (Special)
Newsradio — 1995 (Appearance)
HBO Comedy Half-Hour — 1995 ( )
Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist — 1995 (Voice)
Comedy Product — 1995 ( )
TV Nation — 1994 ( )
Storytime — 1994 ( )
Saturday Night Live — 1994 ( )
Montreal International Comedy Festival ‘94 — 1994 (Special)
Ellen — 1994 (Appearance)
Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City — 1994 (Mini-series)
The Larry Sanders Show — 1992 ( )
The Ben Stiller Show — 1992 ( )
The A-List — 1992 (Appearance)
The 15th Annual Young Comedians Show — 1992 (Special)
Laughing Back: Comedy Takes a Stand — 1992 (Special)
Passion TV — 1991 (Pilot)
Garofalo, Janeane Web sites
Mr. Showbiz Celebrities: Janeane Garofalo Profile
Photo, bio, news, and credits.
http://mrshowbiz.go.com/people/janeanegarofalo/
Last reviewed by ccrowe21
The Iconophile’s Janeane Garofalo Page
Photos, commentary on her career, filmography, articles, movie clips, and related links.
http://www.homunculus.com/icons/garofalojaneane/Ga…
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
David Negrin’s Janeane Garofalo Page
Images, audio and video clips, article archive, filmography and other career info.
http://www.cs.buffalo.edu/~negrin/janeane1.html
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
Hollywood Online: Janeane Garofalo
RealAudio clips included in this MovieTalk interview with Janeane tend to reveal the real person behind the wry, cynical comedian.
http://www.hollywood.com/movietalk/celebrities/jga…
Last reviewed by ccrowe21
Janeane Garofalo Gallery
A large collection of images of the comic actress.
http://geocities.com/Hollywood/Park/3001/
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
Janeane Garofalo Worship Page
Commentary with general information. Includes filmography, audio files, a Quicktime movie, and links.
http://kumo.swcp.com/synth/janeane.html
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
Janeane Garofalo, Comedian
Offers a short biography of Ms. Garofalo, links to sites for her various TV projects, and links to her co-stars.
http://www.webcom.com/shownet/cobbs/garofalo.html
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
Janeane Junkies
Fan site with bio, TV and movie credits, interviews, articles, movie reviews, and links.
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/5014/
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
Photo Gallery-
Topics: Actress, Celebrities
Tags: 200 Cigarettes, Dog Park, Dogma, Half Baked, Janeane Garofalo, Titan A.E
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