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Jane Lynch on researching Janet Reno for 'Manhunt: Unabomber,' and her Emmy nod for 'Dropping the Soap'

If there’s any question about Jane Lynch’s range, this week should answer it. As Emmy voting begins, the three-time winner (Glee and Hollywood Game Night) is in the hunt again, this time nominated for playing the cutthroat executive producer of a failing soap opera in the hilarious short-form comedy series Dropping the Soap, and tonight, she’s portraying Janet Reno in the fourth episode of Discovery’s gripping Manhunt: Unabomber.

As you see in the clip above, in June 1995, the Attorney General meets with Don Ackerman (Chris Noth), the Bay Area Divisional Head of the FBI, to hear his recommendation on the Unabomber’s proposition: the man the audience knows is Ted Kaczynski (Paul Bettany) claims he’ll stop sending deadly mail bombs if his complete 35,000-word manifesto is printed in The New York Times or The Washington Post for all to read.

Lynch had always been an admirer of Janet Reno’s, at first because of her stature — “I’m a big girl so I was interested — I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, that’s a very tall person,'” she says — but then because of her work. “If you look at what she had on her plate during that time, she had Waco, which was a disaster for her. She had the Atlantic City Bombing. Of course she had Unabomber and Whitewater. So she had a lot of very important cases, and what I loved about her is that she took the facts where they led her, and she made some very risky decisions, especially in terms of the Unabomber case in publishing that manifesto, which could appear to the outside eye as negotiating with terrorists,” Lynch says. “It ended up working out in that the desired result occurred — somebody recognized Kaczynski’s writing, his own brother, and they were able to track him down that way. But it was a big risk.”

To prepare for the role, Lynch watched a lot of tape of Reno. “She reminded me of gym teachers I used to have with that Southern, closed-jaw kind of thing. And very much to the point. On television, she was rather flat and methodical, and there was almost no inflection in her voice. She wasn’t somebody who was born to be on-camera, that certainly wasn’t her thing, but she was all about the information she was relaying with very little emotion behind it,” she says. She also traded emails with a man who was Reno’s assistant around that time and became a lifelong friend. “He gave me some great information on her as a person. She was a real can-do person, and yet had a Southern formality about her. Very gracious, knew the right things to say, the respect for your elders — she lived that. She also had a huge laugh. She loved to laugh. She loved to put her hands on her hips and stick her belly out and throw her head back. That was her favorite laugh posture. And she had a huge, huge heart,” Lynch says.

Jane Lynch as Janet Reno in Episode 8, the season finale, of ‘Manhunt: Unabomber’ (Photo: Tina Rowden/Discovery Channel)

Even though we won’t be seeing a belly laugh in this particular story, no information goes unused. “It gets in there somehow,” she says. An example: Reno was 6’2″ or 6’3″ — two or three inches taller that Lynch — and had very long arms. “It’s almost as if the awareness of her body stopped at her elbows. She didn’t know what to do with the rest of those arms, so they kind of hung dead,” Lynch says. “She didn’t buy anything custom, of course, she didn’t have anything made, so the sleeves stopped at her mid-forearm. I had [the costume department] take up my sleeves. If it looks three-quarter it looks purposeful, so I made them a little longer than three-quarter, so that just her wrists were hanging out there, with nothing to do. And of course she didn’t think about it at all. She wore what she was supposed to wear — the suits and sometimes really bright colors, which is funny. And she wore these little flats and did not have a sense of herself from the outside in. She didn’t care.”

Jane Lynch as Janet Reno, Chris North as Don Ackerman, and Wallace Langham as Louis J. Freeh in ‘Manhunt: Unabomber’ (Photo: Tina Rowden/Discovery Channel)

Manhunt showrunner/director Greg Yaitanes — who shares Lynch’s appreciation for Reno (he made sure her office in the series is a picture-perfect recreation) and admired the amount of research Lynch did for the role — was particularly excited about seeing Lynch in a scene with Noth. “I always thought that Michael Mann missed an opportunity not having De Niro and Pacino in the same frame together in Heat. I didn’t want to miss that with Paul and Sam [Worthington, who stars as FBI profiler Jim Fitzgerald] or Jane and Chris. Here are two major TV stars,” he says of the latter, “and that power of the frame, you can feel it when they shake hands at the end of that scene.”

Lynch credits having a day of rehearsal before filming the pivotal conversation. “I can do all the work I want in my bedroom at home and figure out how she does things, what she thinks, but it doesn’t happen until you’re face-to-face with the other actor and you’re sitting in that set. The whole idea of these two coming together and the gravity of this conversation they were having was evident in that rehearsal and really informed when we shot,” she says. “[Reno] has an unquestioning authority about her, but within that authority is so much compassion and grace. And she knows the very human element of what goes into these decisions here, and like she said to Ackerman, ‘You may live to regret this.’ I know what happened at Waco was something she said she would never forget the rest of her natural life. People and children were killed as the result of her order. So she lived with that every day of her life, and yet she still went forward and continued to make the tough decisions. She wanted to pass that on to Ackerman, that she completely understood. He was close to retiring, he could very easily go the safe, tried-and-true route here, but Ackerman had the courage to say, ‘Nope, I really want to catch this guy, it’s been 17 years and we have to try something outside of the box.”

Completely switching gears for Dropping the Soap — the ensemble web series created by her friends Paul Witten, Mandy Fabian, and Kate Mines and available for viewing on iTunes, Amazon, and Google Play — Lynch takes on the role of Olivia Vanderstein, the EP who arrives to shake things up behind-the-scenes on the ratings-challenged Collided Lives. Each episode begins with a scene from Collided Lives — shot and performed with the same signature lighting and contractually-obligated close-ups — then seamlessly segues into the backstage backstabbing among the cast, led by Witten’s Julian Draker and Mines’ Kit Knockers, the woman who plays Julian’s wife on the soap and, unknowingly, his beard off of it.

“What I loved about [Olivia] is how stealthy she is, and how much joy she gets out of planting a seed that creates so much chaos,” Lynch says. “I love the little scene I have with Paul [in the premiere] where he’s in my office and the whole time he never knows if I’m on his side or not. I give him a little bit of encouragement and then I rip it away, and I do it with the same look on my face the entire time. She’s almost like my cat when my cat kills a mouse and toys with it first. So Olivia’s toying with all of them, and then of course she’ll eventually kill them.”

The 10-episode first season, which also features guest stars Diedrich Bader, John Michael Higgins, and Patrick Fabian, ends on a cliffhanger that we will not spoil because we’d like everyone to watch so the show scores a second season. “I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, but I know they have it all mapped out,” Lynch promises.

In the meantime, we do know we’ll see her on Amazon in another series: last week she wrapped a guest spot on Amy Sherman-Palladino’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. She plays Sophie Lennon, the most famous female comic of her time (the late ’50s) who crosses paths with Miriam “Midge” Maisel (House of Cards‘ Rachel Brosnahan), a young Jewish woman who’s getting a divorce and decides she wants to be a standup comic. “Of course there are very few female comics [then], but the only female comics who can make it are women who will have kind of a caricature of how ugly they are and how men don’t love them and ‘Oh, well.’ Sophie’s of that old school,” Lynch says. “She’s almost vaudevillian in that she does a joke and ‘Baboom! Baboom!’ Her signature phrase is ‘Put that on your plate!’ and she’s a stickler hausfrau from Queens. I have an encounter with Midge… and I think Midge probably decides ‘I’m not gonna go that route.'”

Manhunt: Unabomber airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on Discovery. Dropping the Soap, distributed by Glass House Distribution, is available for viewing on iTunes, Amazon, and Google Play.

Read more from Yahoo TV:

Emmys: ‘This Is Us’ star Sterling K. Brown on the meaning of his historic best actor nod and the show itself

‘Game of Thrones’ recap: Hammer Time

‘S.W.A.T.’ sneak peek: Shemar Moore gets fast and furious

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Thoughts : Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

There was a short window of time in the mid-2000s that made it seem like independent films and directors were having a renaissance in terms of popular culture.  Lots of 1990s underground heroes were starting to get into positions of power in the industry, some of the previous indie-darlings were becoming household names, and an entirely new crop of creators was getting exposure thanks to a proliferation of studio involvement.  During this time, MTv had resurfaced as a player in the film game, and one of their best offerings was the delightful and memorable Napoleon Dynamite. 

The Dynamite family, members of the Preston, Idaho community, are an odd bunch.  Brothers Napoleon (Jon Heder) and Kip (Aaron Ruell) live with their grandmother Carlinda (Sandy Martin), an older woman with a very active social life, especially in comparison to that of Napoleon (a loner with an active imagination) and Kip (a thirty-something who spends all of his free time in online chats).  When Carlinda suffers a quad-cycle accident at the sand dunes with her friends, Uncle Rico Dynamite (Jon Gries), a former high-school athlete and self-proclaimed ladies’ man, moves in to head the household, much to the dismay of Napoleon.  While Kip and Rico attempt to move forward with a door-to-door sales routine in hopes of making extra money, Napoleon befriends two students at his school : the shy Deb (Tina Majorino), and the quiet but confident transfer student Pedro (Efren Ramirez).  Due to their outcast labels, the three band together in friendship and attempt to turn the social hierarchy of their school upside-down, including setting targets on the school election and talent show specifically.  Rico, however, is managing to throw monkey-wrenches into Napoleon’s adventures via his exploits with the parents of Napoleon’s fellow students.  With Kip exploring a budding relationship, Rico continuing blindly in his selfish ways, and Napoleon attempting to raise the profile of himself and his friends, things come to a head in a myriad of unexpected and hilarious ways.

Napoleon Dynamite’s created universe, and the characters that inhabit it, seem to fall somewhere on a spectrum between Charles Schulz and John Hughes.  There are essentially only two general personality types : quirky and dominating.  Everyone on the quirky side has unique elements that make them fall under that label, while the handful of dominating characters essentially use only that trait, whether it be through intimidating force or putting out signals of attraction.  Each character has a specific ‘tick’ that is a signature for them, and over the course of the film, the main characters grow to embrace that unique thing about them, apply it in a surprising way, and gain confidence from it.  It’s a simple formula, but it is executed very well here.

As far as the characters go, their unique looks and understated (but hilarious) performances work well in tandem.  Kip and Rico play much younger than their age, while Napoleon, Pedro and Deb play true to their age.  Everyone comes off like a living, breathing cartoon or comic strip, with the exposition and events that take place happening in a seemingly episodic nature.  Hints of depth are given for each character in very subtle ways, be it Deb’s business ingenuity and artistic eye, Pedro’s love of his culture and assured nature, or Napoleon’s alpha-male characteristics he hides behind his shyness.  The dynamic between Kip and Napoleon is hard to put a finger on, as Kip seems to be the younger brother in many ways until his romantic chats manifest as a genuine and loving relationship.

Of all the transformations and moments in this film to embrace, the shining moment has to be Napoleon’s triumphant dance at the student elections.  Jamiroquai’s Canned Heat and Napoleon’s dance moves not only instantly put a smile on viewer’s face, it is a sincerely cathartic release of a movie-full (if not a theoretical lifetime) of bullying and being made fun of, like a glorious phoenix rising from the ashes that are high school social hierarchies.  The confluence of random events, from the discovery of the dance instructional video, to LaFawnduh’s gifting of the mixtape, to the fact that the student election has a talent portion, all magically lineup like a runway guiding Napoleon towards a takeoff, and a deserved one at that, as every other main character had found some sort of redemption by that moment.

Jon Heder’s iconic performance in the titular role was so good that it overshadowed him for quite a while, as the Napoleon character gained fame beyond that of its creators.  Similarly, Efren Ramirez and his incredibly laid back charismatic confidence also reached cult levels of popularity, with Vote for Pedro taking on a life of its own.  Tina Majorino is charming and equally as shy as Napoleon is at the onset, which makes their combination work extremely well.  Aaron Ruell turns in what is probably my favorite performance, with his demure presence masking some incredible sass that is unlocked courtesy of LaFawnduh’s arrival.  Jon Gries is equal parts lovable and annoying, as his inability to move past a time he regrets has literally stunted his intellectual and emotional growth, making him as endearing as he is frustrating.  Brief (but memorable) appearances by Shondrella Avery, Haylie Duff, Emily Kennard, Diedrich Bader, and Sandy Martin round out the strong cast.

Napoleon Dynamite is a movie that not only gives me guaranteed laughs with each watch, it also provides me discovery of moments I’d previously overlooked.  Like a fine, absurdist wine, this film just gets better as the years go by.