Everyone knows Jennifer Coolidge, and almost everyone loves her — or, at least, recognizes the mark her unique persona has left. Even so, her popularity and general icon status didn’t make her big Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in a Limited Series win last night any less surprising for most people. At first glance, Coolidge’s award-winning performance in the HBO anthology series The White Lotus wasn’t very different from her past roles. When looking deeper, though, this role took what Coolidge does so well and gave her the room to make it award-worthy.
For years, we’ve seen Coolidge in roles that all seemed to fit her very specific character. She’s over-the-top, eccentric, and a little confusingly bizarre. She excels at walking us carefully along the line between laughing at her and with her – most likely a deliberate pillar of her comedy. This works especially well when she also seems to be portraying this over-the-top character whenever she’s not in front of the camera. She makes us wonder whether she’s always just playing herself or whether she’s a pro at never breaking character. Either way, she’s beloved – racking up plenty of people attempting to perfect a Jennifer Coolidge impression or throwing around quotes and memes from her past roles.
For those who haven’t seen Coolidge’s performance in the first season of The White Lotus, it may be a little surprising to imagine her taking home an Emmy. This is not because Coolidge hasn’t built a successful career that’s had plenty of impact. Rather, it’s because we’ve never really seen Jennifer Coolidge playing a role that isn’t exceedingly Jennifer Coolidge — and playing yourself certainly shouldn’t make for an award-winning performance.
It’s possible that Coolidge could pull out a dramatic performance that would leave audiences amazed and riveted in a role that's totally unlike anything she’s done and sans her classic eccentricities and that iconically strange manner of speaking. That’s not what The White Lotus gave us, though. Interestingly, Coolidge’s now Emmy Award-winning role as Tanya McQuoid didn’t necessarily stray too far from her typical, niche type of character. Still, Coolidge managed to earn this Emmy win in a role that both fit in a lineup of her usual characters and also had a new kind of depth that was poignant enough to stand out from the crowd.
While the Emmys, and major awards shows in general, don’t always get things right, their choice to single out Coolidge and her costar, Murray Bartlett, for their performances among an incredible cast, was a wise one. These performances were both deeply complex portrayals of multi-faceted characters that were refreshingly real to see on screen. The White Lotus was unique and necessary, and Coolidge’s performance was representative of what made this show so successful in its message. As a dark comedy that balanced funny and disturbing uniquely well, so did Coolidge.
Still, with a role like Tanya McQuoid, a wholly self-absorbed, messy, astonishingly flaky socialite, one may wonder if Coolidge was, in fact, still playing herself, as this description does fit with her usual persona. This is an especially valid question since the show’s creator, Mike White, is a friend of Coolidge, who wrote the role specifically for her. In an interview with Deadline, Coolidge was asked which of the characters that she’s played was most like her. She doesn’t feel that her character in The White Lotus is necessarily the character she has the most in common with, but she did say, “There are a lot of things about Tanya McQuoid that are similar. Mike stole a lot of those things because he witnessed me on a trip to Africa and I know he collected a lot of my eccentric ways and put them into the show. I’m like, ‘Oh my God, am I really that bad?’”
Ultimately, whether McQuoid and Coolidge are versions of the same person is decently moot. This comes from the fact that Tanya isn’t just a peculiar, conceited rich woman. She is staying at the titular resort after traveling to Hawaii to scatter the ashes of her mother with whom she had a painfully complicated relationship. She takes the facade of a classic, seemingly vapid out-of-touch person that we’ve come to know her for and peels it back slowly, letting us see all that is, in Tanya’s own words, “the core of the onion.” At that core is pain, fear, existential confusion, and profound insecurity. This doesn’t necessarily make her character any less hateable, but it does make her feel utterly real.
Coolidge seems to have a deep understanding of all of this and how it can coexist with a blatant disregard for others and a wholly shallow facade. Coolidge hits every bit of nuance Tanya could have with both her usual mannerisms and energy and a sense of depth that is a breath of fresh air. This role proved that Coolidge is more than just a comedy icon with a specific niche; she’s an award-winning actor with a new portion of her career ahead of her.
It’s not that audiences don’t want to see more Legally Blondes – which is a good thing, considering the fact that Legally Blonde 3 is set for next year. Yet, once we’ve seen that Jennifer Coolidge is capable of more depth, we want to see more depth. As beloved as her comedy characters of the past are, Coolidge has proven that there is so much more beneath the surface, and she would do well to keep up that momentum. At 61 years old, 20 years into her TV and film career, and about to embark on Season 2 of the role that earned her the Emmy, Coolidge has done the unexpected; she’s opened the door to another room of her career that it’s safe to say no one knew existed.
Since Coolidge is the only member of the first season’s incredible cast whose character is set to come back for The White Lotus Season 2, we’re sure to see her giving her all as Tanya once again — yet we’re still craving more from her. This performance showed audiences what Jennifer Coolidge is really capable of, and not only did it get her into the award conversation – a space where she’s never really been welcome before – but it earned her a much-deserved Emmy.