Jane Curtin Talks Aging in Hollywood, the Golden Age of Saturday Night Live and Why She's Getting Plum Roles Now

It’s like high school all over again in the new movie Queen Bees (June 11 in theaters and on demand). The Saturday Night Live and 3rd Rock From the Sun TV alum Jane Curtin, 73, plays Janet, the meanest of the “mean girls” (including Ann-Margret and LorettaDevine) who begrudgingly befriends a new arrival (EllenBurstyn) at a retirement community.

Queen Beesfeels like a rom-com for seniors.

Some people as they get older tend to retreat and not venture out into the world. But some in their 70s, 80s and 90s want relationships, companionship and people they can spend time with, trust, love and partner with. It’s a human need and it should not be restricted to a certain age group.

What was it like working with Ellen, Ann-Margret and Loretta?

They were a lot of fun and they’ve done this before, so they know what they’re doing and they’re very relaxed while they’re doing it. And not only was it those women, but French Stewart, ChristopherLloyd and Marianne Muellerleile—who had done an arc on 3rd Rock, so I got to work with her again.

Related: How Ellen Burstyn Gets Younger Every Day

Queen Bees could be Mean Girls in assisted living. What did you think when you first read the script?

That’s pretty much what it was. I thought the script was cute. It was a story that we have seen before but not in that setting, and I thought it would be a fine little movie. But for me, the appeal was I would be working with these women.

The women in this story are from a generation of women who have accomplished something; they had careers. Do you think was it harder for them to give up their independence? Did you discuss that while you were filming?

No, we didn’t talk about where we were—maybe because we were too close to it—but we shot in this wonderful, assisted-living place. It was quite extraordinary, and the people seemed very happy, but we never got to know the people. I always felt as though we were intruding in their lives, so I just wanted to make myself as small as I possibly could so as not to bother them.

You have quite an impressive career, but it all began with Saturday Night Live. What was it like to be there in the beginning?

It actually began with the Proposition, an improv group, in Cambridge [Massachusetts], so being on Saturday Night Live was like going to another improv group, only it was a more structured situation. So it wasn’t scary. It just seemed as though it was a logical progression.

How competitive was Saturday Night Live?

It was extremely competitive. And I think that’s the way [producer] Lorne Michaels liked it. He wanted us to compete, but I don’t like to compete, I’m not a fighter. Just give me the job to do and I’ll do it, and I’ll be very happy, and I’ll move on. But don’t make me compete with anybody because I just don’t want to, and I’m not good at it. But he wanted us to fight with each other for some reason. I was listening to the radio yesterday and there was a conversation about high conflict. They were talking about conflict entrepreneurs. And I think that that’s what Lorne was establishing. He was establishing himself as a conflict entrepreneur so that there would always be this tension.

But it didn’t work out quite that way for him. It did with a certain group of people, but not everybody was willing to go along with that game plan. So instead, it evolved into something else. But it was a job, and no one knew what was going to happen. All we knew was that it was our job at that time. Lorne would say things like, “You’re going to have millions and millions of people watching you. Does that bother you?” “No. I did commercials, so millions and millions of people watched me do commercials. That doesn't bother me, it’s my job. So I’m going to do it and I’m going to try and do it well, and I’m going to try and have a good time doing it.”

SNL is now one of TV’s longest-running shows. Why do you think it still works after all these years?

It’s important to have satire, especially political satire. There haven’t been many successful attempts in this country; it’s always been imported, mostly from England. Most societies do have some outlet for satire and for us, it’s Saturday Night Live.

Do you still tune in?

I don’t stay up that late. It’s just too exhausting for me!

You fell into improv. You went with a friend to her audition, but you got the gig and it changed your life. Do you think there are accidents, or it was meant to be?

If it was meant to be, it was brilliant because I couldn’t have picked it myself. I had no idea it existed. I didn’t know that improv existed when I went to audition. When I found out that it was a thing, I thought, Well, wait a minute, come on—people can actually do this for a living? And I thought, Well, that’s what I want to do, and I was there. Somebody handed me a big present. But I could never have figured it out myself. I could never have chosen that field because I didn’t even know it existed.

You went on to be part of two successful sitcoms, Kate & Allie and 3rd Rock From the Sun. Why do you think those shows worked when others don’t?

I have no idea. Maybe the chemistry of the people involved. I know Kate & Allie, I really had to be dragged kicking and screaming into that one because I hated the title, which was Two Mommies when it was broached. And I thought, Oh, God! I don’t want to do something called Two Mommies. But I had done a movie with Susan Saint James, so I knew Susan, so I knew that would be easy and fun. And then the first pilot script that I read that had been rewritten as Kate & Allie was just so much better than the thing that they had presented me with.

I didn’t know about the process because it was the first sitcom I had ever done. I didn’t know how things can drastically change from the initial phone call of, “Would you ever want to do something like…,” to the actual presentation of the show. Characters change, plots change, ages change, locations change. It can be totally different than what you were presented with, and more often than not, it’s a lot better. So, it became something that was, “OK, I’ll do it.” And when I realized that I got to work with BillyPersky, whom I also didn’t know existed and should have, and who is just such an important person in my life, I thought, Wow, this doesn’t get any better.

We were doing a half hour and it was done on videotape back at that time, so lighting didn’t really matter. When you were doing rehearsals, it took no time at all because the camera basically had to find you. There were four cameras, and you were blocking the scenes, and so you had your camera and then there were cameras for other areas. But there was one camera that followed you. So these poor cameras had to follow us wherever we were going, and we were fast. But they were fun, and they were willing to go along with the adventure. But Billy created this atmosphere where it was just a joy to go to work in the morning, and we could bring our kids and they were babies. You put the babies on the floor, and you’d work around them. It was bliss. Once we got the show really up and running, which was about a year and a half, we started doing it in three days, which is unheard of.

And perfect for a mom.

And perfect for a mom. When we actually filmed the show, we would get out at eight o’clock at night so I could go up and say goodnight to my daughter. And most nights I cooked dinner.

It was so nonthreatening. To go from Saturday Night Live, where you were threatening to people because it was such a public relations phenomenon, to Kate & Allie, which was something that was so non-threatening, and silly, and funny, and sweet, it was a perfect stepping stone for me. To go from Saturday Night Live to Kate & Allie let it be known that there is life after Saturday Night Live and you’re not scary. You’re just not a scary person, you just happen to have a job that in some way intimidates people.

Recently, you’ve played mom to funny people like Paul Rudd, Andy Samberg and Melissa McCarthy.

It’s such a joy. Paul Rudd is probably the nicest guy ever, and he’s hysterically funny just sitting in a chair. Melissa McCarthy has more heart than any human being I have ever met in my life.

You worked opposite Melissa in her Oscar-nominated performance in Can You Ever Forgive Me? What was that like?

I played her agent. She played this writer who is selling forged [letters from deceased authors]. We’re doing a scene, a book party at my apartment, and I was talking to three actors. Melissa’s character walked into the room and took a right into the dining room, and she saw this group of people that I was talking to.

We set up the scene, we rehearsed it, and they were setting the lights and we’re just standing in place. I was talking to these people and Melissa came in and she joined the group. And she said to the woman in the scene, “I’m sorry, what’s your name?” And the woman said her name and Melissa said, “Oh, my God! You’re the reason I became an actor. I was doing costumes for a theater company in New York, and they were doing a play and you were in it. And your performance made me believe, ‘That’s what I want to do. That’s exactly what I want to do.’” She said this to a woman who’s a working actress, whose been on the radar for a long time, but had really been under the radar for a long time. And you could see what Melissa did for her ego, for her pride, for her sense of self. It was so generous and warm and honest. That’s who she is. Aside from being hysterically funny and kind.

You’ve said that you’ve been getting more interesting parts these days. Why do you think that is?

I have no idea. Maybe it’s because I’ve never expected to have certain kinds of parts. I don’t see myself as one thing, so I’ve never been insulted when I’ve been offered a part. I just read some place where some actress was complaining that she was being offered grandmother parts at the age of 40. There are grandmothers who are 40. Unfortunately, they’re not very glamorous, but they exist. And I noticed that a lot of the women that I worked with when I was younger, who were just really exceptionally pretty, they never wanted to let go of that. So being older is very hard for them. So maybe it’s a question of my lack of vanity, I don’t know.

Back in the day it was, “Your career will be over by 40.”

Your career was over by the time you were 40 because back in the day you had no value as an older woman. Back in the day, I had friends who were quite accomplished actresses, and they didn’t want to play mothers because that took away their value as somebody who was attractive.

Kathleen Turner recently told Parade that she knew by the time she was 40 she was going to be doing theater because that’s where the interesting roles were for women of a certain age. And that’s what she did.

If that’s what you want to do. I love doing theater and I did a lot of theater when I was younger. But right now, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to put in that much time and effort. And, also, I’m a morning person, so doing theater is really hard.

Right, you said you can’t stay up past 10 p.m., which is why you don’t watch SNL live.

No, I can’t. I’ve done it and I love it while I’m doing it, but, my God, the process. It’s just too exhausting for me. So I’m more than happy to do two days on a movie. Just let me play, that’s all I ask.

You were in Connecticut for most of the lockdown. What did you learn during this past year about yourself?

I spent most of the time in a place where there are very few people. My husband and I are in the country and we have a big dog, so our life didn’t really change that much. We talked about it. We said he was very lucky because he had been in the National Guard, so he knew what it was like to have hardships and to make sacrifices. I had gone to boarding school, so I also knew what it was like to have to make sacrifices and that kind of stuff. So, for us, I think it was a little bit easier.

But for my daughter, who lives in Los Angeles and has kids, she and her husband, it was hard. And I just thought, I don’t know if I could have been as graceful as she was in dealing with this, especially with little kids. But, for us, it was not that different from our life, except that we didn’t get to go out to dinner and see friends, but we’d see them on Zoom.