The comic actress is in her element as the friend of Anne Hathaway’s ‘Bride Wars’ character: ‘I was just over in the corner, mugging it up.’
Given Kristen Johnston’s ambivalence toward marriage (“It’s an antiquated custom invented to forge two families’ fortunes together . . . just be committed in your soul; you don’t need a ring”), the comic actress might seem a strange fit for a movie about best friends, played by Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson, who immolate their relationship over conflicting wedding dates.
But then, given her “Bride Wars” character’s ambivalence toward Hathaway’s character’s concerns -- “I’m her ‘frenemy,’ ” Johnston explains -- perhaps she fits like an ugly bridesmaid’s dress.
“I’ve never met a woman like them, and if I did, I would despise her,” she says without hesitation. “But both of those [actresses] have so much natural charm, I think maybe that’s why it works. You can forgive them a lot.”
Johnston hasn’t seen the final cut but is delighted with how much of her vamping has apparently made it in: “Every character actor will tell you, ‘They cut 90% of my stuff out,’ but apparently they kept everything! I was just over in the corner, mugging it up, coming up with dumb stuff to get the crew laughing.
“But no, I personally think [nuptial mania] is ridiculous, and I hate that ‘Bridezilla’ show. I now actually refuse to be in any wedding. I’ve had to be a bridesmaid so many times. . . . After your 20th, it gets old real fast.”
When it’s posited that if the premiere is bridal-themed, she might be walked down the red carpet, she emits a brassy laugh: “That would be hell! Well, I’m going with my six favorite gays, who I’m basically married to anyway.”
So the scene stealer who hates weddings may get the best entrance.
“I’m trying, but it’s hard when you’re going to a premiere with those two knockouts, who are a million years younger. I’ll just stand in the back, where the photographers will be like, ‘Can you get out of the shot, honey?’ ”
The 41-year-old easily makes self-effacing cracks about her appearance, but recent changes to her statuesque frame caused consternation. Just after she’d opened “Love Song” on a West End London stage in December 2006, she suffered a burst ulcer. After two months in a hospital left her 60 pounds lighter, she had to deal with breathy tabloid gossip.
“It really made me look at the frivolous way I’d been living. I was always waiting for a job or waiting for this and not in my life. This is the event, right here. My life ever since ‘3rd Rock’ happened felt like it was two blocks ahead of me, always. I finally took stock of myself and where I was. Here’s the nightmare of that whole experience: They’ve been writing that I have anorexia, or a drug problem, or whatever, this [stuff] that isn’t true. I don’t diet. I don’t care. People were saying I was trying to lose weight to resuscitate a bad career.
“A lot of girls have come up to me over the years and, I guess because I’m so tall and awkward, whatever, I made it OK for them to be big. I was always proud of that. So when people were saying I was doing it intentionally, I kept thinking of those girls and wanting to say, ‘I swear to God, I got sick!’ ”
She teaches acting at New York University and is directing a student production of “Balm in Gilead,” part of a plan to become a force behind the camera.
“Basically, it’s all about being a woman, when you hit 40 -- I don’t want to get plastic surgery and do all that; I want to be in this business because I love it but without looking like a scary monster,” she says. “So I figure the only way to do that is (A) stay away from the knife and (B) produce and direct. So we’ll see. The world is my oyster; I’m just now figuring out how to get it open.”
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Where you’ve seen her
Tall (at 6 feet), husky-voiced and uninhibited, Kristen Johnston may seem like an alien, but she just played one on “3rd Rock From the Sun” (1996-2001, two Emmy wins). In “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” (1999), she was the so-bad-she’s-good Ivana Humpalot. She was Wilma in “The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas” (2000) and dropped in on HBO’s “Sex and the City” in 2004. Perhaps her best-remembered film role is as the older sister of Drew Barrymore’s reluctant wordsmith in “Music and Lyrics” (2007), in which Johnston wondered if she could have just one night with Hugh Grant’s aging pop star.