Whatever works

In Christopher Guest’s new film “A Mighty Wind,” three past-their-prime folk groups reunite for one strange night in New York City to celebrate the music that almost made them famous. Jane Lynch’s untethered performance as Laurie Bohner, a former porn star whose self-developed religion relies on “color vibration” -- and who helps lead a squeaky-clean “neuftet” called the New Main Singers -- is right at home with the film’s coterie of improv champs.

She starred in Guest’s “Best in Show” and with Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Collateral Damage,” and her recurring roles in top-rated television shows such as “The West Wing” and “Judging Amy,” along with guest roles on “Frasier,” “The Gilmore Girls” and “The Division,” make her, as she puts it, an “extracurricular working stiff.”

I have a feeling it’s hard not to shine in a Christopher Guest movie.

Without question it’s true. He makes it so easy. People come in waiting to laugh, and everyone leaves their cynical hats at the door. That’s all Christopher Guest. He’s constitutionally incapable of doing anything outside his own realm -- he just can’t do it, he cannot fake it. He’s the king.

Is it true Guest gives skeleton sketches of roles, and you improvise everything? Isn’t that tough on actors?

We [she and John Michael Higgins, who plays husband Terry Bohner] had lunch with Christopher, and he told me, “You’re going to be an ex-porno star who worships color -- go with it!” They really roll the cameras -- and you just go. There’s no rehearsal. How it works out is, the stuff that’s your best is the easiest, and it’s the stuff right off the top of your head.

Laurie has no shame about her life. She set out early to separate from any family ties that would keep her from expressing her truth about her nature, which is that she just loves experiences -- she piles them up. Being a porn star was one wonderful experience. She got really good at it, had a specialty, had a lovely career that had a natural arc to it, and as she started to get a little older, she found another specialty that would keep her well-employed. And then she kind of effortlessly slipped into the folk music scene.

Who are the New Main Street Singers?

We’re anti-folk. We’re clean, everything’s very in line, there’s very little singing songs about the Spanish Revolution. We have very little to say -- it’s about feeling good. “Ain’t Never Did No Wandering” is a song about a guy who does nothing: “The Highway’s just one big road and it goes from here to there.” But I kind of am that way -- attracted to clean -- anyway. As a kid I loved watching “The Brady Bunch,” and Paul McCartney was my favorite Beatle.

In fact, you played the theatrical role of Carol Brady in “The Real Live Brady Bunch” at the Westwood [now Geffen] Playhouse.

Yeah, and it was fun going back to New York [“The Real Live Brady Bunch” played at the Village Gate], where I had walked the streets depressed and fat at 24. I grew up in a South Side suburb of Chicago and had my graduate degree from Cornell, and there I was, working meaningless jobs. I went home, worked in theater and after “The Brady Bunch” got an agent. I moved to L.A. and decided, “Hey, I might just be able to do this.”

Since you’re so comfortable with improvisation, would you ever consider a reality show?

My [ABC] show “MDs” [she played Nurse Poole] got pulled off the air and replaced by “I Am a Celebrity Mole.” It was worth the humiliation just to be able to say that. I think it’s a lot like the Romans watching people being torn apart by the lions, this love of embarrassment and humiliation. I guess it has a lot to say about the times we’re living in right now.

-- Janet Kinosian