Advertisement

When she’s not writing or acting

Share via

Laura Kightlinger is an extreme hyphenate: producer, actress, stand-up comic and documentarian. In addition to her consulting producer duties on NBC’s “Will & Grace,” she has a recurring role as Nurse Sheila. Her documentary “60 Spins Around the Sun” is playing at festivals, and she’s just finished a role in the movie “Kicking & Screaming” with Will Ferrell. She jokes that she and boyfriend Jack Black are “a couple in our 90s” and that she “tries to keep my cats’ 16-hour sleep schedule.” But she manages to get out of her Beachwood Canyon home to prowl her favorite neighborhoods.

Simple village life

I love to hang out in Fairfax Village, because I hung out there when it was just a street. And there’s a vintage shop that I like to poke my head into called Catwalk. I like vintage Yves Saint Laurent clothes and old Gucci bags. When I’m not snooping around for old stuff that’s priced like new stuff, I hang out at Largo. That’s my big outing. I do stand-up there, and I love the club. Flanagan, who runs the club, is this funny Irish guy. He books great acts, like Jon Brion, and a lot of comedy acts like the Naked Trucker. The stand-ups there are better than those at any other club, like Paul F. Thompkins and Reilly Newton.

Sparkly treats

There’s a place I go when I think I deserve a treat: Drucker’s jewelry shop on Vermont Avenue. They have amazing vintage jewelry from the ‘30s to the ‘70s. Paula and Setrag Drucker, they own the place, and they can custom-make anything. If I’ve ventured that far, I usually go across the street to the Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop and get the Fred Special: scrambled eggs and salmon.

Advertisement

Healthy food

Every once in a while I’ll go over to the health food store Erehwon. I don’t really care about health food. But that place I like. To me it doesn’t smell like organic sour sweat, like a lot of health food places, and I like their Wake-up Call smoothie, with ginseng and banana and peaches. And so I usually go there and stock up on things that will sit in the cupboard until the Doritos are gone.

I sometimes go skating at World on Wheels on La Brea, near Pico or Olympic. That’s when Nick Swardson is having a party. It’s a lot of stand-ups skating and maybe having a drink or two. World on Wheels seems like it might have sort of an ‘80s feel -- it defies time.

Better food

Another restaurant I like is the Beverly Hills Hotel diner. The food is amazing. And it’s just a counter. It’s diner food, but more eclectic. You can get a Reuben, but there’s also a Grosvenor, a turkey burger with cheese, avocado and Russian dressing. You could call it L.A. diner food because everything has avocado on it.

Advertisement

And Ye Rustic Inn -- they’ve got great wings. Not that I eat them. As of this year I’m strictly vegetarian.

I went to the Getty not too long ago -- that’s a friend thing to do. You pretend that you love the place and go there all the time, but it’s really only when your friends were in town. If I were a better person I’d go there more often and just sit on the grounds and read. But that’d be time away from Fairfax Village.

Advertisement