In ‘New in Town,’ Siobhan Fallon Hogan finds a role to live up to.
Words simply pour out of some people, but with Siobhan Fallon Hogan, it’s more like the spout has been left permanently on.
“I was asked to be in a scene once [on ‘Saturday Night Live’] where they asked me to do something compromising that I didn’t agree with, and these guys called me in the middle of the night, they were like, ‘You’d better do the scene!’ ‘You know what? No, I’m not doing it,’ ” she says, taking a breath somewhere in there. “Even though I knew these things would have advanced my career, I had to follow what I knew. And my father and my mother were always really supportive, they were like, ‘Good for you! You tell them no! The heck with them! Who cares?’ ”
The actress, who punctuates thoughts with short, controlled bursts of machine gun-like laughter, was a regular for the 1991-92 season of “SNL.” Currently, she appears as the wacky but good-hearted assistant Blanche in the romantic comedy “New in Town.” In it, corporate climber Lucy (Renee Zellweger) is dispatched to a small Minnesota burg ostensibly to oversee upgrades to the local factory but really to slash the workforce. Along the way, she meets a hunky labor leader (Harry Connick Jr.) and is befriended by Fallon Hogan’s character.
Vocally, Blanche inhabits the nexus of down-home, Northern, rounded O’s somewhere between Frances McDormand in “Fargo” and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (the production wrapped before Palin became a nationally recognized figure). She is part of the motherly glue holding her embattled town together, representative of what the actress praises as Middle American values.
“Being that I was raised in the Catholic faith, I am very careful about what I choose. I’ve turned down a lot of projects that . . .” she swerves into a high-pitched laugh, then snaps back on track, “could have helped me a lot financially, and I’ve quit shows because of where they were going and because I feel like I have to be a role model for my kids. So when I got this script, it was un-be-lievable to me. . . .
“You know, she starts talking about Jesus, and I thought, ‘Surely they’re going to mock this.’ It’s going to be like Tammy Faye Bakker, make a fool of the Christian woman. And as I kept turning the pages, she was more and more of a quality, strong character that was not being made fun of. So I was like, ‘I have to get this part. As God is my witness, I will not go hungry!’ ”
She rounds off with an enthusiastic chuckle. But Christianity is no laughing matter to her; it was “a huge factor” in choosing the movie.
“My faith is such a big part of my life; I’m not going around preaching, but one of the producers, one of the first nights we met, we were out to dinner [with the cast], he said, ‘You’re not a practicing Catholic, it’s just a cultural thing, right?’ And I said, ‘Nosireebob, I’m a holy roller from way back!’ And he asked me a lot of challenging questions, and so what was supposed to be this warm kind of get-together became, like, this religious debate. So sometimes I would see him and I’d say, ‘Hello, Reverend!’ ”
Another quick gust of guffaws.
Fallon Hogan doesn’t say if she prayed for more warmth while shooting during the bitter Winnipeg, Canada, winter, but she could have used it. “The scene I do with Renee on the porch where I have to cry, which I was dreading because you want to make sure your dramatic scene goes well. . . . So it goes well. And it’s 56 below zero. It’s insane.
“And the next day, the producers call us in, and in my sick mind -- my sisters always tell me I’m way too positive, my father used to say, ‘Unearned effervescence’ -- and so they call us in and I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, they’re going to give me a raise!’ And they go, ‘Guess what? The lens froze last night. We have to redo the scene!’ ”
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Where you’ve seen her
Siobhan Fallon Hogan played a Delta Delta Delta girl, among other characters, during the 1991-92 season of “Saturday Night Live.” She says good friend Chris Rock called her “Judgy Wudgy” because of all the judges she portrayed on the show. Since then, she has compiled a varied resume, including a stint as Elaine’s roommate on “Seinfeld” and a turn as the school bus driver in “Forrest Gump” (1994). She was in “Men in Black”; “The Negotiator,” with Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey (1998); and “Fever Pitch” (2005), with the other “SNL” Fallon, Jimmy, to whom she is not related. Last spring she played the birthing teacher in the Tina Fey-Amy Poehler hit “Baby Mama.”