At 63, Jennifer Coolidge finally feels like she’s come of age. And after finding fame in Hollywood once before – only to lose it all – The White Lotus star has no intention of letting success slip through her fingers a second time!
“It was this incredible wave and my surfboard was there, and I got on. Then I got off,” recalls Jennifer of the seven years she spent riding high in Tinseltown after her scene-stealing breakthrough role as “Stifler’s mom” in 1999’s American Pie.
With follow-up parts in Zoolander and Legally Blonde, it seemed she’d cemented her place in Hollywood, but it all evaporated in 2006 – and she knows exactly how it all went wrong.
“In the end, I sabotaged myself,” admits Jennifer. “I dilly-dallied. I wanted this guy that I was obsessed with – I wanted him to like me, so I went completely off-track. With that, I wasted a lot of time and that moment passes. And God, if I could live my life over again, I wouldn’t have done what I did.
“Actually, I don’t want to say it was just one guy. It was guys. And, well, everyone wants certain things in their life at a certain time. I was trying to have relationships with men who were unavailable.
“I have huge regrets. After that I became deeply depressed for a long time.”
After 15 years in the wilderness, Jennifer made her comeback in 2021 thanks to her good pal, filmmaker Mike White, 54, creating the indelible character of Tanya McQuoid in the first two seasons of The White Lotus just for her.
She won multiple Emmys, legions of fans and a rare second chance to shine.
They may have killed Tanya off at the end of the second season, but her alter ego is alive and raring to go.
This year alone, Jennifer starred in the crime-comedy movie Riff Raff opposite Bill Murray, Ed Harris and Pete Davidson, and A Minecraft Movie with Jack Black and Jason Momoa.
Hand-in-hand with her skyrocketing career is her suddenly busy love life.
Jennifer found herself in hot demand after her saucy role in American Pie, once saying it “helped my dating life in a way that I can’t ever explain”, and joking that without it, there would be, “Like, 200 people that I would never have slept with.”
Following The White Lotus, she is again getting a lot of male attention, although this time around, it’s different.
“This is far better than American Pie because people were really sad about Tanya falling off a boat,” she tells. “These men like you better because they feel that you went through something. That show really upped my game!”
She’s yet, however, to find a special someone to share her life with.
In the past, she says, men found her intimidating.
“Their perception of your life is so much bigger and better than what it really is,” she reflects. “They somehow project a bunch of s*** onto you – that you’re usurping them or you’re doing something to them.
“I’ve never had a laid-back boyfriend that was full of joy, someone who laughs at all your shortcomings. That’s never who I choose.”
Sometimes, she says, she’s had “this good little thing going with somebody”.
But then, “You get too much permission to, you know, be you. And the thing dissolves pretty quick.”
While she’s been unlucky in love, Jennifer knows she’s got one thing right.
“I have incredible friends who I will never let go of,” she shares. “A lot of them I met in comedy and that really helps through life.
“All the bad stuff that happens, losing parents or someone breaks your heart? I at least have those really funny people to hang out with.”
Jennifer admits she didn’t exactly feel pleased when producers told her that her White Lotus character wasn’t returning for season three.
But, she tells, “You have to be a good sport about it. I whined, then just let it go.”
Instead of a door closing, she now sees it as another door opening and she’s grateful that Hollywood execs are seeing her in a new light.
“In the past, I wasn’t aggressive enough,” she muses. “If someone didn’t like me or think I was talented, I took their word for it. I didn’t have the confidence or people in my life who would say, ‘Jennifer, you can do more than play the waitress with two lines!’”
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