Allison Tolman is delighted to work in Los Angeles, on a half-hour program cheered by criticism which broadcast 18 episodes. She also feels a little guilty. “The side effect is the remorse of survivor,” explains the NBC star St. Denis Medical. “It’s strange to receive good news when nobody else in town is. You feel like you can’t talk about work.” But Tolman spoke of work on Zoom in May, revealing how his new concert as a work executioner Alex is first of all a career, the lessons of her Fargo Success and why she is still not sure that Hollywood knows what to do with her.
In the decade since you broke out with FargoWhat surprised you in what followed – in good manners and bad manners?
St. Denis Medical is now, next to FargoThe most successful project I have carried out. During all this time between the two, I was really paying attention to the projects I took. I was delighted to do the work – even if I couldn’t find something that struck again. I was doing anthologies. I was making films. I was doing shows that did not go for a single season. St. Denis is my first collection.
It’s crazy.
Isn’t it crazy? And I have been working very regularly for 10 years, and that’s a first. Yesterday I went to check the writers and bring them treats and say hello. Coming back on the lot, I said to myself: “Oh, that’s what this company is supposed to feel.” Also, after FargoI thought that more of these prestigious projects would be easier to me. But I still think people don’t really know where to put me.
This is a question that I ask many people, if they think Hollywood knows what to do with it.
I continue to make my way in things, but I have the impression that it is a failure of the imagination to think: “Could this woman be this? Could she be the villain? Could she be the stupid slut?”
I saw again Krampus During the holidays and just thought: “Why can’t Allison Tolman play a female dog more often?”
RIGHT? Let it be a slut. Leave it unbearable. I tend to be very nice – a lot of blue passes. COPS and mothers and nurses, with a few exceptions. In Why women killI was a murderer, so it was a wonderful start.
A great story in your press around the launch of the program concerned your decision to pass roles which mention the weight of a character. How many of these scripts do you get?
A lot. I think people think they are heroic to say: “This person is fat, but he’s like everyone else.” Ok, good work. Way of going. I don’t even know if it is the version of the script they send to everyone. But I got a lot of scripts where they say to themselves: “She is joufflu, she is a little empty. She is a little overweight …”
An advantage of the new concert by Allison Tolman on St. Denis Medical? Wearing scrubs to work: “Not only is it comfortable, it is less to think.”
Ron Batzdorff / NBC
“Dumpy” seems particularly wild.
It’s crazy, things that writers write – even in people’s descriptions. It is as if they had not thought far enough on the road to think: “a casting director must publish a casting notice for the big woman in the cinema”. This is the name of the character!
This story appeared for the first time in an autonomous issue in June from the Hollywood Reporter Magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
