| The Tonight Show with Jay Leno - 8/8/2003 |
Leno: All right, let's get right to it. My first guest, Emmy award winning actress, recently got yet another ... yet *another* Emmy nomination for her work on the popular show "Will & Grace." The season premiere is September 25th. Please welcome the lovely Megan Mullally.
Leno: You're a good- looking woman.
Megan: Oh, now.
Leno: You *are* a good looking woman.
Megan: Thanks.
Leno: I like you.
Megan: I like you, too, Jay.
Leno: You look like what a woman's supposed to look like.
Megan: Well, thanks.
Leno: That's what I like. We have these skinny little "ow!" [makes breaking motion with his hands] break-in-half super models. I don't like that.
Megan: I know. I know. I can't do that. I did that a couple of times in my life.
Leno: What's that, the super model thing?
Megan: No, no! I was real, real skinny a couple of times. But it's not really very me.
Leno: No, no, no. You're perfect, you're perfect the way you are.
Megan: Thank you.
Leno: Have you got another dog? You have a dog, don't you?
Megan: Yeah. Well, we have a poodle and we just got another -- a companion piece poodle.
Leno: A "companion piece poodle." Is that what they sell them as? Companion piece poodles?
Megan: Well, we have a nine-pound poodle and we just got a five-pound poodle. Our original poodle was a girl, this one's a boy. And his name's Elmo. And he does exhibit many more boy traits than our female that we've had for a few years. It's surprising to me. Because she's very pristine and ladylike and will never do anything untoward. And he sort of has a more boy energy. He likes to eat a lot of different unseemly items in the house. [She pauses delicately ... and the audience starts laughing]
Megan: -- you can tell where this story is going. [to the audience] See, I thought that Jay has had too many high class, very hoity-toity guests on this week. And I wanted to bring everything down a notch or two. [ Laughter ]
Leno: Well, you're doing just fine.
Megan: Okay. Good to know. So, my fiance snores like a chainsaw and I have to wear earplugs in order to catch a wink of my beauty rest, so I keep them next to the bed. Well, I was missing my earplugs. And the way that I found out why they're missing is because the little Elmo -- his five pounds -- came in to the bedroom and deposited something on -- he came in from outside, he put something on the rug and was going to eat it. And I walked over and it was an earplug that had already been in and back out --
[audience groans and laughs, Megan turns to them and says triumphantly]
-- and apparently so delicious ... he wanted it again! [ Laughter ]
Leno: You know, I must say, we have had many high-profile guests, but none this classy. [ Leno is totally cracking up here ] That is a -- that is a lovely story.
Megan: I have found 4-1/2 pair of earplugs -- that's nine earplugs.
Leno: You didn't put them back in your ear, I hope? No.
Megan: Well, I'm thrifty. [Roaring laughter ]
Leno: Now, haven't you been living at the beach? Someone said they saw you walking the sands. They saw this vision, this beautiful --
Megan: -- covered from head to toe with a hat on.
Leno: This lovely creature and they said, "I think it was Megan." I said, "Well, I heard she was living down there." Are you living at the beach?
Megan: We're not there anymore. We rented a house for two months, within which span of time I discovered that I'm not very beachy.
Leno: You're not beachy --
Megan: No, I'm not very outdoorsy, apparently. I spent most of the summer in the house. Yeah, I had a lot of adventures. The house was like, not just on the beach. It was IN the ocean.
Leno: In the ocean?
Megan: Yeah, there was no beach. I mean, the waves would come up underneath the house, you know, under the pylons. For some reason the positioning of this house was on some part of the cove, like every wave was like a freaking tsunami. So every time the wave would crash, there would be like an earthquake. So every 15 seconds there was like an earthquake in the house, which was a tiny bit disconcerting. And then I thought, "Well, I like to walk on the beach." So I would walk around to this point and this and that. And one day when I'm walking and I see -- at first I thought maybe he was resting -- but I saw a big dead seal on the beach, which was really sad. However, the thing that I thought was puzzling was there was a couple, a young guy and a girl on a beach towel not 15 feet from this big dead mammal, and I look up and they're waving at me, like, "Isn't it a pretty day?" And I'm like, "There's a big *dead seal* right there." They're putting on lotion. It was just bizarre. [Megan makes a curtain closing wave with her hand.] And, curtain. I just didn't want to be at the beach anymore.
Leno: And curtain?? That's when you know you're talking to a theater person. "And Curtain."
Megan: So then -- the sort of the capper was the power went out one day. And I was there by myself. My fiance was working on a show and he was doing a night shoot so he wasn't going to be home until 4:00 in the morning. So the power goes out and I think, "Well, maybe it will come back on before it gets dark." And it didn't. So it's almost dark, and so it's like, "Oh my god, I've got to like, make preparations." So I go running around the house trying to find, you know, like a flashlight and candles. And I found a flashlight and I found like three candles. And I'm like "There's only three candles." And so -- then I realized that I started to get like irrationally freaked out --
Leno: You?
Megan: About the fact that -- that the lights had gone out. That the lights were out. I don't know why I was in such a panic. What made me panic was that I realized that there is a big gate at the house that was just like this big thing, there's nothing you could climb up. It was just like this big wall. And it was electronic. So, you know, I was stuck in the house and no way to like, you know, I'd have to like throw a rock with a note on it over -- I didn't know what. Couldn't get my car -- the garage door wouldn't open. Couldn't get my car out. Couldn't get my car out of the gate. So I'm stuck in there. And I'm thinking, "Why am I so panicky?" This is like a touch of claustrophobia, maybe. So I go in the house. It's going to get dark there's an electric fireplace, it's one of those plastic things --
Leno: You mean a gas fireplace?
Megan: Right. A gas fireplace. I light this fire with this thing--
Leno: That's very good, with the lighter?
Megan: Yeah, with the lighter.
Leno: Well, that's thinking. You're using -- so you light it.
Megan: [Getting excited ... waving her hands and totally cracking up] No, wait! Wait! It gets worse! So I light the fire with the lighter and then I'm like, "Now, how am I going to light the candles?" And I'm racing through the house, tearing open drawers and throwing things out of closets, looking for matches ... and I had just lit the fire with the thing!!! And then I was like, "How did I light the fire?" So then l took the thing and lit the candles. I just was like in a panic.
Leno: Can I ask you a question? Oh ... go ahead.
Megan: I'm like, "It's dark, and I can't get out." So -- [explaining] I don't go to bed when I'm on vacation until like 3:00 in the morning. So I'm like, "I'm not going to sit he in the dark until 3:00 in the morning with these dogs." And blah blah. So I call a cab company. So I'm like, [mimes talking on the phone] "You have to come and get me. And it's a *situation* and I have two small dogs and we're coming over the gate."
Leno: [Laughing] Dogs aren't afraid of the dark! Did they have to go with you?
Megan: [During this part Megan starts laughing so hard at one point she can hardly speak and Leno is rolling ... and she's acting each segment out and sounding a bit like Molly Shannon at one point!] Oh, they don't care! LOL So I finally -- I need a ladder. And I finally find this ladder. And it's like 15 feet high and it's really heavy and it's in the corner of the garage, which the door won't open. So I carry the ladder through the garage and, like, through the kitchen and through the dining room, through the den, through the hallway, open the front door, like down the sidewalk and put it at the gate. And open it up and it's really hard for me to open because it's so big. So I run in and I get, I get like, provisions and I get all of our clothes. And I get everything. And I'm sweating. It took me two hours. Two hours!! And I was drenched in sweat. And I get every little thing out by the ladder and I'm waiting for the cab to come. ---- Oh! And the other thing was my cell phone wouldn't charge unless I was *in* the car. And I'm like, "I'm going to be asphyxiated."
Leno: [Totally cracking up and laying his head on the desk in disbelief.] You're running the car with the garage shut to charge your cell phone??! [More laughter ] How did you get here today? [ Laughter ] Well, continue. What happened then? What happened then? [audience laughs]
Megan: So I get everything out there and I'm all sweaty. At one point I had gotten Nick on the phone. But the reception's bad at the beach. So he was like, "I can't hear you." I was literally like, I was screaming so loud. Who would have thought -- like I was in a fire. I mean, nothing bad was happening but I was totally panic stricken. So, finally, of course, the predictable end of the story, is I get everything out there and everything's all ready and I'm all sweaty, and the cab pulls up, and I can hear it on the other side of the big wall -- I mean, I'm going to climb up this ladder, you understand, to this gate that's like this high and I'm going to pass two dogs and some bags and myself over the thing into a cab driver's arms. THAT's my plan! [ laughter ] So the second the cab pulls up, all the lights come back on, and it's like ... BOOM! It's like Broadway -- 500 lights come on. I got so mad. So I paid the guy and I left anyway.
Leno: That's a lovely, lovely story. [Lots of applause] It's a wonderful story. Why, that's like a lifetime movie of the week. "Trapped: The Megan Mullally Story." It could be one of those things --
Megan: It was like "Escape from Malibu." I don't know why it seemed so important.
Leno: So the last time we were here, we talked about -- we're out of time. That's a great story. Now, you have to come back again.
Megan: I will.
Leno: Come back again, we'll talk some more.
Megan: Absolutely.
Leno: Megan Mullally. Be right back with Shia laBeouf right after this.
In The Motherhood
