On ABC’s “Abbott Elementary,” the hit freshman sitcom that was just renewed for a second season, Lisa Ann Walter plays the tough-talking second grade teacher. The role, she said, fits her like a glove: She knows a guy who knows a guy, not just on the show but in real life too: “Oh, that’s me!”
Walter has been heartened to see a broadcast TV network wholeheartedly support the show’s creator and star Quinta Brunson. “Having done that job, for ABC by the way, with my show ‘Life’s Work’ (which ran for a season from 1996-1997), I can tell you, it’s not always the case that people will say, ‘OK, we’ll trust her and back that.’ And they did with Quinta, a young woman of color, and I’m not going to say it’s a miracle, but it was such a blessing.”
Walter’s other credits range from “The Parent Trap” (Chessy!) to “Bruce Almighty” to “War of the Worlds,” the latter of which came to mind when she was asked to share a worst moment in her career.
My worst moment …
“So I was up for a job on ‘War of the Worlds,’ the Tom Cruise movie directed by Steven Spielberg (from 2005). And the way this went down, they set the movie up in three months because that’s when Tom and Steven had an opening in their schedules. So there wasn’t a script yet when the audition went out. They used a script from the Nicolas Cage movie ‘Matchstick Men’ where I’m like a checkout girl at a grocery store. So I did the scene. And then they went, ‘OK, now just improv like you’re a bartender.’ So I did and I was making fun of myself, like my arm fat jiggling, which I didn’t even have, but that’s the character I have in my head.
“This just came up recently and is so funny because somebody posted a picture of me on social media in an outfit that is horrifically trashy and they thought I looked sexy. And I had just come from that audition, wearing this trashy outfit, because they said the character was this trashy Jersey bartender. I still had my hair dyed white blonde from the movie ‘Shall We Dance’ with Jennifer Lopez and Richard Gere, where I was a ballroom dancer. So I was dressed trashy and then, like an idiot, I went right from the audition to the red carpet for a Maxim event afterward. That’s just a side embarrassment in this story, it’s not even the main embarrassment.
“Cut to three months later, they say, ‘You got the job and you’re going to go to New York and we don’t have a script yet.’ Oh, and I had to keep the white blonde hair. So I go to New York and they don’t know when I’m going to work. I’m telling you, I’ve never been on a movie that’s this big where they’re like, ‘We don’t know what your dates are going to be.’ So I ended up going to Atlantic City with Tony Dovolani — this is before he was on ‘Dancing with the Stars’ — to do an exhibition performance at a ballroom event. Of course, it turns out that I get word that they need me to shoot on ‘War of the Worlds’ the next day and they’re going to pick me up at 4 in the morning.
“So I get to work the next morning and I’m already nervous because a) I only got two hours sleep and b) I’m about to step on set with Tom Cruise, the biggest movie star in the world. One of the things that I did for this character, they wanted me to lean over and get Tom a beer, so I thought it would be funny if I was wearing a thong that had crystals on it, so when you bend over it was all rhinestones and trashy. They loved it.
“So Steven Spielberg comes over and now I’m shaking a little bit. Then they introduce me to Tom Cruise and my knees go a little weak. Remember, I have barely had the script, it’s not what I auditioned with. So Steven gives me direction: ‘You’re going to start at this mark, then you’re going to pick up the TV remote and go over there and then you’re going to walk back over here and get the beer out of the cooler and give it to Tom.’ And all I heard was Charlie Brown’s teacher voice in my head — ‘Wah-wah-wah’ — because all I could think was: Oh my God, Tom Cruise, oh my God, Steven Spielberg.
“You have two jobs as an actor: Say your lines and hit your mark. But I was so nervous. We start the scene, I say my line, I pick up the remote and go over to change the channel and then I just stood there frozen. I had no idea what I was supposed to do next. And I turned around and said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m up’ (meaning, she forgot her lines). And everybody stopped (laughs) and Tom Cruise goes, ‘Hey, c’mere.’
“I walk over, I’m already horrified that I messed up. And Tom goes, ‘Hey, you see that guy over there in video village? The one with the baseball cap? That’s Steven Spielberg. Steven Spielberg is the one who says cut, you don’t say cut.’
“Now, when he started that sentence, I could feel the red starting from my toes. I could feel the red going up my body, to my neck, and by the time he said ‘you don’t say cut’ my face was on fire. So now I’m not just embarrassed, you could see it. I was so convinced I had screwed the entire day up.
“Of course, he was joking! He turns around to Steven, and they’re kind of chuckling, and he goes, ‘I’m just taking piss out of you! It’s no big deal, it’s fine!’ And I’m like, ‘You’re Tom Cruise, that’s Steven Spielberg, I’m just little ol’ me — there is no piss. I have no piss. You don’t have to take anything out! I am pissless!’ And he starts laughing. They were all so nice and I was such a moron. And he’s like, ‘Please don’t worry, let’s have some fun.’
“But he was right! You don’t say cut, you keep on going. The camera wasn’t even on me! What was I thinking? It’s not all about me! I was so in my head that I was not doing my job as an actor and that is what embarrassed me.
“So we do the scene again, and then Steven comes over and says, ‘The reason you got the job is because you were so funny in your improv, so I want you to do the lines that you did back in the audition.’ Which was three months ago! And it was stuff I spouted off the top of my head. I couldn’t remember any of it.
“So God bless them, they were so concerned I was going to fall apart, Steven took one look at my face and said, ‘You know what, I’m going to get a transcript of what you said printed out and you can learn it over lunch.’ So I did and we shot it. And then Tom started improvising, kissing my hand all the way up my arm, like he was gonna try to get me to go to bed with him. They had a whole lingering shot on my dumb thong. All of it was working!
“And then this is the capper: I’m on the plane on my way home, and they called. I was like, ‘Oh Jesus, what? I screwed up. I was awful. They’re going to cut me.’ And actually it was: ‘They want to add you in a scene, you have to come back.’ And they said bring one of your four kids; I have the busiest uterus in town, so I’ve got four. My twins were too young and my son looked like a grown man, but my daughter was just getting ready to have her bat mitzvah, so I said that would be her present, she gets to be in a scene with me. So it’s the scene at the end when they’re trying to get on the boat.
“And what I didn’t realize was, they had already decided to cut my scene at the bar! They had looked at dailies and I think what they figured out was, it might make Tom’s character look like a big a-hole and a terrible father if the first five minutes of the movie you see him get off work and he’s late to meet his kids when he has them for the weekend because he’s screwing this trashy bartender (laughs). So they knew they would have to cut the scene, but they loved me, so they asked me to come back. I think my horrific embarrassment endeared me to them.”
The takeaway …
“Everybody’s had an awful moment, and if you just acknowledge it and say, ‘I’m scared, this is a crazy, overwhelming experience,’ they are most likely — unless they are complete jerks — they are going to be warm and embrace you and make it OK. So when Tom and Steven saw me being shaky and weird, they embraced me and were kind. That’s the lesson: When you see someone having a moment, if you’re just kind, it helps them through it.
“So just be honest in the moment. Acknowledge that you messed up. And then keep going. Do the best you can.
“But I can still feel the embarrassment of what I did, when I cut the scene on a Steve Spielberg film.”
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