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When the SAG-AFTRA actors’ strike stalled Quinta Brunson’s Emmy-winning sitcom Abbott Elementary, Lisa Ann Walter (who plays Philadelphia public schoolteacher Melissa Schemmenti on the show) did what any resourceful, union-championing teacher would: She started organizing.
The veteran actor and comedian now serves on the strike negotiating committee and convinced her Abbott Elementary co-star Sheryl Lee Ralph to become a union rep as well. “I dragged her into union service,” Walter tells WW. “I was like, ‘Sheryl, you’ll get elected to any position you run for.’”
Now, with the strike well into its second month, Walter is also spending time back where her show business career began—performing standup, including a three-night engagement (Sept. 1-3) at Portland’s Helium Comedy Club.
When we caught up with Walter, she couldn’t openly discuss “struck work”—i.e., specific shows and movies—like Abbott Elementary or her breakout role as the wisecracking nanny Chessy in The Parent Trap (1998). So, instead, we spoke to Walter about her views on the strike’s urgency, her roots in ‘80s standup and the character actors who inspired her career.
WW: Through all your standup tours in the ‘80s and ‘90s, you never made it to Portland, huh?
Lisa Ann Walter: No, it’s wild. It was three states I’d never been to. It was Oregon, Alaska, and there was one more state…like North and South Dakota? I’m counting that as one state. That’s not nice. What’s the local delicacy in Portland?
Oh, you know, the doughnuts are always a thing.
As long as you’re not putting lavender in them. I’m OK with a bacon maple doughnut. But you start putting Fabuloso in the treat, nope. Big bag of “nope.”
So I was watching old clips of your standup from different eras.
So many different hair colors!
What was the landscape like when you started?
I started doing standup as a young mother. My son was a year old when I started, my first right out of college. There weren’t really moms doing standup; there were barely women! It was maybe 25 or 30 of us across the entire country.
And my act was very particular in that I was talking about why guys think that we’re bitches because of, you know, that time of the month. No! We’re bitches all the time because we’re trying to do it all. We’re trying to raise a family, find a cure for cancer, and have a flat stomach.
So I toured the whole country, except Portland [laughs]. I had so many people come up and say, “It feels like you’re the voice inside my head.” And that was incredibly gratifying.
You’re on the negotiating committee for the SAG-AFTRA strike. What have been your most significant takeaways from that experience?
If a corporation is making a gazillion dollars but not sharing any of that largesse with their people—only the people at the very top—it creates an inequity that eventually is a bad business model. It’s not workable, not sustainable, because you eliminate the middle class. It’s the same with actors. It’s a community of people who are barely eking out a living. Eighty-seven percent of us don’t make the $26,000 [a year] to achieve health care and pension contributions.
My affinity toward [unions] is based in that belief that there should be a basic fairness in how we operate, and I realize that sounds like unicorn dreams when we’re talking about corporate America, but I don’t think I’m breaking any ground here when I say that corporate greed has gotten way the hell out of control.
You’re one of those character actors, particularly for millennials, who always brings joy when you pop up in movies and TV. Who were those character actors for you growing up?
The ones I modeled my career after were Eve Arden and Thelma Ritter—the people who were secondary characters, fast-talking, quick-witted, sharp, overly sexual. Those were the fun parts! I was always a big fan of Rhoda [Valerie Harper on The Mary Tyler Moore Show]. She was the show to me.
SEE IT: Lisa Ann Walter performs at Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 503-583-8464, portland.heliumcomedy.com. 7 and 9:30 pm Friday, 6 and 8:30 pm Saturday, and 7 pm Sunday, Sept. 1-3. $30-$42. 21+.