yes please(33)

The worst part of being nominated for any award is that despite your best efforts, you start to want the pudding. You spend weeks thinking about how it doesn’t matter and it’s all just an honor and then seconds before the name of the winner is announced everything inside you screams . . . “GIMME THAT PUDDING!!” Then comes the adrenaline dump, followed by shame. You didn’t even want the pudding and here you are upset that you didn’t get it. You think about all the interviews you did talking about the pudding or all the interviews you passed on because you didn’t want people to think you wanted that pudding too much. You leave the awards show hungry and confused. To combat this, I decided to distract myself in that awkward and vulnerable moment the “winner” was annouced. I decided to focus my attention on something I could control.

Bits! Bits! Bits!

The first time I was nominated for an Emmy it was for Best On-Screen Orgasm in a Dramatic Civil War Reenactment. Just kidding, it was for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy, for SNL. As would become the norm, I was included in a great group of women whose work I admire. I had an idea that we should all wear mustaches when our names were announced as nominees. Then I heard Sarah Silverman, who was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress, was planning on doing the same thing. She had even brought her own mustache with her. I chalk it up to great minds. A quick scramble ensued and I collected a series of props in hopes they would work. If I remember correctly, they consisted of some crazy glasses, an eye patch, and a monocle. You know, the things every girl must have in her purse when on the red carpet. I remember how fun it was asking the women if they wanted in on it and how quickly everyone said yes. Jane Krakowski, Kristen Wiig, Kristin Chenoweth, Elizabeth Perkins, and Vanessa Williams were all game. Since Vanessa’s name was announced last I thought it would be funny if we all did something stupid and then Vanessa just shook her head like “Hell no, I am not doing this stupid bit.” I called her from the car on the way to the show and started to feel better. First, because I had a secret, and that always feels exciting. Second, because my brain was focusing on something besides the pudding. We all did the bit, but because we didn’t let the producers know we were doing it and it was the first award of the night, they didn’t put our faces on the screen inside the auditorium, so it all kind of played to silence. This only goes to show the commitment of all those women to stick with the plan no matter what. Julia Louis-Dreyfus wanted very badly to join in even though she was in a different category, which shows you how much power distraction can hold. I ended up having a very fun night and coming to the realization that the less seriously I take these things, the better. I honestly don’t even remember who won that year. (Kristin Chenoweth.)

The following year I was breast-feeding a six-week-old Abel. I was too tired to think of bits but my hormones were telling me to just jump onstage and grab the award before they announced the winner. Luckily I had enough oxytocin floating around in my body that I didn’t care or notice who won. (Edie Falco.) Jimmy Fallon hosted and crushed. I sat in the front row and heckled like any good friend should. I then dragged my new-mama ass to the after-party with what Tina referred to as my impressive “temporary rack.” I broke my toe on the banquette I was dancing on. That’s right. ON. I acted like the blue-collar party machine I had been raised to be. Jon Hamm and I held Emmys that weren’t ours. We called ourselves losers all night and years later threw a losers party where winners had to donate money to charity to get in.

The next day this mother of two woke up with a swollen foot and hobbled to the airport. Lucky for me and deeply unlucky for him, I ran into my old friend Bradley Cooper, who was on the same flight that morning. I asked him to “escort me to my seat.” I imagined the paparazzi photos the next day lauding Cooper for helping an old and confused lady find her way.

Then came 2011, the best pudding quest yet.

A few weeks before the Emmys I was having dinner with Martha Plimpton, Andy Richter, and his wife, writer Sarah Thyre. Andy and Sarah were some of the first people I met and hung out with when I came to New York in the mid-1990s. They were already married then and had a duplex apartment where they threw great parties that brilliant writers like David Sedaris and David Rakoff attended. They were real adults at a time when I was still a struggling kid and were always generous and kind to me. At dinner, we all discussed a fun bit that could keep my mind off the pudding again. I was reminiscing about the great old bits done by Harvey Korman and Tim Conway. I had loved one particular moment when as soon as their names were called each man just immediately got out of his seat as if he had won. They stood onstage together and when the “winner” was announced they both shook Chevy Chase’s hand and sat back down. It was simple and funny and supportive and stupid—all great things. We decided that this year Martha and I, along with our fellow nominees, should do something similar, but add in a beauty pageant element. I e-mailed my fellow nominees for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Laura Linney, Edie Falco, and Melissa McCarthy, and they were all in, of course. I knew my girl Tina was down to clown, because she herself was breast-feeding at the time, and as history has shown, this is when a bitch is most likely to go OFF.

I gave the producers just the right amount of info so they could shoot our bit properly this time. We had someone buy a crown and flowers, and slowly my craving for pudding vanished again. I desperately wanted to go up onstage first because I thought the person who went up first would get the biggest laugh. But Edie Falco was first alphabetically and it seemed too grabby to ask her to switch. As luck would have it, Edie Falco e-mailed me a few days before and asked me if I would like to go onstage first. I pretended like I was doing her a favor but I was super psyched about it. Rob Lowe and Sofia Vergara read my name and I just got out of my seat and pretended I had won. Standing up there, I could feel the audience’s delight and confusion, followed by pure joy when Melissa and the other women followed suit. Everyone added her own twist. Martha Plimpton screamed like she was Miss Virginia, Laura Linney pretended to wipe lipstick off her teeth, and Tina tried to kiss Jack McBrayer. We all came up onstage and held hands like we were in the final moments of the Miss America pageant. I felt like I might die from happiness. When Melissa won, we all genuinely screamed with joy. Standing onstage being funny with those ladies was so much better than winning. I can only assume. I didn’t win. Melissa did. It doesn’t matter.