Even with over 20 motion picture credits and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her portrayal of a Yiddish wife in Joan Micklin Silver's Hester Street, most filmgoers don't think of Carol Kane as a dramatic actress. What she is known for is her pixie voice and zany portrayals of characters such as Simka, Latka's bride-to-be on television's Taxi, or Mad Max's kvetching wife in Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride. And if the future-shock denizens of the fashion world were to reflect for a nanosecond, they might even remember that she was one of the originial '60's waifs, wearing velvet dresses and lace-up boots long before it became glamorous to do so in the '70's and, whoosh, once again her in the '90's.
My first memories of her are as the hippie girlfriend in Mike Nichols's Carnal Knowledge, as Woody Allen's first wife in Annie Hall, and as the baby-sitter in the 1979 fright-night thriller, When a Stranger Calls. Others I asked remembered her as the pregnant wife in Dog Day Afternoon, and as Jack Nicholson's prostitute in The Last Detail. A friend who was a casting director for Disney during the '80s credits her with being one of the first actresses to establish that supporting roles could be a significant draw at the box-office, and one of the few actresses to recognize that if you were talented enough to specialize, you wouldn't have to refashion yourself into a Hollywood babe to get a job. In fact, her depth and skill as an actress have earned her the sometimes limiting accolade of being a "character actress."
Her next role is that of Grandmama in Paramount's sequeal, Addams Family Values. Directed, as was the first installment, by Barry Sonnefeld, the film also stars Carol's friends Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia, Christopher Lloyd, and Joan Cusac. Carol promises that the Christmas release will have more of a story than the first movie, without sacrificing the prankishness and twisted sense of humor established in the original television series. She will also appear in Gus Van Sant's Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, and star, alongside Gene Wilder, in a TV series slated for next fall. She lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with her two pugs, George and Lola.

ANNE SKOWEY: What was it like working with Gus Van Sant on Even Cowgirls Get the Blues?
CAROL KANE: I'm just in a small scene where there are all these cameos- Ed Begley Jr., Crispin Glover, Sean Young--and we're all in this New York part of the film. But I think that Gus is really brilliant, and that's why I wanted to be in it. There are some people that I would do anything to wrok with, and he's one of them. His vision is so wild, and he commands a tremendous amount of respect. He only speaks if he has to- and when he has to. I guess, is when he gets an idea. He makes you feel that no one else could do what you're doing, which I think is a particular form of genius. I think Mike Nichols also has it. That's really a gift-- to make people feel that someone believes in you that way, you really can do anything. You can see it it their eyes when they tell you, and if they mean it, then you're free to do your work. The whole goal, always, in the work, is to be free. That's when the great stuff happens, when you're not checking yourself all the time, being critical of yourself and what other people are doing. And i think that's a great gift for a director to be able to give.
Most people think of you as a comedienne. How do you think you differ from this perception?
The main thing that I think most people are unaware of is the amount of dramatic work I've done. When I started working on Taxi is when I flipped over to comedy. I think it is slightly frustrating, because there was a long period of time where no one would even see me for a comedic role because I had done several tragic characters in a row, like the character in The Last Detail. So I was far in that one corner for a long time. And now, since I've started doing comedy, I'm completely typed as a comedy actress. But on stage I still get to do a lot of dramatic work.
You just finished a play in L.A., didn't you?
Yes, I just finished a play that Beth Henley wrote and directed called Control Freaks. Holly Hunter and Bill Pullman were also in it. I started it just after we finished shooting Addams Family Values.
What was it about?
On the simplest level, you could say it was about incest, and the remains of it. It's a four-character play--two of the characters are a brother and sister who have been lovers since they were children, and now they're grown up. And I'm the wife of the brother. It's not clear in the play if I'm aware of their incestuous relationship, but I'm aware that something is going on. But also it turns out that I'm a hooker, so it's not like I'm a very pure soul. I guess it's about survival, and a group of people that will do anything to survive- anything. Which is a very difficult position to be in, and very difficult to watch, because these characters are doing extremely horrific and vicious things. But in fact, they're just trying to stay alive. It's a very wild and very funny play, but profoundly upsetting. People were howling with laughter throughout most of it, but then they'd come backstage sobbing afterward. It's quite a brilliant play. We got a very good reception, both critically and publicly.
That's rare, especially when it seems dramatic theater is becoming obsolete.
It can't become obsolete. As long as a writer writes something, and an actor is willing to stand before a director and work on a piece.
But who theater appeals to seems to have a narrowing scope.
Well, that my be true, but that may be true of all the arts, because there's all this computer stuff. But in a way, I feel that's always been true. People who are interested in the arts and theater are such a minority. You know, when I got back from L.A., I went to see the piece Bill Irwin was in, Full Moon. People were leaping to feet with joy at the end of it, because they did the thing that was so magical, and you've never seen anything like it. It reinspired me completely to the possiblilty of what theater can do. You can always hear that Broadway is dying, and for the most part, I guess it is, with revivals of this and revivals of that. But then somewhere in the middle, you can see this exquisite littel jewel. And that's the way all art has always been. And it isn't easy, and it is discouraging, because you wade through so much mush before you see one thing like this. But you only need to see one thing like this, and you can keep going with it in your head for quite a long time. It's not supposed to be mass production. Somebody asked Beth (Henley) why she was doing this play--she produced it with a lot of her own money--and this person said, "What do you expect to get out of this?" and she said, "One perfect night in the theater." And that's true. We did this run, and maybe there was only one perfect show, which is fine. That's what it is, that's the nature of it. It's ephemeral. But Beth is right, frequently there is only one perfect night in a run, and that's enough. That's what you're going for--one perfect speech in a play. And that's what make theater different--it's not disposabe like most things in society really are.
Two years ago, you were in a series, Brooklyn Bridge, which won acclaim from critics, yet was canceled.
It was so wonderful. I don't know how that show got taken off the air. It's very difficult to figure out how. I just saw King of the Hill, Steven Soderbergh's new movie, and it was very similar in feel to Brooklyn Bridge. Anyway, Brooklyn Bridge was amazing. Every episode was like a little movie set in Brooklyn in the '50's. Beautiful writing, directing, beautiful camera work...gone. Gary Goldberg, the producer, make a book of all the letters he received from people who loved the show, and sent one to each of us. No one could believe it got canceled. But that's not the first time that's happened to me. I mean, Taxi got canceled. How could Taxi get canceled? Where were the brains behind that move? You have this genius writing--you've got Jim Brooks, Danny DeVito, Chris Lloyd, Andy Kaufman, Marilu (Henner)--all these people--Tony Danza, me. "Oh, let's get rid of this one." I mean I don't know. And that was after five years, Cheers was on 11 years. We could have gone 11 years. None of us were backing out. So how that got canceled, I don't know. And we got canceled twice. I forget which network did it first, ABC, or NBC. Wait, ABC canceled us first, and then we got an offer to from Home Box Office--which I wish to God we would have taken, because we'd probably still be going. Then NBC stepped in and said, "No, we're gonna save the show." And they put us on for a year, and they moved us six times within the first four months, and that's a sure way to slaughter a show. My theory is that they had this campaign to be the "quality network." That was the year Cheers went on. Anyway, we opened for Cheers, that's how they started us out. And I think they bought the show strictly to be a showcase for that "quality" story and then they killed it. By that time, Judd (Hirsch) and Danny (DeVito) and everybody were making a lot of money--they'd been on the show for four years. It's just disgusting, isn't it?
Your character, and Andy's, Christopher's, and Danny's are the four that stand out in my mind.
But it was the balance of all the characters that made that show work so well. But anyway, it was just so much fun, and it was so brilliant. The point of it being that I can't figure out how they decide to kill stuff, because certainly it's not quality that they make their decisions on, and not even likability. I did another show, All is Forgiven, where I played a struggling writer, and we got raves from Time magazine and others saying that it was the quality show of the year. And we even got good ratings. But that was the year that the network decided that things should take place in the home--because that was the year of Cosby--and since our show was about writing and producing a soap opera, it didn't take place in the home.
I know you and Andy Kaufman were close friends before he died. How would you describe his talent?
I think he was committed to a degree that was unimaginable. Once he had picked a character and decided what that character would do, he would never break a character if someone said, "We're going to kill you if you don't break character." He would never wink at the audience. He and I had big fights about stuff like this. A lot of the Taxi people and he had big fights, because they were enraged that he wouldn't, even between us, his fellow workeres, let this thing down and be himself. And he would not. If he had committed to a character, it would be like a parent and a child, how you would literally throw yourself in front of a train to save a character. This was also very confusing, because when he wasn't in character, he could never understand why you had trouble telling when he was joking or not. Because these things that were his characters in Taxi, they weren't jokes to him--they were living. Like, I remember when they voted that they didn't want to see him anymore on Saturday Night Live. They thought that it would be a fun thing to get the audience to vote: "Do you want to see Andy?" And everyone saw what a fabulous joke this would be, and they voted no, and he was so upset. He was completely devastated. And I called him up laughing, and when he said he was devastated, I thought he was joking. And then I realized that this guy was truly devastated. As Andy, things were really critical and serious to him. But his sense of humor was so unique that it was very hard to follow in real life--what he meant, and what he didn't mean. It's been writtten about before, but when I was first going to be on (Taxi), and I wanted to learn that language, he said he was going to take me out to dinner, and I went to pick him up, and he said "We're going to go to Mexico." Real straight, just like that. And I said to myself, "He wants to go to Mexico, he's an artist. And, OK, I'm an artist. So we'll go to Mexico." So we're in his house, and he's taking phone calls, and time is going by, and finally I said, "If we're going to go to Mexico, we'd better get going." He looked at me as if I was out of my mind.
What do you think his influences were?
I think hi sinfluences were the same that influence that character Lily Tomlin plays that has an umbrella hat. You know that character Lily plays in her act, the homeless woman who's the brilliant one? I think he's in touch--and I don't mean this at all spiritually--but I think he was a true genius in the sense that you would say to Van Gogh, "Who were your influences with the sunflower?" I don't know. I guess that's not a good analogy, because maybe Van Gogh was going insane when he painted the sunflowers. But in a sense, nobody was Andy's influence. Like that Mighty Mouse thing he came up with. He was a completely unique and indescribable artist. There's nobody like him, and there never could be, because what's to copy? He would go to the edge of the cliff every time--and if need be, maybe over it, except I don't think he was insane at all.
It was difficult separating him from his characters.
But there was a separation for him. And that's what makes explaining him difficult. He is the only one who knew what the separation was. And that's what I mean by never winking. Most of us actors let people know in some subtle way, "Watch me do this--this is me, and this is my character." After he died, I was speaking to Elayne Boosler, and I think everyone has heard about this concert that he did at Carnegie Hall where he hired school buses to wait outside. When the concert was over, he invited the audience to go over to public school, P.S. something something, to have milk and cookies. And many people did get on the buses and go have milk and cookies. And then he told those people that he would meet them the following day on the Staten Island ferry at 11, and that he would entertain them on the ferry. And a certain smaller amount of people showed up for that. And Elayne told me that his dream would have been that that one concert could have gone on for a year. And that the whole piece, the whole performance, would become an adventure, an adventure together. When I think about it, it sounds so naive, but n some ways it sounds like Peter Pan to me. The idea that things work if you believe. You can fly if you believe. And the thing about Andy's stuff is that he had to believe so completely; otherwise, why would you be expected to believe? And then if you didn't believe, it was absolutely devastating to him. It meant a great deal to him if you didn't believe. He got in fights, he got fired over the fact that people ddin't believe sometimes. Like the fight after he theoretically got hurt in the wrestling thing, and he was wearing one of the collars, and the producer trie d to tell him he couldn't wear it on the show, and he kept saying he was hurt and he had to wear it. I mean, it's a whole long story. When he died, I believed so much, and most people believed in him so much, that very few people believed he was dead. I was at the actual grave site and didn't believe it. And I would say that if you asked everybody at his grave site, that probably most of us were looking around in the crowd for him and thought that he would be there. I hate to say that, in a way, because probably that's a devastating thought for his parents. But, well, you know, many people don't believe that he's dead.
So it wouldn't be unfeasible to imagine that he faked his own death, or that he somehow escaped his death?
I think most people believe that he created it and that he was going to at a certain point, whenever he chose, come out and surprise everyone.
How did he die?
He had cancer. He was diagnosed not long after we finished Taci, and his doctors said it was the type of cancer that moved very, very fast. And within six months, he was dead.
So even though people saw him sick with a debilitating disease, they still believed that somehow, like the Phoenix, he would rise from the ashes?
Well, not that many people saw him sick, because it happened so fast. But they still do Tony Clifton nights--I'm not gonna say how that's done, but that's done every year. Tony Clifton performs every year.