Allison Janney’s eight favourite movies: “I wish I’d been in this film”
Did anyone ever walk briskly down a corridor while having an important conversation before The West Wing? It’s hard to remember in all honesty, but one thing is for sure: after the White House-based political thriller aired between 1999 and 2006, almost every serious drama had a scene like that, and not many are qualified to talk about political thrillers than Allison Janney.
Not only did the American actress pick up four Emmy awards for her role as Chief of Staff CJ Cregg in The West Wing, she’s also been superb over the last few years in the Netflix hit The Diplomat, for which she also got nominated for several major awards.
That’s coming back for a third season this October, and Janney will return as Vice President Grace Penn in her role that’s going to be significantly expanded from season two. She’ll also be reunited with her West Wing co-star Bradley Whitford in the show. Netflix is taking the sensible decision that if you’re going to make a political drama, you just fill it with people who were in the best one of all time.
Janney was a Broadway actress in her early career, picking up two Tony award nominations before she landed a big role in the brilliant Sam Mendes black comedy American Beauty with Kevin Spacey in 1999. That led to The West Wing, and her performance that was so convincing, she was actually offered political pundit roles by the US Democratic Party once filming had finished.
Over the last two decades, she translated that success into a number of film and TV roles, notably the sitcom Mom, in which she played a recovering addict trying to win back her daughter, Anna Faris, and Masters of Sex opposite Michael Sheen. Both those parts won her multiple award nominations. She topped it with her ‘Best Supporting Actress’ win at the Oscars for the skating biopic I, Tonya with Margot Robbie.
This week Janney returns in The Roses, a remake of the 1989 comedy The War of the Roses starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. She’s up against the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman in the film about a powerful, wealthy couple that seem to have it all before petty squabbles over material possessions end up tearing them apart.
The original doesn’t make it into a list of Janney’s favourite all-time movies, but another Michael Douglas film does, namely Rob Reiner’s The American President, a film that would have provided fertile ground for her West Wing role, given it was penned by the show’s writer and creator, Aaron Sorkin. Janney explained, “The writer Aaron Sorkin definitely owns the White House. He wrote the screenplay for this, the best film about the President, played by Michael Douglas, with Martin Sheen as his chief of staff”.
Elsewhere, Janney picked the classic 1967 Dustin Hoffman comedy The Graduate, saying, “This is the movie I have watched the most; it made me fall in love with director Mike Nichols and everything he did. I even have the soundtrack and play it at parties because it’s brilliant.”
Another choice was Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, the 1977 romantic comedy based in New York that regularly ranks on lists of the best films ever made. Janney noted, “This film made me want to be an actress. I fell in love with Diane Keaton and decided I wanted not only to act like her but have a career and be like her.”
As well as selecting the appallingly self-absorbed and massively overrated La La Land from 2016, noting, “I thought this was a great movie about what it’s like to be an actor or artist in Hollywood”, she also chose 1980’s Coal Miner’s Daughter, explaining, “Sissy Spacek’s performance in this film is probably the one by a woman that I envy the most. It is incredible because she really sings in it”.
The 1983 Jack Nicholson starrer Oscar winner Terms of Endearment, also made the list with Janney raving, “Debra Winger is absolutely heartbreaking in this movie, and Shirley MacLaine and Jack Nicholson are hilarious together, it makes me cry and laugh at the same time”.
Janney also singled out the 2007 period drama Elizabeth: The Golden Age, gushing as well do sometimes about this actor’s performance, saying, “Every woman should see this film. Cate Blanchett’s performance, as a woman navigating a world of men as Queen Elizabeth I, is extraordinary”.
And finally, 1950’s All About Eve, followed: the film that brought together Bette Davis and Anne Baxter in a tale of obsessive fandom. Of her last pick, Janney told Net-a-porter, “I wish I’d been in this film. Everything that came out of Bette Davis’ mouth was a line worth repeating and memorising”, much like her purposeful walk through the White House set that has since captured popular imagination.
Allison Janney’s eight favourite films:
- The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967)
- All About Eve (Joseph L Mankiewicz, 1950)
- Coal Miner’s Daughter (Michael Apted, 1980)
- Terms of Endearment (James L Brooks, 1983)
- La La Land (Damien Chazelle, 2016)
- The American President (Rob Reiner, 1995)
- Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977)
- Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Shekhar Kapur, 2007)
