Megan Mullally

Actor

• Born: November 12, 1958
• Birthplace: Los Angeles, California

Contribution: Megan Mullally is an Emmy Award–winning actor best known for her role as Karen Walker in the NBC sitcom Will & Grace (1998–2006; 2017–20).

Background

Megan Mullally was born in Los Angeles, California, on November 12, 1958, to actor Carter Mullally Jr. and model Martha Mullally. The family moved to Oklahoma when Mullally was young. As a child and teenager, she danced with the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Ballet, but as she grew older, she found herself drawn to acting. Mullally graduated from Casady School in Oklahoma City in 1977. After high school, Mullally attended Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, but left to pursue an acting career before completing her degree.

Career

Mullally began her television career with roles in a number of short-lived projects. In 1986, she obtained a major role in The Ellen Burstyn Show on ABC (American Broadcasting Company), but the show only lasted thirteen episodes. Roles in the live-action shows My Life and Times and Rachel Gunn, RN as well as in the animated Fish Police followed in 1991 and 1992. Later, Mullally made guest appearances in popular sitcoms such as Seinfeld (1993) and Frasier (1997).

A lover of the theater who had performed in numerous plays in Chicago, Mullally made her Broadway debut in the 1994 revival of the musical Grease, appearing alongside actor Rosie O’Donnell. The following year, she was cast in the Broadway revival of How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, which starred Matthew Broderick.

In 1998, Mullally made her first appearance as the acid-tongued, liquor-loving socialite Karen Walker in the NBC sitcom Will & Grace. The show follows the lives of a gay lawyer named Will, played by Eric McCormack, and his best friend and roommate, a straight interior designer named Grace (Debra Messing). Despite ostensibly being employed as Grace’s assistant, Karen spends much of the series engaged in outrageous antics with Jack (Sean Hayes), the show’s other supporting character. Will & Grace became a hit, in large part because of Mullally and Hayes’s comedic interplay and timing. Mullally received two Emmy Awards and three Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards for her performance as Karen, and the show itself won the Emmy Award for outstanding comedy series in 2000.

Early in 2003, Mullally filled in for David Letterman for an episode of his late-night television show on CBS. She enjoyed the experience and soon began to consider hosting her own talk show. Mullally’s daytime talk show, The Megan Mullally Show, premiered in September 2006 on NBC. Despite Mullally’s popularity among fans of Will & Grace, the show was unable to capture an audience and was ultimately canceled after five months.

Mullally returned to the stage in 2007, starring in the Mel Brooks Broadway musical Young Frankenstein. In 2008, she joined the cast of the show Childrens Hospital, a parody of popular television hospital dramas. Mullally plays Chief, a ridiculous spoof of the Dr. Kerry Weaver character from the long-running medical drama ER. Childrens Hospital, which consists of eleven-minute episodes that air as part of the late-night Adult Swim programming block, won the Emmy Award for outstanding short-format live-action program in 2012.

Mullally next took on a supporting role in Party Down, a comedy series about waiters working for a Los Angeles catering company that premiered on the premium channel Starz in 2009. Joining the show in its second season, Mullally played a Midwestern single mother named Lydia Dunfree who is eager to learn the tricks of the trade from her coworkers, most of whom are trying to make it in show business. Party Down received poor ratings and was canceled after its second season, but it became a cult favorite after its release on DVD.

In addition to her ongoing role in Childrens Hospital, which concluded in 2016, Mullally frequently appeared in the television comedy Parks and Recreation (2009–15) as the ex-wife of the character Ron Swanson, played by her real-life husband Nick Offerman. Mullally and Offerman have performed together numerous times, and they both appear in the Offerman-produced independent film Somebody Up There Likes Me (2013) and the film The Kings of Summer (2013), which were well received. In 2014, they starred in the two-character Sharr White play Annapurna at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles.

In the mid-to-late aughts, Mullally appeared in supporting roles in a number of films, most of which received mixed or poor reception. The most notable of those were the teen comedy G.B.F. (2014), the children's book adaptation Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (2015), the parenting comedy Infinity Baby (2017), and the dramedy Oh Lucy! (2017). During that same period, she occasionally voiced characters for the television series Axe Cop, Sofia the First, and Bob's Burgers and briefly returned to the stage, starring in the 2015 Broadway production of It's Only a Play.

A decade after Will & Grace went off the air, the original cast reunited for a ten-minute-long get-out-the-vote special ahead of the 2016 US presidential election. At Mullally's behest, the show was rebooted in 2017, picking up the story from where it had left off but becoming more overtly political in tone. Extended for another two seasons, the series became the top-rated NBC sitcom by mid-season 2018.

Impact

Mullally’s scene-stealing performance as Karen Walker won her numerous awards and solidified her reputation as a comedic force with which to be reckoned. In the years after the initial end of Will & Grace, she thrived in riskier entertainment environments, appearing in shows such as Party Down and Childrens Hospital, which defy the traditional format and comedic style of network television.

Personal Life

Mullally was married to casting director Michael Katcher from 1992 to 1996. She met Offerman in Los Angeles in 2000, while they were both acting in the Charles Mee play The Berlin Circle. They married in 2003.

Principal Works

Television

Will & Grace, 1998–2006, 2017–20

The Megan Mullally Show, 2006–7

Party Down, 2010

Childrens Hospital, 2008–16

Parks and Recreation, 2009–15

Theater

Grease, 1994–98

How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, 1995–96

The Berlin Circle, 2000

Young Frankenstein, 2007–9

Annapurna, 2014

It's Only a Play, 2015

Film

Somebody Up There Likes Me, 2013

Oh Lucy!, 2018

Bibliography

Fox, Jesse David. “The History of Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally’s Awesome Marriage.” Vulture. New York Media, 29 Mar. 2013. Web. 16 Aug. 2013.

Mullally, Megan. “LAist Interview: Megan Mullally of Adult Swim’s Childrens Hospital.” Interview by Thomas Attila Lewis. LAist. Gothamist, 30 June 2011. Web. 16 Aug. 2013.

Mullally, Megan. “Megan Mullally Is Prepared to ‘Party Down’ in New Role.” Interview by Penny Soldan. NewsOK. NewsOK.com, 22 Apr. 2010. Web. 7 Aug. 2013.

Stanley, Alessandra. “Being Chatted Up, with the Whole World Watching.” New York Times. New York Times, 17 Oct. 2006. Web. 16 Aug. 2013.

Vankin, Deborah. “A Show of Love for Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 2 May 2013. Web. 16 Aug. 2013.