Victoria Jackson back in comedy
By John Rogers
Associated Press
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| 'Romeo'
Co-starring Victoria Jackson 6:30 p.m. Saturdays Nickelodeon |
Not Victoria Jackson, who has suddenly returned to TV comedy after 11 years away.
"It's a strange addiction, being a performer. It's kind of like alcoholism or drugs: You need that fix," Jackson says.
So the actress, whose squeaky little-girl voice and blonde good looks endeared her to "SNL's" Generation-X viewers, is speaking by phone from Vancouver, British Columbia, where she recently wrapped 20 episodes of the Nickelodeon comedy "Romeo."
The show stars teenage rapper Lil' Romeo, along with his grown-up rapper dad Master P, and Jackson as their ditzy nanny.
When not on the set, Jackson keeps busy in nightclubs, doing a standup routine for an almost-done documentary she hopes to enter at the Sundance Film Festival.
"I think it's kind of like Jerry Seinfeld's movie 'Comedian,' except mine's more personal," the actress says. "I show my kids and I do it from a woman's point of view."
A woman who, despite 10 apparently blissful years in suburban Miami raising two daughters with her police-pilot husband, found she just couldn't stay away from show business.
Not that Jackson takes all the credit. "I was kind of thinking that the 'Romeo' job came as a gift from God," said the actress, who is deeply religious.
When the call came to audition, Jackson explained, she was in Los Angeles speaking before a group of Christians in show business.
"Which is sort of an oxymoron because there aren't any," quips Jackson, who remains as perky and funny as she was during her six seasons on "SNL."
"But there is a group of about 250 of us," she continues, "and I was telling them why Jesus is the truth, and the next day my agent says, 'Nickelodeon wants to meet with you.' I said, 'Why? I don't audition anymore. Nobody knows I'm alive.' "
The former gymnastics star and high school cheerleader brought a certain amount of controlled chaos to "Romeo," says producer Tommy Lynch, who encourages her to improvise.
"She'll go off on stuff that I can't think of and nobody else can think of, so we play her part loosely. And she always delivers," says Lynch, whose previous children's TV credits include "Caitlin's Way" and "The Secret World of Alex Mack."
Thus her character does handstands — a talent Jackson is proud to have retained at age 44 — and sometimes tries to sit in with Romeo's hip-hop group on 'uku-lele, an instrument she actually is quite accomplished on.
The improv even extended to landing her dog, Buddy, a role on the show when she walked into a scene holding him. She insists she forgot to put the six-pound Yorkie down when the director called for action, but Lynch is dubious.
"She walked into the scene holding the dog and I started laughing," he recalled. "She said, 'I didn't mean to have the dog.' I said, 'Yeah you did.' "
Her return to the comedy club circuit wasn't entirely accidental either. A few years ago, fellow "Saturday Night Live" alum Kevin Nealon asked her to open for him in Las Vegas.
She fretted she didn't have enough material to do 45 minutes, noting most of her previous standup efforts had been 10-minute bits on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson." During one, she recited poetry while standing on her hands.
She finally agreed, figuring an occasional show would represent "a way out of the housewife blues." Now she, Nealon and fellow "SNL" alums Norm MacDonald and Jon Lovitz perform together a few times a year.
She is adamant, though, that her daughters, 9 and 17, and her husband, Paul Wessel, the high school sweetheart she was reunited with during a visit to her hometown of Miami a decade ago, will always come first.
"After that, I have little goals," she says. "Like, I wrote this book. You know, during my 10 years of boredom in Miami. And I got a literary agent who liked it.
"But I got 12 letters of rejection from publishers, so I want to maybe rewrite that. It's about how I got on TV."
