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 30 August 2008 04:34 BST

Allison Janney - hooked on Juno

Thursday, 01 Nov 2007 17:05
Allison Janney's new movie Juno hits UK screens in February 2008.
For some, she'll forever be West Wing press secretary CJ Cregg, but in new indie movie Juno, Allison Janney is involved in a production as startling, touching and funny as anything to have ever come from the pen of Aaron Sorkin.

As Janney explained: "It's just one of the most unexpected stories about a family dealing with a teenage pregnancy and it's very touching and so unique.

"It's a story that has been told in different ways but not quite like this and I think it will be very surprising to people."

InTheNews' Lewis Bazley caught up with the acclaimed actress at the UK premiere of her new movie, with a great reception awaiting the West Wing star on the red carpet in London's West End.

It seems hard to imagine an actress forever enshrined in TV culture signing up for a script written by a former stripper and phone sex worker, but for Janney, Diablo Cody's stunning screenplay for Juno was the key to her involvement.

"I got sent the script, I was in Maine with my family over the summer and I just started the first two pages and I was hooked," she said, while nursing an injured foot after "showing off" on a trampoline.

"I just thought she's [Cody] got such a unique voice and her language and her characters are just so unlike any I've ever read before in the way they react and you think you know where she's going and she turns another corner and she's constantly surprising."

But the directing nous of Jason Reitman - son of comedy great Ivan - is a huge part of Juno's early success, Janney believes, crediting its recent award win at the Rome film festival to the combination of Reitman's direction and Cody's sparkling script.

"When I saw it for the first time in Toronto, it was just amazing how much it made me feel," she explained.

And with such a stellar cast involved - including JK Simmons, Arrested Development stars Jason Bateman and Michael Cera and bright young thing Ellen Page - the award buzz around Juno is completely justified, the 47-year-old (not that she looks it) said.

"JK was amazing to work with, he's a veteran actor and I suppose we've both been around the block a while and we both felt it was very cool to be involved in something like this," Janney said.

She added: "Ellen is kind of an old soul on a young girl and she's got a lot going on there. She's very wise and talented and very about her work. There's so many young actors out there who are about the celebrity and Ellen's about her work. She's very talented."

Though Janney was in town promoting the superb Juno, her pivotal role on Aaron Sorkin's stunning series The West Wing merits hours of questioning, whether it be the suitability of Martin Sheen for the real-life Oval Office, her own political leanings or whether the show could be resurrected since the death of John Spencer.

But with Janney eager to get inside to see the London audience's reaction to Jason Reitman's film, there's just time to quiz her about one of the series' most beloved scenes; her hilarious miming to Ronny Jordan's The Jackal in the record-breaking first series.

The actress explained the unforgettable scene's genesis: "Richard Schiff [who played White House chief of communications Toby Ziegler] and I were very silly together and we would be in our trailer for many hours waiting for the lighting to be set up.

"And we would goof around and I put on that song and I started learning all the words to it and I made Richard play the air guitar and the air trumpet and air whatever instruments were in there, and we just made ourselves laugh silly.

"And then Aaron happened to come in one night and we said 'Sit down, we got a show'. And he put it in - I had no idea he was gonna put it in the show, so it was kind of a surprise."

As far as the West Wing goes, she told reporters at the premiere that while the fans braving the October cold hadn't asked too many questions about the Emmy-winning show, but were just "appreciative fans who loved the show and were thanking me for my work on it, which is always nice to hear. I never get tired of hearing that".

After being part of one of the greatest television series ever made, it's likely to be a good while before she stops hearing that.

Lewis BazleyEnd of story


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