Allison Janney's Dad Is Finally Impressed with Her Career Thanks toPalm RoyaleCostar Carol Burnett (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Photo:Steve Granitz/FilmMagic

Steve Granitz/FilmMagic

Allison Janneyvividly recalls visiting her grandmother on Long Island as a child and watching her sashay around her beach club.

“She would wear cigarette pants and have a big straw hat and her shaker of martinis with her lady friends, who were very well-appointed and definitely had money,” the actress, 64, tells PEOPLE. “I just remember thinking, ‘Am I ever going to be like that?’ ”

Allison Janney won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for ‘I, Tonya’.David Crotty/Patrick McMullan via Getty

Despite all her accolades, Janney insists it’s her current gig as Evelyn Rollins co-starring alongside veteran actressCarol Burnettthat got one particular family member’s attention. “It was just so much fun to be a part of this world that our set designer created,” she says of the show. “We had the pointy bras; all the underpinnings were what women really wore during that time."

And not to mention, the cast. “I mean, Carol Burnett literally was the reason I wanted to be an actress,” adds Janney. “My father now believes my career is legitimized because I’m working with her. It’s the first time he was like, ‘Wait, what?’”

Janney recalls first becoming curious about acting after watching her mom, who had been an actress. “She had been roommates with Eileen Brennan and Rue McClanahan. And so I was very much aware of that being an option for me,” she says.

Emma Stone and Allison Janney in ‘The Help’.© DreamWorks Studios

“I did a lot of plays in school as well. But when I got to New York and really tried in earnest to be an actress, I found it very hard because I’m so tall, and it took me a long time to get off the ground,” she says. “I did a lot of Off-Off-Off-Broadway theater and auditioning and quitting and coming back. It was a lot of lean times for me.”

As for being recognized, the actress jokes it’s been more “thinking I was being recognized when I wasn’t,” she says. Once when she was riding on the subway, “I thought, ‘Gosh, everyone’s looking at me. I must be getting too famous to ride on the subways.’”

When she got up to leave at her stop, “I looked down and my shirt was completely unbuttoned to my waist,” she recalls. “So it was more of my bra and chest hanging out. I was like, ‘All right, let’s calm down.'”

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source: people.com