Steven Prusakowski
People like to throw around the term “icon” today. In most situations it feels overused and without merit. But, if you’re talking about Carol Kane, then the title is 100% appropriate. The actress first caught everyone’s attention with a guest spot in the 1970s comedy classic Taxi, where her work quickly made her a standout and an awards winner.
Quite impressive for someone who had never worked in comedy before, especially when you consider the talented comedic ensemble she was worked with: Christopher Lloyd, Marilu Henner, Judd Hirsch, Andy Kaufman, Tony Danza and Danny DeVito.
The actress sat down with the TV Topics podcast to talk about her time on Taxi, which she looks back upon incredibly fondly. While we chatted about Taxi quite a bit, it wasn’t the main focus of the conversation. (Listen in its entirety below.)
After more than 40 years, Kane and DeVito finally shared the screen again when she agreed to do a guest spot on FX’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The episode of the wildly irreverent series, titled “The Golden Bachelor Live,” revolves around the ABC reality show The Bachelor, this time with DeVito’s character, Frank, looking for love and all of its benefits (wink wink).
One of the suitors, Sam (played by Kane), quickly comments upon meeting him that she had “boils better looking than him.” The witty comments start there but continue throughout the episode. For the actress, taking on the role was a decision based on trust. She has stayed in touch with much of the Taxi cast since its cancellation in 1983, and when she got the call from Danny DeVito, she was all in.
“It was like a gift. In that episode I think we’re both pretty serious for a lot of it. I like that I was chosen to be the golden bachelor. We’ve always been in touch. I’ve always been part of his family and I felt real complete trust in him. Which is how I was able to do what I did,” shared Kane. “I could look into his eyes and just speak the truth to him and that has a lot to do with who he is. You can see it in that. Right in that scene where I leave. You can see the vulnerability of Danny.”
It would not be an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia without a healthy dose of crude humor, and this episode is no exception. Kane was a fan of the series and the script and decided to share it with her trusted advisor, her mother.
“I think it’s hilarious, and of course, I love Danny so much that I’ll follow whatever he’s doing,” explained Kane. “The writing is so raunchy if you just read it on the page. And my mother’s a brilliant woman. I frequently will let her read the script that I’ve been offered. I showed her the Always Sunny script, and she said, ‘Well, honey, why would you do this? I guess it’s just for Danny… but why would you do it, because it reads so dirty?’
Kane could see past the crude exterior and see the spirit of the episode underneath it all. The results are something special, an episode that is both sweet and even touching, with a moving character revieal by Kane’s Sam about not being seen while also giving off vibes of a classic Hollywood romance, not exactly what you expect from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Of course there is no shortage of humor mixed in and Kane dives in without hesitation to add to the trademark inappropriate laughs. For an actress whose career launched when she was Oscar-nominated for the drama Hester Street, the ironic thing is she never considered herself funny and wasn’t even sure why she was asked to be on the hit comedy Taxi.
That did not stop her from taking on the challenge. For the dramatically trained actress, it was a welcome wake-up call, where she learned quickly about the ins and outs of comedy and sitcoms. Kane received some good advice from James L. Brooks while making Taxi.
“The writing and the acting were so honest. Jim Brooks I remember when I did my first one I was kind of had my nose in the air because I had never done TV and I was in the movies and in those days there was discrimination – movie people didn’t do TV,” confessed Kane. “Then in the second episode, I figured out how brilliant Taxi was. Jim just said, ‘You don’t try and be funny. If we wrote it funny, it’ll be funny. And if we didn’t write it funny, then we have to fix it.’ It was really a revelation. Don’t try to be funny on a comedy.”
We can safely say that advice worked. Kane’s performance as Simka earned her an upgrade to series regular and two Emmy Awards. This is echoed with her work on Always Sunny… where Kane’s hilarious and emotional performance has extended her guest role with future appearances.
During our conversation, the beloved actress spoke warmly about the TV she loved from classics like I Love Lucy (she graced us with a rendition of the theme song a la Vincent D’Onofrio) and shared memories from her time on Taxi, especially working with the unpredictable and often tough-to-read Andy Kaufman, admitting, “I’m pretty sure that none of us on Taxi knew the real Andy. I don’t feel that we were part of his personal life. I’m pretty sure that’s true.”
With this unusual disconnect it was important for Kane, whose preparation was very different from Kaufman’s approach to find that connection. She preferred to rehearse frequently while Kaufman feared it would dull his performance, leaving Kane to work with a stand-in during rehearsals.
Every week on show night, Carol would have to confront Andy about his refusal to rehearse, pulling him into a dressing room where they had nearly the same conversation each time, almost as if role playing, her expressing frustration at needing rehearsal as a theater actress, and him calmly explaining why he couldn’t work that way.
“He was so generous with me and teaching me the language and you know, so inventive and creative,” recalled Kane. “But the great thing was that we could have this talk so that we understood each other… and by the end of the talk we were together.” It is just one one the fascinating shared Taxi memories fans will enjoy from our conversation. Be sure to listen to the full episode of TV Topics for much more.
Carol started to make us laugh over four decades ago and continues to do so with comedic performances across film and television: from abusing Bill Murray on the set of Scrooged as the Ghost of Christmas Past, to her sidesplitting work on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (a series she wished hadn’t ended so abruptly), and of course her time on Taxi and Always Sunny. She shared so much about her work and her TV viewing.
It was an honor to have such a wonderful, insightful conversation with a TV icon… and I do not use the term lightly.
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