ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, November 11, 1996 TAG: 9611120143
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRAZIER MOORE ASSOCIATED PRESS
See the struggling young actress on her way to an audition. See her wondering what she'll do.
You see, it's an audition for a new sketch-comedy series, and she's never done sketch comedy before. They told her: Bring in your best five characters. But she doesn't have any characters.
``So when I got there, I just did people I know.'' Guess what? She got the job. ``I'm the luckiest person alive.''
On the other hand, ``Mad TV'' was pretty lucky to land Nicole Sullivan, and the good fortune extends to viewers catching up to her on Fox Broadcasting's answer to ``Saturday Night Live,'' now in its second season airing Saturdays at 11 p.m.
The breakout member of ``Mad TV's'' eight-player ensemble, Sullivan approaches her job not like a sketch-comedy performer with a background in improv clubs, but as an actress who, now 26, performed on- and off-Broadway in her native Manhattan, attended London's British American Dramatic Academy, and majored in theater at Northwestern University.
On ``Mad TV'' she has impersonated Alicia Silverstone, Drew Barrymore, Mia Farrow, and Kathie Lee Gifford plugging her movie ``No Sweat'' (``the REAL story about what happened in those garment factories'').
Sullivan's original characters include nose-ringed, sullen Amy, one of the co-anchors of ``Gen-X News,'' and, even better, the ``Vancome Lady,'' scheduled to be back for a sketch on this week's show.
First seen in a department store selling cosmetics - hence the twist on ``Lancome'' - she thrives on withholding assistance with a hiss of phony regret that sounds something like ``shaaaaaaaah.''
``I came up with her on the way to my audition,'' Sullivan says. ``She's real passive-aggressive, says rude things while smiling, just like this boss I used to have, and like the women behind the makeup counter at Skokie Mall when I went to Northwestern. Makeup women always make you feel stupid.''
She's just making an observation, yet you can't help but laugh.
Something about Sullivan, she makes you laugh. With a blend of New York edge and gosh-dern niceness, she speaks in quick little bursts, her doll-face looks seldom at rest as she nods affirmingly, knits her brow, scrunches her mouth, rolls her enormous eyes, all to help her make her point. A point that, more often than not, comes out funny.
Was she always funny?
``I don't THINK I was,'' she hedges. ``I'm still not sure I am. But I have a good sense of humor.''
Distinction noted.
But how does Sullivan, lacking all the standard prerequisites to be a TV sketch-comedy star, explain her standout appeal? ``Approachability'' is her theory.
``If you have approachability,'' she says, ``people will root for you.''
She reels off a diverse list of comedians including Harvey Korman, the Smothers Brothers and Gilda Radner - ``people you want to hang out with, have a beer with. Approachability!''
In her case, is this approachability by design?
``I think it just sort of happened,'' Sullivan says. ``Believe it or not, I don't scare many people.''
Still, she tears into comedy in an almost frighteningly serious way.
``I can't afford not to,'' she says. ``I'm not Jim Carrey. What I do is act well. I'm a good actress. What I have to do is figure out how to make my good acting funny.
``On the show, I'm trying to learn the science. Comedy is a mathematical thing. There are ways to place lines where you're going to get a laugh, and ways to place lines where you won't. There are very specific ways to do things, and I'm picking up on that.
``Rehearsing a sketch, my director and I had an argument over what was funnier: `vest' or `smock.' We decided `smock' was funnier.''
Why? ``Just because,'' she explains, not so scientifically.
She says all the right things about wanting to stay on ``Mad TV'' as long as she can, about loving her fellow cast members (``they're so talented''), then winsomely adds, ``I love television, I really do. I know that sounds dorky.
``I have a great job! I can pay my rent now! Although - oops, I haven't, and it's the third.''
She rolls those eyes.
``In my mind, I'm still the loser-girl who was temping in a basement a year and a half ago, with $20 in the bank. Now I still have $20 in the bank but I have a lot of nice clothes!''
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Nicole Sullivan of Fox's "Mad TV": ``On the show,by CNBI'm trying to learn the science. Comedy is a mathematical thing.
There are ways to place lines where you're going to get a laugh, and
ways to place lines where you won't. There are very specific ways to
do things, and I'm picking up on that." color.