Mary Lynn Rajskub Is Ready to Spill All Her Hollywood Secrets
You know Mary Lynn Rajskub’s face even if you don’t necessarily recognize her name. That conflict is at the center of her new book of essays about an unconventional career that started with cult comedies like Mr. Show and The Larry Sanders Show and took an unexpected swerve into drama with her role as Chloe O’Brian on Fox’s 24.
In this episode of The Last Laugh podcast, Rajskub shares wild stories from her Hollywood journey, including what she learned about acting from Garry Shandling, her make-out scene with Tom Cruise that was cut out of Magnolia, the origins of her Gail the Snail character on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, a very public and unwanted kiss from Rush Limbaugh, and why she’s “not sure what happened” to her insurrectionist co-star Jay Johnston.
“I was on the most popular show that was on television at the time,” Rajskub says of 24, which she joined in its third season as Jack Bauer’s resident computer genius nearly two decades ago, and stayed on through a 2014 reboot. “And then cut to 10 years later, when I’m a road comic just by myself in these clubs,” she adds, explaining that the audience is often split between casual comedy fans and 24 fanatics who bring along their DVD box sets for her to autograph.