She was murdered with a puppet, hatched and hatched with her soul inside. She also earns her own epic kill count, beheading one victim with a file of her claws, evacuating another victim, and melting the face of an unfortunate person in boiling water. And that was before she joined “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”
“At least in the 'Cucky' movie, you get stabbed in the front,” Jennifer Tilly calmly says, filming the reporter knowing this reporter while landing a rim shot.
I'm at the Margo Restaurant booth at the Marleton Hotel in Greenwich Village. It's in the afternoon and we are the only customer on the spot. Tilly wears a simple black mini dress with a low neckline that is overturned. Décolletage is the default in her wardrobe.
Choosing the Mesclan salad makes Tilly look young enough to force a double take. At age 66, she spent 40 years in the public eye. Oscar nominations made her sometimes fud the conversation and embraced victory, making it seem like Bill Clinton was president.
It was for the fascinating portrayal of gangsters and hell about Woody Allen's theatrical career in “Broadway Bullets.” As written, this role was a camp inside a parody within a million show business cliches. And it was a career keystone where the password could be “meta.”
Tilly has the trick to embodying a character who is standing above or outside of her in one way or another. Think Scream Queen Tiffany Valentine and the endlessly repeated Tiffany Valentine from the “Chucky” horror series. Think of her stylized lesbian femme fatale, Violet, in the thriller of “Bound,” which is Lana and Lily Wachevski's directorial debut. Think of her turn as a contemptuous gold dig in Jim Carrey's comedy, “The Liar.”
Perhaps we'll have to look back at the 1950s to find an actress with a career similar to Tilly. During that Beniate era, clever and beautiful women like Marilyn Monroe, Jane Mansfield and Judy Holiday were cast forever in the role of Zigle. Each had an obligation to waste much of the talent to play cartoon characters. Tilly has also been cast in the comics share. Literally, when it comes to voice work on “Monsters, Inc.”, films and “Family Guy” TV shows – yet she always tells her she's on the gags.
“Jennifer can look like a caricature of herself with her boobs and her voice and all the gems,” said Sutton Stracke, a cast member of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” and one of Ms. Tilly's closest friends. “But behind everything is a very incredible intelligence that can overwhelm you and sometimes sneak up on you quickly.”
Tilly joined the Bravo series in the current season, closing on Tuesday. For a while, she appeared as a “friend” on the show, said Andy Cohen, the franchise's host and executive producer, and he liked what he saw. “When she enters the scene, you want to see it,” he said. However, when he asked her to increase her participation, she didn't jump at the chance.
“She didn't want to do that,” Stracke said. “I was asking her to do this. They wanted her for years.”
Tilly explained that the reason for her disgust was simple. She was already a real actress. Why play a “real” housewife? “I was a character on the show,” she says. “They don't like us to say 'characters'. However, I didn't know if I wanted to commit completely. ”
The producer finally persuaded her to join as a kind of foil for Erica Girardi, Bozoma St. John and Kyle Richards. Think of her, Mr. Cohen suggested it as a carbonation for your favorite drink. “She's cook in the best possible sense,” he said.
Tilly also at the pinnacle of her career, “he made a terrible left turn and did a 'Chucky' movie,” she says. “Cate Blanchett is doing a sudden slash movie?” She decides to be a “real housewife” with the same spirit. “I thought I could take it and enjoy it,” she says. “And I had suggestions of my mortality.”
Unlike the others in the show, on their hard-made physical surfaces covered on the substrate of emotional, psychosocial and financial disruption – Tilly didn't need a gig. In addition to her impressive resume, she is so rare. He is a satisfied person. He has partnered with Phil Lack, a professional poker player who is also a man, and has won Saturn, Grado and MTV Film Awards for nearly 20 years. She is also the professional poker player herself, the owner of the World Series poker bracelet, and is a spot in the women's poker hall of fame with a career revenue of around $1 million.
There is one more detail. Tilly is rich. How rich? When his seven-year marriage with Sam Simon, the creative force behind “The Simpsons,” ended in 1991, the divorce settlement provided her with a percentage of the net income of the show's revenue. It is estimated by billions, along with revenue from the longest-running American animation series, the longest-running American sitcoms and the longest-running scripted Primetime TV series, along with related comics, video games, books and other tie-ins.
“If you hear, and hear that she owns a part of The Simpsons, it's really tasty historical information,” Cohen said.
Tilly, who stayed close to her ex-husband until she died of cancer in 2015, appears to be astounded by this twist of fate as anyone else. “No one thinks the show will last for years,” she said. “Believe me, I thank Sam every day.”
Her wealth puts her in the bracket, away from most fellow housewives. She has two adjacent homes in the expensive Bel Air district of Los Angeles. One is called the “playhouse,” which is primarily used to store wardrobes. She also owns a beach house in Malibu. She is a “ghost” and is rarely visited by her.
Unlike many celebrities who accept high-end fashion brands, courtship and brand recognition lending outfits, she buys her own haute couture dress. The luxurious jewelry she wears pays for herself.
“Jennifer is not a lender, but an owner,” said Cameron Silver, an entrepreneur who was recognized for building a market for high-end vintage clothing in Los Angeles. “When clothes are your own, when you take off your jewels at night and it's safe, as opposed to security details, it makes a huge difference.”
Also, unlike her fellow housewife, Tilly doesn't keep her humble origins a secret. “When we were little, we would move every year,” she says.
Second of four children, she was born in Los Angeles to Jennifer Ellen Chan. Her father, Harry Chang, was a used car salesman of Chinese origin. Her mother, Patricia Tilly, explained that Tilly has become a debutant hippie, and was a Canadian school teacher and stage actress. They divorced when Jennifer was young, and she was raised in the countryside of British Columbia, primarily by her mother and stepfather, John Ward.
“They told us that he painted the post office and that when he finished painting one post office, we had to go and find someone else,” she said of her stepfather. “My sister has her dark theory. She thinks they've used up the town.”
She was referring to one of her two sisters, Meg Tilly. This is also a skilled actress and Academy Award nominee who made her second career as a novelist. “We never put our friends to sleep when we were growing up,” Meg said over the phone from his home in British Columbia. “Because it's not enough for everyone to eat.”
Their common challenge, she added, was building a durable bond. The two sisters imagined that when they grew up, each would have a lot of money and open a store. Meg is a sweet that allows children with little enough money to get free candies. Jennifer dreamed of a store selling gorgeous gowns.
Cinderella has got her wish. Now she regularly travels to Europe for couture shows, wears custom Chanel and Balmain clothes, and has a considerable jewelry collection that includes a charm bracelet belonging to diamond brooch Eddie Fisher and Joan Crawford, once purchased for Elizabeth Taylor.
And there are pieces that escaped, like the Cartier Flamingo Brooch, previously owned by Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor. At the 2010 auction, Tilly was unable to take herself to offer about $2 million. “I dropped out for $800,000,” she says.
If Tilly was initially “frustrated” as “a rich thing” in season 14 of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” as “a rich thing,” she reconciled with it. “Jennifer isn't just a joke, she wrote a joke,” Cohen said.
After several tentative early episodes, she found the rhythm of comedy, the situation of aping with the studied naivete, and surrendered herself to the caricatures of the sometimes ignorant Zillionaire. In an episode involving an outing to a Caviar Caspia restaurant, she said “I think it's probably the best, so I'm just trying to order the most expensive caviar on the menu,” she said full. With her breathtaking voice and sparkly outfit, she regularly directs screen time. In reality, it can be the only valid currency on television.
“Everything I've ever been successful, I've worked,” says Tilly. Tilly will make a decision on whether to extend her stay as a real housewife beyond this week's season. “I went through college and sold a Movable Feast sandwich when I first came to Hollywood at 80 Cent.”
When the acting teacher told her she was not talented, she refused to listen. “I never believed in creating a backup plan,” she says. “That assumes you're not going to succeed.”
And if you raise your hand, you know when to bluff if you are at the core of her philosophy. “Poker is the lifelong phor,” she says. “If someone acts in one direction, they aren't necessarily.”
After many actresses whose age has been cruelly pushed away, she is busy reinventing herself as a sexy money bag with a stealthy sense of humor in the hit franchise.
“Listen, I play poker with the billionaires. “And I'll win.”
