Just like her indomitable Melissa Schemmenti on “Abbott Elementary,” Lisa Ann Walter is “a gal who loves a deal.” On the SAG negotiating committee, she’s pushing for the biggest one yet.
advocating for her fellow actors. Our interview began late because Walter, a member of the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee, was in a “90-minute” meeting that lasted more than two hours. “This was nothing,” she insisted, still in bright spirits.
“The actual negotiations were a solid month of eight-hour days.”Can you tell me anything about what you discussed in the meeting today?It was the negotiating committee and President Fran Drescher, and we’re just doing weekly updates so that we’re all on the same page [about what’s permitted]. “Am I allowed to go do promotion for an indie at a film fest? What’s the rule on this?” And forget about the union members — I get asked about the strike by people at the dry cleaner! This is a town that’s reliant on this industry. Listen, we are ready to go back and talk at a moment’s notice. I guess the [Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers’] strategy is to starve us out. We are in an unprecedented time in this country of Americans saying: “You know what? We get what’s been going down. People made a big load of dough, and they don’t want to share it with anybody, and enough is enough.” We’re in a hot labor summer. I understand United Auto Workers had almost as much of a positive strike authorization vote as we did. [What SAG-AFTRA is asking for], it’s not a lot, compared with their overall. It is less than 0.1 percent of the overall revenue that would solve this entire strike for the [Writers Guild of America] and SAG-AFTRA, and everyone would get their new TV shows.I imagine one of the obstacles you’ve faced as a union with your messaging, and in your personal life, is that everyone assumes actors are rich.Anybody that sees anyone on TV, here’s what they assume: that you’re a millionaire, and that a million dollars would even buy you a house in L.A. After you’ve paid your reps and the government, that buys you, maybe, a condo, if you make it consistently, and nobody is. This is why [“Abbott” co-star] Sheryl Lee Ralph and I got along so well when we first met. We were single moms raising our kids in one of the most expensive cities in America. I’m the single mom who is going to the dollar store to get things for my kid’s birthday party. I’m in Ralphs in the meat aisles with the markdowns. They think because they saw me in “The Parent Trap,” which airs every five seconds on television, I’ve got a boatload of money. That’s not how it works! And I’m one of the lucky ones. I was continuing to get jobs.Talk to me about your relationship with Sheryl. She’s on the negotiating committee with you, right?I will claim responsibility for dragging her into union service. The first day on set, the day we shot the pilot, we sat down next to each other. You know how women are: You see someone in the bathroom crying, you compliment their shoes, you’re best friends. We had a lot of similarities: being divorced, being the responsible mommy as opposed to the Disneyland dad. We just got along famously. She started talking about the streaming stuff, worrying about not getting those residuals, and I said: “You sound like the people I’m doing union service with. You should consider running. But know that if you run for anything, you’ll win.” I knew how she talked. She hadn’t given those speeches yet that everyone had seen, but I knew she could get any position. I told her to run, and now she’s vice president of the L.A. Local. Really, how we started bonding was we started talking about deals. Much like my character on the show, I’m a gal who loves a deal. She needed a car; I knew a guy. A very Melissa Schemmenti situation. I hooked her up with Ralph at Speedy Lane; she got a used BMW for $5,000. We would [shoot] on location, and there would be the outlets nearby, and she’d grab me at lunchtime. When I saw her head to the back of the store and go straight to the clearance rack, I knew she was a lifelong friend. Anything that goes down, we’re the first person the other calls — in the show, in the union. I’ll text her, “Girl,” and she’ll call me and say, “Girl.” She always leaves a voice message instead of a text. We were lucky enough that [“Abbott” creator, showrunner and star] Quinta Brunson, who is a wunderkind, made a specific point in hiring two women who were both of that age. A lot of times, the green-lighters will say: “You’ve already got one over-50. Her friend should be 35ish.” And Quinta was like, “No, these are women who have been there forever, and they need to be actresses we’ve known forever, who would have known each other for decades.”You were raised by a single mom, and money was always tight. Did you have any reservations about pursuing a career path with so little financial stability? Would you have ever been able to call your mom for money if you were running low?Oh, hell no! I was offered a senatorial scholarship to the University of Maryland because I’d been stuffing envelopes and cold-calling since it was [Maryland state senator] Victor Crawford. I was precinct captain for Jimmy Carter. But I turned it down, because I wanted to go to Catholic University. At the time, it was $4,500 a year. It was so cheap, although it didn’t seem cheap to me at the time. I’d never seen money like that. Being Sicilian, we are a pessimistic people, … yet I chose a profession where you have to be just splendidly optimistic every single day. Every day you have to get up and say: “This could be the day when the big thing happens!” I think I picked it because, when I knew the feeling that I could give to people when I was onstage — back when I was doing plays in the DMV dinner theater or at Montgomery Blair High School — the reaction that people gave me when I made them laugh or cry, there was nothing better in the world that I could offer. I learned to be an actor at Catholic, learned the Greeks and Shakespeare and Restoration comedy. That’s what I thought I would do for my whole life. I never thought I’d do stand-up and then get to star in my own TV shows and be in the movies, … but I just kept going. And through the lean years, what was great was that I knew how to be poor.What was it that you felt you knew? Was it how to live without money? A fearlessness about what it would feel like to be poor, because you’d already been through it?We were really strapped for money when I was growing up. We lived in a low-rent area of Langley Park. It was not fancy living. At Catholic, I was on my own. My mom, up until I turned 18, had a little bit of money from child support. My dad gave me $450 a year toward college. I waited tables. I always felt capable; I always felt like I could do it. … Was it scary? Sure, there are times when it was scary, when you think: “I don’t know how I’m going to make my bills this month.” But you find a way. The thing that’s really scary is losing health insurance. That only happened to me once.
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