Jean Good’s Greatest Roles in TV Reveals Earlier than Hacks and SNLtheinsiderinsight

‘Lecturers Solely’

Good’s credited work began with the 1979 TV film Earlier than and After, and rapidly led to the short-lived comedy Lecturers Solely, on which she starred as an educator named Shari alongside Lynn Redgrave and Norman Fell.

‘Designing Girls’

On the beloved ’80s collection Designing Girls, Good starred as Charlene Frazier-Stillfield.

“It was a lot enjoyable,” she recalled of the job on a 2024 episode of The Drew Barrymore Show.

It holds a very particular place in her coronary heart, too, after a really particular visitor star had a run on set.

“I met my late husband on the present,” she shared of actor Richard Gilliland, who died in 2021. “I assumed he was actually cute. And I would watch him kissing [costar Annie Potts on screen] and I would go, ‘Oh … okay.’ At one level I requested him into my trailer to assist me with my crossword puzzle and he invited me to see a play he was doing. We have been flirting like mad with one another.”

‘Frasier’

Good gained two Emmys for her 2000-2001 visitor position as Lana Gardner on Frasier, an on-again, off-again love curiosity of Kelsey Grammer’s Frasier Crane.

“She could possibly be actually candy and charming however she had anger points,” Good recalled to Drew Barrymore of the character. “My agent stated, ‘I do know you do not wish to do visitor spots proper now however you need to learn this one.’ I learn it and stated, ‘I’ve to do that.’ The solid is simply exceptional. Kelsey and [costar David Hyde Pierce] and the ladies have been simply wonderful. I had a lot enjoyable with that character as a result of she might simply say and do something.”

’24’

“24, I believe, is actually when individuals checked out me slightly bit in another way,” Good stated in a 2023 Vanity Fair interview. Taking part in the president’s spouse, Martha Logan, “was simply wild since you’re presupposed to imagine this whole season occurred in 24 hours. By some means I discovered a method to change costumes 5 occasions inside that 24 hours. I determine she’s the primary girl, she’s allowed.”

Good obtained back-to-back Emmy nominations for her work.

‘Samantha Who?’

For 35 episodes from 2007-2009, Good performed Christina Applegate’s character Samantha’s mother, Regina Newly, on Samantha Who?, successful an Emmy within the course of.

“I believe generally individuals which are self-absorbed who don’t notice it might probably form of be humorous characters to play and watch,” Smart told the Seattle Occasions in 2009. “However I believe additionally they’ve written in a robust core of how a lot I like my daughter, even when I don’t all the time like her.”

‘Fargo’

“That was an distinctive expertise,” Smart told Vanity Fair of her Emmy-nominated time on Fargo as household matriarch Floyd Gerhardt in 2015. “That was the primary time, I believe, I would been on a present the place each aspect of that present, everyone was on their A-game, craft service to each crew member to each author, producer, solid member, costumer, everyone. I assumed the present was simply sensible and mesmerizing and the type of the present was so distinctive. Fargo grew to become not simply the identify of a metropolis anymore, Fargo was form of a way of thinking.”

‘Watchmen’

Good joined the star-studded solid of the 2019 dystopian restricted HBO Max collection Watchmen, incomes a Critics Selection Award and Emmy nomination for her half as investigator Laurie Blake. Regina King, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jeremy Irons and Louis Gossett Jr. additionally starred.

The story partially highlighted the 1921 Tulsa race bloodbath, setting itself in Eighties Tulsa, Okla., following the dynamics of legislation enforcement and vigilantes.

“It’s astonishing to assume how prophetic the present was in a method, as a result of first with the coronavirus and the concept one thing occurred that gave your complete world a typical enemy and that that might assist carry peace if we had one thing massive to struggle collectively,” Good stated in a 2020 interview with the Los Angeles Occasions. “However then it was set in opposition to a historic occasion of unbelievable brutality in opposition to the Black group. It’s simply unbelievable that [creator Damon Lindelof] wrote that proper earlier than [the COVID-19 pandemic] occurred, proper earlier than.”

‘Mare of Easttown’

Good earned Emmy and Display screen Actors Guild nominations for enjoying Kate Winslet’s mother, Helen Fahey, within the 2021 restricted collection Mare of Easttown.

“Kate Winslet, what a doll, what a dream,” Smart told Drew Barrymore.

And that bond translated to off-screen, too. In reality, when Good took an unexpectedly intense tumble on set, Winslet was at her aspect when the paramedics arrived.

“Kate was so candy … my again harm so unhealthy I assumed I would damaged it. She stated, ‘It is all proper Mummy, they’re coming Mummy.’ ”

When the paramedics had Good secured, one famous, ” ‘Boy your daughter was certain nervous about you,’ ” Good recalled. “I went, ‘What? Who? Oh no, that was an actress, she was enjoying my daughter, she simply calls me mummy. Did not you acknowledge her?’ ”

As soon as the EMT realized who he’d seen, “He went, ‘I missed Kate Winslet?!’ ” Good remembered with amusing. “I am going, ‘May you get again to the job at hand please?’ ”

‘Hacks’

Good has been on a roll enjoying comic Deborah Vance on Hacks, successful three Emmys and two Display screen Actors Guild Awards for the half up to now.

“After I learn the script, I stated, ‘That is every thing I might probably need for my subsequent job,’ ” Good informed The Hollywood Reporter in June of 2024. “However I wanted to make sure that actual stand-ups might imagine I used to be a comic book.”

“I had by no means been a comic, in order that they have been the actual litmus take a look at. And I handed, I believe!” she added.

Bonus: ‘Kim Potential’

Along with her intensive on-screen work, Good has completed voice work through the years, together with as Dr. Ann Possible, Kim’s mother on Disney’s Kim Potential and its related TV motion pictures from 2002-2007.