Jane Krakowski is best known for her role as Jenna Maroney in the comedy series 30 Rock but viewers first came to know her in Ally McBeal, for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, in 1999. She also starred in the Netflix comedy series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

Krakowski has also appeared on the big screen in such movies as National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983), The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000), Ice Age (2002), Alfie (2004), The Season (2006), Pixels (2015), and The Willoughbys (2020).

Her stage work has garnered a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance on Broadway in the revival of Nine (2003), and she earned Tony nods for Grand Hotel (1989) and She Loves Me (2016). She also received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for the revival of Guys and Dolls on the West End, in 2005.

Now in the Apple series, Dickinson, which is well into its second season, Krakowski plays Mrs. Dickinson, the mother of Emily Dickinson (Hailee Steinfeld). 

Can you talk a little about how Mrs. Dickinson has evolved and how her relationship with her daughter, Emily, has changed?

We have a greater understanding of Mrs. Dickinson and my favorite part is that she showed us that she can actually be a good mom to Emily. I love that she helps Emily, and she understands that she’s never going to follow the traditional trajectory that I think Mrs. D senior would have wanted for Emily D Jr., but she can still be a good mom to her and love her, letting her be the woman that she’s going to be. Season Two also shows a bit more vulnerability.  She was so hard on Emily in Season One, as were both parents. 

Do you think utilizing modern language helps attract younger viewers?

Well, creatively that is one of the things that drew me to the project initially. I loved the idea that we were using Emily Dickinson’s life, work and times as a fun-house mirror, as a reflection of what’s going on in the world today. Obviously, I was incredibly inspired by the genius that is Hamilton and it definitely hit that same sensibility mark for me using history and factual characters but putting a modern slant on it. Dickinson is this weird combo where it’s a mix of comedy and drama and a mix of facts and fiction. It’s obviously quite slavish to the design and costumes and look and wardrobe of the time period, but then the modern-day language and modern-day music has its fun and puts a lot of ease back into the time period. 

How much do the costumes inform your role?

So much, so much.  I find the costumes so beautiful and the look of the show so beautiful, even the sort of bleak color tone of New England winter, which is filmed in New York winter, but the icy look of it all I think is so beautiful to watch and it’s filmed so beautifully.

And from one extreme to the other, you’re hosting the game show, Name That Tune.  How did that come about?

I’ve always been a big fan of Name That Tune. I was having a brainstorming conversation with my agents and my publicists and I was thinking about what game show would be fun to work on. ‘I would love to do a game show,’ I said to them, and we hit on Name That Tune. We looked to see where it was and who owned it, and it was actually being rebooted by Fox at the time. And so, I called Fox, we had some meetings, and less than a year later, I was the host! And I couldn’t be more thrilled. 

You have had such an amazing career. Is there any particular discipline or philosophy that you follow that you feel has helped you succeed?

There’s a famous quote, I wish I could remember what it is now, but my dad used to always say it to me, “Once you can fake confidence, you will be okay.” And I’m not sure if I have faked confidence the whole time but I think my parents gave me so much support as a child and made me believe in my own ability and instilled confidence in me which always helped me, even through great periods of insecurity. I am not saying that I am a falsely confident person, I have had great bouts of insecurity throughout my career, but I think one of my philosophies has always been – be ready when luck comes your way. I feel like that’s been a repeated philosophy and motto in my career.

How has your time been in COVID? You are a single mom of a 9-year-old, so presumably, you’ve been a teacher as well?

Yes, I have done all those things. I learned a lot about my son and how he learns and if there’s an upside to any of this, which has been very hard for so many, it’s lovely learning how my son learns. I think I have better skills now to assist him or help him and guide him through the Zoom school process. I do really hope that when the pandemic is over, kids can go back to being kids again and having playdates and going to parks and getting all that free time outside. 

How do you look back on your Ally McBeal days now?

Oh my God, I look back at them with such joy and thankfulness. I also feel very proud that, that was my first foray into TV because I think it set me on a path of the types of jobs that I look out for and have been lucky enough to be in, things that are very unique. Ally McBeal was definitely unique for its time and it felt like a bit of a game-changer. Certainly, I greatly appreciated every bit of 30 Rock and its humor and the role that I had there and how far comedically it pushed me. But also, even choosing Dickinson, it stood out to me as so different on the page that I wanted to be a part of the creative endeavor. And I know that all of that stems from starting in such a creatively interesting show like Ally McBeal, under the great David E. Kelley obviously, who has been doing amazing things throughout his career and hitting a new amazing high in his career now.

Are you still in touch with any of the cast from either 30 Rock or Ally McBeal?

Oh sure, so many of them. I see David Kelley from time to time, which is very nice, every time I am in the theater he comes and comes backstage to say hi, which always makes me so proud because I feel like I was so young when I did Ally McBeal. I talk to Lucy Liu the most. Calista and I shared an agent and a manager for so many years and we are still very close friends with him, so we still communicate from time to time through him. When you do a TV series for so long, which I have been lucky enough to have done, you become very close to these people.  We have seen children born and children graduating high school now, I mean Calista’s kid is already through college. It’s nuts when you think about it. But it’s very, very nice to stay in contact with friends that we spent so much quality time in our adult life – years together.