On February 4th, the Hasty Pudding Vice President and President went in for a kiss atop a black Bentley. That is, two costumed student actresses both planted a smooch on each of actress Jennifer Coolidge’s cheeks at the same time during a jubilant parade down Massachusetts Avenue, and the crowded street erupted in great fanfare. This was the day Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals crowned her the 2023 Woman of the Year (WOY) for her achievements in entertainment. Coming in hot with a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in The White Lotus, Coolidge has appeared in numerous renowned titles, including Legally Blonde, American Pie, and A Cinderella Story.
In the press conference that followed the parade, Coolidge called her time in college—graduating from Emerson College in 1985—exhilarating. She said she could “just feel the endless possibilities,” and was unable to foresee her future stardom back then.
Her confidence faltered after graduation while she worked as a waitress, waiting to make it big. “I feel like for the longest time, I was waitressing, telling people I was an actress, and I wasn’t acting in a show where I could be seen. Except, you know, making jokes while I was waiting on people,” she said.
“I think a lot of actors are overly sensitive, and that’s what makes you a good actor, of course, because you can feel these feelings,” Coolidge commented. “But the bad part is when someone that thinks they’re sort of the expert on whose acting is good can say to you: ‘you know, I don’t know if you have a future.’”
She then joined the Los Angeles based improv and sketch comedy group “The Groundlings,” where Coolidge noted seeing far too many talented people unaware of their abilities, as result of taking negative comments to heart. At this time, she began writing down every cruel comment she received and incorporated them into her improv characters on stage, which worked wonders for her craft.
Coolidge urged performers not to let comments from industry people beat them down. “I mean, who is the expert, really?” she asked rhetorically, noting that she does not know what any of her former critics are up to now.
At her parade, Coolidge flirted with the crowd, pursing her lips into her signature duck face for people who swarmed the car to catch a selfie. Undeterred by the cold, she exuded a playful energy, smiling and waving to eager parade-goers as the Harvard drummers played. Harvard students and people who traveled to see Coolidge called out to her. They scampered alongside the car in a frenzied manner until its arrival at Farkas Hall, where the Hasty Pudding’s annual WOY roast took place in the evening.
During the roast, the producers of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals’ 174th production Cosmic Relief—Sarah Mann ’23 and Aidan Golub ’24—took center stage in leading Coolidge through wacky trials to earn her Pudding Pot trophy. They kicked it off with a camp pageant. One by one, four Hasty Pudding cast members were trotted out into the spotlight to imitate various characters Coolidge played in her past performances. She feigned dismay at each impression until the final performer won her heart with her character’s iconic Legally Blonde line: “I’m taking the dog. Dumbass!”
The next task was to give Golub a makeover. Coolidge was armed with a marker and given thirty seconds to have a go at his face. “Am I beautiful, Jennifer?” he asked hopefully when the time was up. She paused and lamented that there was not quite enough time.
Coolidge then taught Golub the classic bend-and-snap move from Legally Blonde, to great applause from the Hasty Pudding audience.
At last, there was only one more challenge: Coolidge had always longed to play a dolphin. “At the Hasty Pudding, we make dreams come true,” Mann declared. Two Hasty Pudding performers clad in stingray costumes rushed the stage and threatened to sting the “beautiful female dolphin” with their “venomous spines.” In a dramatic scene, Coolidge dawned a dolphin suit and shot them with a water gun, alluding to the gun featured in the Season 2 Finale of The White Lotus. The stingrays slunk away in defeat.
The Hasty Pudding performers finally conceded that her dolphin impression was unparalled and honored Coolidge with her Pudding Pot. It was a heartwarming culmination to the evening of flirty euphemisms and eye-popping drag organized by Man and Woman of the Year Coordinator Maya Dubin ’23.
Coolidge honored her late father Paul Coolidge ’42, whose undergraduate Harvard years gave the Woman of the Year’s award even greater sentimentality. “My father was such a practical person, but I love that he had impractical ideas for me,” she said, noting how deeply out of character it was for him to support acting as someone who praised finding a “salable skill.” Yet she reminisced on how he was always excited to bring relatives to her plays growing up and encouraged her to pursue her passion for theater.
“He was someone that really sort of relished every second that he was at Harvard,” Coolidge explained of her father. Her being named Woman of the Year by the Hasty Pudding “would have just been his dream come true.” She continued,“This is truly one of the greatest nights of my life because it just sort of came full-circle, you know. It just has so much meaning.”
For struggling actors and aspiring young people, Coolidge offered some advice. “Even if it feels like an embarrassing little show where you’re like ‘no one’s going to see this,’ people are there and you get seen. And then a casting director says: ‘I want to bring them in for a show.’ And then things happen,” she said firmly. “I think that the most important thing you can do is get out of your house and get in some show no matter where it is.”
Coolidge attended Hasty Pudding Theatricals’ production Cosmic Relief on its opening night as the guest of honor. Audiences can look forward to an outrageous burlesque about an FBI agent sent to spy on a motley film cast with a Hollywood communist director. This lowly assignment is punishment after she ruins NASA’s moon landing. During the show, viewers can expect constant puns and over-the-top musical performances. The costumes are glitzy, and the plot twists are shocking.
The show will be running six days a week until March 5th in Farkas Hall. Tickets are available at https://www.hastypudding.org/buy-tickets/ or by email at tickets@hastypudding.org
Kya Brooks ’25 (kyabrooks@college.harvard.edu) would love to get a makeover from Jennifer Coolidge.