Over her four decades in entertainment, Debi Mazar has done everything from dancing alongside Madonna to playing the villain in a Beethoven movie. Her latest role comes in The Pentaverate, in which she plays Patty, the pleasantly no-nonsense assistant that keeps the movie’s titular global cabal running on time and on track.
The Pentaverate isn’t the first time Mazar has worked with Myers, however. They teamed up in 1993’s So I Married an Axe Murderer, in which the New York native plays Susan, the girlfriend of Anthony LaPaglia’s Tony. And just to keep the six-degrees game going, LaPaglia, of course, co-starred with Mazar again in 1995’s Empire Records — a movie that she has... opinions about. More on that in a minute.
Anyway, with her more than 115 Hollywood credits in mind, Tudum thought it would be worth sitting down with the dryly witty star to talk through some of her more memorable roles.
How did you get brought into The Pentaverate? I was in Italy, and I got a phone call from my manager saying, “Mike Myers is interested in speaking with you.” I was like, “What?” I hadn’t seen Mike Myers since So I Married an Axe Murderer. Apparently, he had written this show [The Pentaverate,] and some of it tied to So I Married an Axe Murderer.
So we got on a call. Basically, he was playing nine characters, but he decided to have a woman play the female character instead of him. She was supposed to be reminiscent of his ex-mother-in-law, Linda, who he sort of portrayed on “Coffee Talk” on SNL.
I was a little terrified to play a character that Mike Myers was going to play because I thought, “Oh my God, he’s gonna be watching everything I do, thinking I should have done it the way he did it,” so I was a little bit hesitant. But when I got on the Zoom call with him, I hadn’t seen him in 30 years, but he was so mature and kind and thoughtful and lovely. I was like, “Alright, I’ll do it.”
He allowed me to run with it and to make Patty my own. She’s from New York, and he wanted it with a sort of Jewish Long Island accent. He wanted to take away my eye color, because he wanted to make her look a certain way.
She’s the only one in The Pentaverate that doesn’t actually live there. She goes from Long Island to the secret location, and she takes her job very seriously. She’s being mentored by the top guy there, Lord Lordington, who entrusts everything in her and so she is the woman that runs the ship with all of these crazy characters, all played by Mike Myers.
I got to work with Jennifer Saunders, and Lydia West is, like, the hottest young actress. She’s from England.
It was just really exciting, because I was given a role where, normally I’m hired for comedy, but I don’t bring it up to that level. I wanted my character to be realistic, and for you to believe that the situation was real. That’s also why Mike hired me. I’m good at keeping characters very earthy, even if they’re funny. Mike kept giving me scenes he didn’t want to do that were like five pages long, and he’d say, “We’re shooting this tomorrow.”
It also seems like, even though Patty is ostensibly the assistant, really she’s running the show. She does. She runs the show, and she’s dealing with a lot of testosterone. It’s funny, because when we shot it, I would go around that table, and I was, I think, the last one to wrap because I’m the only one who never sits down the entire show. I always stand or I’m always walking around a table, so I would have to deliver all of my dialogue to each and every character that was played by Mike, but I’d have to wait until he [filmed] that character. So I think I circled that table a thousand times and delivered my monologues a thousand times. But he made it fun.
It’s funny that you say Patty is based on [Myers’ character] Linda Richmond, because you’re friends with Madonna, and Madonna did “Coffee Talk,” so it’s all very circuitous. And I went with her the day that she filmed “Coffee Talk”!
What do you remember about the first time you worked with Mike, nearly 30 years ago?
I literally flew from the set of L.A. Law to Seattle [to do that movie]. I had walked through a spider’s nest, and I thought I had lice, so I went to the hotel, and then I stopped off at CVS and got myself lice remover. It turns out, it wasn’t lice. It was spiders.
So I got to work finally, all out of breath, and I was shooting all-nighters. I had worked all day on L.A. Law, and then So I Married an Axe Murderer shot all night long. The next morning, I got on a morning flight and flew back to Los Angeles to work the next day on L.A. Law.
Mike was just as funny as could be. I sat next to him, and I just did what I did. You know, listen: Mike had just come off or was just doing Wayne’s World. I’m not really good chronologically, but we were kind of at the same point in our careers. So I was just working with a funny guy. It was Mike Myers, but it wasn’t like, “Oh my God, I’m working with Mike Myers!” Mike Myers still had to become Mike Myers.
Speaking of famous actors: One of your first roles was in Goodfellas, which was directed by Martin Scorsese and stars a litany of famous actors. Do you remember your first day on set? That was my first movie. I was living in Brooklyn, and I called a car service and asked them to send me a vintage Cadillac so I could go to work. I got this incredible El Dorado from, like, 1969, and it took me to Harlem.
I sat on the stoop of a Harlem brownstone with Martin Scorsese. He was filling me in about how he saw the character. I was so excited and nervous. Just sitting down and talking to him on a stoop in Harlem was just... I’ll never forget it.
I had a blast making that movie. Working with all those actors was so much fun. And Marty allowed us to improvise. Ray Liotta was fantastic, and working with all the girls... it was one of the greatest experiences. It’s still one of my favorite movies I’ve ever done and it’ll always be the most memorable experience, because it was really my first important role.
Sometimes, it’s clear that a movie is going to have an impact, like Goodfellas, but sometimes projects take on a life of their own. When you were making Empire Records, did you think that people would still be celebrating Rex Manning Day 20-odd years later? It’s funny, I actually didn’t have a great time shooting [Empire Records] because it was kind of a messy production. It was one of those situations where I wasn’t connecting with the director. We had different ideas of who the character was, or who we thought she was at the beginning and then he changed it. I thought my character was a lesbian and next thing you know, he’s like, “Well, no. You have a backstory with Anthony LaPaglia’s character.”
I’ve never seen Empire Records. I had such a weird experience [that] I never even wanted to watch it. Ironically, it’s one of the most iconic movies. People are always like, “You’ve never seen it? What!”
I’m friendly with many of my castmates, too. I’m still friends with Renée [Zellweger] and Liv Tyler and Robin Tunney. Not so much the guys, but I really am very happy for where a lot of those actors went.
I’m always grateful to have a job. There are some jobs you do where you don’t expect that they’ll turn out to be anything. I don’t really love watching myself. I like what I do, and I know that there are people who think about fame a lot, but I never did. I didn’t become an actor to become famous. I became an actor just to act. I don’t really revel in this celebrity society with Instagram and all the stuff. I just try to create characters that are truthful and fun and dramatic and move on. I never look back.
Speaking of fame: You famously played a high-powered publicist on Entourage. Whom were you pulling from when you created that character? Shauna was based a lot on different people that I met at the time. One, for sure, was one of the most renowned publicists — may she rest in peace — Nanci Ryder. She handled all these crazy actors and actresses. Another one was David Pollick, who actually was my publicist at one point. Liz Rosenberg, who was Madonna’s publicist. I knew her for many, many years. She handled Cher, Michael Jackson and Madonna. I would watch her in action. Total New Yorker, smoked her joints, told people to “fuck off” with a smile.
Shauna was a lot of fun for me. Doug Ellin wrote a very rich character. She was crude to the point where I would blush over some of my dialogue. I might be a straight shooter and sometimes I curse like a sailor, but it’s classier cursing.
What are the most interesting projects for you? What do you really sink your teeth into? It’s really based on the script and my relationship with the writer or the director. A lot of times, it’s things where I know I can go in and really create something rich, or things that I actually write and create. One of my favorite things was my cooking show, because I wrote a show that I got to star in and produce and be funny and I got to teach people. So that was kind of cool.
I’m writing with my friend Amos Poe and his wife, Claudia Summers, right now. We’re writing a drama that we want to shoot in Florence, because I feel like Florence is underused. I live there. I know the back streets. It’s very rich in culture. So a lot of my favorite projects are the things that I get into creating and producing.
I’ve been offered leads and things and I’m like, “You know what, I want to play second fiddle because that character is flawed, that character is more fun.” I just like characters that have their imperfections. They give you a little more of a challenge than being the good girl or the boring lead in a TV show.
Do you like the stability of working in TV? You did more than 80 episodes of Younger. What I liked about that was the financial security, because it’s like having a blue-collar job. You know when your vacation is and you know you’re gonna make a certain amount of money. You’ve got to budget yourself [as an actor], especially with a family.
On a series, you have a relationship with the writers. They start to understand your vernacular and your rhythms, so they start to write for your voice and the things you do. Like, if you can do physical comedy, if there’s something that you do specifically... Working with Darren Star is a dream for a woman.
On Younger, we also saw each other have kids. I already had them, but we got to see each other go through so many changes in life over a period of almost a decade. You really get to know people, even though you don’t really ever know them, you know what I mean? People say, “Oh my God, you guys seem like good friends.” We’re not. We’re adults. I have my friends. I’m not hanging out with Sutton Foster. I love Sutton Foster, but we all have our own posse, our own lives, our own people.
Are there people you’ve worked with whom you have really become friends with, even after the project is over? I don’t go on vacations with other actors, per se. I mean, Madonna is an old friend. We usually celebrate our birthday together. There are a few people over the years that I’ve kept in touch with. They’ll go, “Deb, I’m going to be in Italy” or “Oh, Deb, I’m in New York and I’m throwing a party for my wife.” Even[Samuel L.] Jackson, like, he’s in LA, he’s in New York, they’ve come to Italy. You say “Hi” here or there.
I just like people. I don’t care if you’re a plumber. I keep in touch with my plumber from Brooklyn. I keep in touch with my cleaning lady from California from 20 years ago. I know her kids’ birthdays. She calls me for my kid’s birthday. When people touch my heart, I stay in touch with them. I find a lot of times people in my line of work are really consumed with their work and themselves. It’s fine. I don’t judge. We’re all grown-up people. We’ve got families and the world is crazy.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
