This is Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast more what you hear weekday afternoons on the Drive. You know Kate Flannery from a lot of great sitcoms, also Dancing with the Stars, Brooklyn nine nine nine, American House Yeah, Brooklyn ninety nine, ABC's American Housewife, and most notably on NBC's The Office as the fan favorite. She is also in a new movie that is out now called The Prank Kate Flannery Welcome, Hey, how are you
good to have you along today? This movie is out now and it's got a lot of star power along with the great Kate Flannery. Yes, I'm proud to say that I'm doing a movie with Rita Moreno, the great Oscar winning, amazing legend, ninety two years old, hilariously funny and smart. Yeah, I'm the luckiest person I know this week. Well, there's also a lot of other great talent too that is in this film, including Keith David, Meredith Salinger. We haven't seen a lot of her in a long
time, and also Betsy Soidoro, so we see her everywhere. But your role in this film is as Loretta. Who is Loretta in relation to the characters. Well, Loretta is the lunch lady, and this is a high school dark comedy horror movie. And let me tell you, you don't want to make the lunch lady mad when you're in high school because it will be in your experience not at all. Yeah, so there's Yeah, this is
a really fun movie. It's kind of a buddy movie with two platonic friends in high school who are angry at their physics teacher played by Rita Moreno, and they're trying to figure out a way to get back at her for being really nasty to everybody in class. So yeah, it's a really fun ride. The whole thing. It's kind of a little bit of everything that the crowd was. You know, if you see this movie, people get very vocal. It's really fun. They clap and there's things that are scary and
funny, and it's kind of like a Long Island iced tea. It's got everything in it. And Kate Flannery. The name of the movie, by the way, is The Prankts Out. Now Kate Flannery is and you know her from the office. When you you're very good at playing kind of an anti character and all I can think of is you must pay attention to everybody you come in contact with to steal a little bit of that of that idiosyncrasy to put into your characters. Well, this is You're not wrong. I'm
from a big family. I'm one of seven kids. My dad owned a bar. There were a lot of characters at my dad's bar, so it was a great place to learn. And yeah, and then I was so fortunate to go to Chicago after college, and I had five great years in Chicago, and I worked at Second City with some of the greatest people on earth and just had great training and great fun. And I don't know, I'm really really lucky. I love improv, and I love all of the
folks that come out of Second City. I was watching and paying attention to Second City years ago, So I'm glad to hear that. Is that where you ran into Jane Lynch. I know you've done a lot of work with her. Yeah, Jane was one of the first people I met when I got to Chicago. And now Jade and I have a Christmas album, so we actually do a live tour every Christmas. We also have a non Christmas show We've done at the Carlisle of New York and we've played the Kennedy Center.
We've played a lot of places, but we definitely do a big tour every Christmas. And you can get our music on iTunes. It's called a Swinging Little Christmas. It's really fun. Kate Flannery with us and the movie that is she is in now is called and Out Now, It's called The Prank. What did you know that Marita Morena was going to be in the you would co starring with her in this before you took the job or was it a nice surprise? It was a nice surprise. They were trying to
get her. And I've worked with this director before, Maure and Brucha we worked on a movie, a female comedy about arm wrestlers, female arm wrestlers called Golden Arm. It's on Netflix. So Lareen's she's such a great director, and we were so excited that Rita Marino was willing to join this project and a spearheaded she plays the most evil physics teacher and she's so funny and so scary. She's fantastic. I remember my physics teacher from high school.
He wasn't evil, he was just quirky, and to this day, I say to my wife, how far is it from such and such to such and such. Let's find out. Let's use the distance formula, because that was my physics teacher's favorite thing to do. And it always stays with you. I mean, yeah, yeah, so awesome. I always say the Office is very much like being in a classroom where Michael Scott's kind of like the teacher and you're second to desk next Dwight. You know, it's somebody
did all the same room all the time. I was going to ask about that because the Office was kind of an import from Britain. And you go and watch the British version, and then I watched the American version. I find the American version funnier. Maybe it's because of the cultural references being American, maybe, but I think that the I think the American version is a little kinder. I think we Michael Scott has more heart than the British David
Brent. I think David we only got thirteen episodes of the British, so we never got to see David Bran's heart, but Michael Scott we had. You know, he was on for seven seasons. You saw him fall in love, you saw him get hurt, you know, in all those you know human he was more of a human being. I think that that sort of fake reality show, the way they shoot the Office and other Yeah, yeah, that. I don't know if that changed comedy or refined it.
But you've been in a lot of common money over the years. What do you think. I think it changed, especially just the half hour. You know, Abbot Elementary really speaks to It has some roots in the Office for sure, and I think my family and there's a lot of shows that that have a similar that kind of I took it to the next level because of the Office. Well, and my lovely wife is she can't watch some of the episodes because of the cringe worthiness of many of the of the content.
I find it vastly entertaining because I've been through enough of those myself, and I think that's why everybody else feels that way and enjoyed the show so much. Absolutely, I think I think younger kids really plug in. I think they're really smart, and I think they understand the subtleties of the comedy and
the discomfort and the cringe. I think they there. I mean, if you're smart enough to get it, you can watch the same episode of the Office over and over again and find something else funny that you missed because maybe you were laughing one moment. You know, there's all these kind of little Easter eggs and things going on in the background, and you know it's it's it's a great show to rewatch. Kate Flannery is with us. Her newest
that you will want to watch is called The Prank. It's out now everywhere you get your movies and in theaters. A lot of your characters have to be made down, not made up, made down, Kate Flannery. I think it's the mark of a true actor or actress if they don't mind being made down and can can get into that character. Does it Does it bother you to be made down? Absolutely not. I'm happy to represent the Unford
people on planet or let's do it, you know. I think The Opposility was one of the first shows to show people really Also, you know, that's why I did Dancing with the Stars, so I got tons of makeup. I was like, yeah, I want the opposite experience, so I I that was really fun. And uh, it's fun to wear a lot of makeup and sparkles. But it's really fun to wear, you know, really boring clothes. Kate Flannery, The movie is The Prank at Stars,
also Rita Moreno, Meredith Salager and many other greats. You'll enjoy it. It's a great way to enjoy and start spring out now everywhere you get movies. And thank you for joining us, Kate Flannery so much. Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation