Molly Shannon swings back into TV series life with NBC's 'Kath & Kim'

by Mark Dawidziak/Plain Dealer Television Critic

Tuesday October 07, 2008, 11:44 AM

Molly Shannon remembers her years on "Saturday Night Live" with great fondness, but there was nothing funny about the brutal working hours. Although there were offers for series, the Shaker Heights native simply wasn't ready for prime time.

"My goals were different after I left the show," said Shannon, who began her six-year association with "Saturday Night Live" in February 1995. "I just felt like I didn't want to be work, work, work, working, and let my whole life pass me by."

She married artist Fritz Chesnut, with whom she has two children, Stella and Nolan. So why did she accept the challenge of playing the Kath half of "Kath & Kim," the NBC comedy premiering at 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 9 on WKYC Channel 3?

"I wasn't really searching for a series," said Shannon, 44. "I live in New York, and I was doing movies and really into being a mom. I wasn't like, 'I gotta find a TV show.' I was really laid back about it. . . . Now my kids are in school a good portion of the day. So I feel ready to do it. I'm ready to work a little bit harder."

The NBC series is an American version of an Australian comedy that aired in the United States on Trio and the Sundance Channel. Shannon's Kath is a cheerful woman determined to make the best of her 40s. Selma Blair plays her daughter, Kim, a self-absorbed princess.

"I really love doing characters," Shannon said. "I prefer that to playing close to myself. It just feels more fun to me and freeing. I liked that my character Kath is positive, strong. She's spent her whole life raising her daughter and now she's got the daughter out of the house."

But not for long. Kim moves back home, separating from her husband of six weeks.

"Kath wants to move on, focus on herself and her dating life and her figure and her diet and she's ready to go for it," Shannon said. "She keeps getting sucked back into the drama with the daughter."

Shannon's many films include "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," "Shallow Hal" and "Evan Almighty." But she is best known for such "Saturday Night Live" characters as 50-year-old dancer Sally O'Malley and Catholic school student Mary Katherine Gallagher. Her guest appearances on series also have been memorable, from Val Bassett on episodes of "Will & Grace" to vindictive taffy shop proprietor Dilly Balsam on "Pushing Daisies."

"The way I look at Kath is she's ultra-feminine," Shannon said. "She likes wearing belts and perfume and cream and high heels. I was raised by my dad, and I was always intrigued by women who smelled good and brushed their silks against you. So that's how I look at her."

Shannon says that the inspiration for her wild comedy characters was her late father, James F. Shannon. She kids around a lot, but the "Kath & Kim" star is serious about this.

"I was basically doing a lot of different types of impressions of my dad, but as women," Shannon said. "I was just flipping it. My dad was a very big inspiration when I grew up. I did versions of him in all the characters. And then I would add different people they knew in my neighborhood, kind of mix it up, but he's in a little bit of everything, just as a woman."

Anyone who ever talked to Jim Shannon knew how delighted he was with the method behind his daughter's comedic madness.

"He was so flattered," Shannon said. "He didn't care. He was very easygoing and creative. And he was very supportive. He didn't mind. He loved it."