by Scott Huver April 27, 2010 08:28 AM EST
Kathy Griffin’s still living life on the D-List, but she’s starting to keep some iconic company. As her Bravo series Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List returns for the summer, Griffin revealed that one episode has her visiting Oscar-winning singer and actress Liza Minelli.
“I went to Liza-freakin’-Minelli’s house and got acting lessons!” Griffin said, still sounding a little shocked that it all came together. The tart-tongued comedienne turned to Minelli for some performance pointers just before she guest-starred on a recent episode of Law & Order: SVU after she suffered some very real pre-shoot jitters – and was surprised by the Liza she encountered.
“What I took away from working with Liza was she wasn’t in her Liza kooky wacky mode,” Griffin told TV Guide Magazine. “We see her on TV and so often she’s just putting on the Liza show. And when we were alone in her room, just the two of us rehearsing, she was so in the moment and so fantastic and that’s when you really see it. That’s when you see why she was Sally Bowles [from Cabaret]. That’s when you see her in The Sterile Cuckoo. That’s when you see her in Arthur. It was so great to see how focused she was. I call it my master class – the time I spent with her. She wasn’t off doing her thing and doing her Liza-isms, she was just there in the moment…She was fantastic and I’m very grateful to her.”
Despite her success landing Liza, Griffin revealed that she’s yet to score every A-lister she wants to stop by D-List.
“I tried to do an episode that wouldn’t come together this year that I wanted to,” she revealed. “Dave Grohl said he wanted to do the show. And I said, “I know this might sound crazy but what if we did an episode called ‘Kathy Is With the Band” and it was myself, Grohl – who’s very naturally funny – and then Adam Lambert. And Adam Lambert said no! And I thought the combination of Dave Grohl with Adam Lambert would be really interesting to both of them.”
She had another near-miss with another Oscar winner and a pioneering feminist. “Jane Fonda said she would do the show and then she said ‘I can do it in October.’ But what’s funny is these A-listers have no concept of TV schedules, and so I was actually corresponding with Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem to do an episode about how young women don’t even know who Gloria Steinem is. And they were both really really into it, and saying, “We should do it in October.” Then I was in the unfortunate position of having to tell them, we shoot for six months and there is no way Bravo will give us money for an extra episode. We’re a pared-down operation.”
And then there’s her longtime target Ryan Seacrest, who may or may not finally hit the D-List. “I also asked Ryan to do an episode of the show and SHE said yes initially. I titled the episode - because, they start with an idea and then you just see what happens – "An Uncomfortable Lunch with Ryan Seacrest.".
CYNDI LAUPER, LIZA MINNELLI, & KATHY GRIFFIN
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