Stifler’s mom seduced again — but this time, she seduced Cal Poly.
Jennifer Coolidge, known for her roles as Stifler’s mom in “American Pie” and manicurist Paulette in “Legally Blonde,” brought her boldness and raunchiness to Chumash Auditorium May 20.
Coolidge has starred in more than 80 titles, including “Epic Movie,” “Date Movie,” “Click” and “Best in Show.”
She currently plays Betty in “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” on ABC Family.
Coolidge danced on to the stage wearing a lacey mini-dress with a plunging neckline, and silver, glittery stilettos. She began her hour and a half stand-up routine with jokes about the end of the world supposedly occurring the next day, May 21.
“The coolest thing about why I get to be here is because the world is ending tomorrow,” she said about being in the so-called happiest town in America. “I just couldn’t imagine running from a mushroom cloud in this dress.”
She said she encountered a handsome homeless man with teeth whiter and straighter than hers near the Madonna Inn where she was staying.
“When the homeless men are beautiful, you know you’re in the right town,” she said.
Coolidge said the reason she decided to go on a stand-up tour was to get “the fuck out of Los Angeles.”
The 47-year-old spent the bulk of her show sharing her humorous experiences living in L.A. and working in the entertainment industry, and how she’s considered different types of roles, such as those in pornographic films.
“Imagine what the bend and snap could really be,” she said.
To refresh the audience’s memory, she listed all the roles she’s been in, including small roles that no one caught, such as a bartender in “Brokeback Mountain.” She was told to improvise her role since she said she’s good at it.
Unfortunately, she joked, the role was cut because she spoiled the whole plot of the film when both Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal first walked into the bar.
“Hey, you two are cocklovers!” she said she shouted in the axed scene from the film.
Although she claimed she almost had the part in “Brokeback Mountain,” she said she still didn’t enjoy the film because it was obvious that a straight man made it.
“No gay director would have had the ass-loving scene right after the bean-eating scene,” she said.
She also expressed doubt toward the entertainment industry in general.
“My biggest complaint is how full of shit everyone is,” she said.
When she saw actress Sophia Loren tell Oprah she merely used rosewater to attain her youthful look, she said “I wanna get some of that rosewater because it has stitches in it.”
However, Coolidge said she learned a lesson from an actress, even though she was full of shit — Penelope Cruz.
“She got me through a horrendous time,” she said.
She told a story about her naiveté with men, especially the time she caught her ex-boyfriend having sex with her skinny neighbor and believed him when he said he thought he was getting it on with Coolidge. Her ex-boyfriend said he had a condition called “faceblindness” in which he had trouble identifying faces. She said she believed him, and ended up creating a “faceblindness” awareness campaign for him.
Later on, Coolidge and he broke up. Miserable and consuming mass amounts of fatty foods, Coolidge said she saw Cruz on Oprah with actor Daniel Day Lewis promoting their movie “Nine.” Cruz told Oprah Lewis was the funniest man, even though most people, including Lewis himself, wouldn’t agree.
“She tells shit to men they’ve never heard, but desperately want to believe,” Coolidge said.
Thus, Coolidge said it’s been a P.C. (Penelope Cruz) year since that moment of enlightenment. In order to keep a man around, she said she must lie to him: “Your dick is way too big for me to ever want to marry you.”
Throughout the show, Coolidge commented on how “civilized” and proper Cal Poly was when she made obscene jokes.
“I should’ve ended up at a school like this — I would’ve had a husband,” she later said at a sit-down talk with the student media.
Some audience members, including mechanical engineering senior Shelley Dangoor thought parts of the act were vulgar, but still enjoyed the show.
“I thought her material was really entertaining and relevant to today,” Dangoor said. “I’m not a big fan of drug or sex references, but those topics were not the main focus of the show.”
Dangoor said Coolidge did an “amazing job,” especially when she made fun of Jennifer Lopez’s song “On the Floor”— dancing and singing to it both at the beginning and end of her act.
After her stand-up performance, a meet-and-greet session was held for the audience. Every person in line for the meet-and-greet was able to either ask for an autograph, or take a picture with Coolidge.
Terry Hackney, Associated Students Inc. (ASI) special events supervisor, said it took a few quarters to book Coolidge at Cal Poly. On an ASI events survey issued to Cal Poly students at the beginning of the school year, one form of entertainment many students expressed interest in was stand-up comedy.
Due to University Union fees that students pay, Coolidge’s act was free for students as part of the Late Night with ASI program, Hackney said. The program aims to provide alcohol and drug-free alternatives on Friday nights for students, especially those living on campus.
Prior to the show, many students expressed interest in Coolidge, although her name isn’t instantly recognizable.
“With her, there’s a lot of facial recognition,” Hackney said. “People may not know her name, but they know her as Stifler’s mom from ‘American Pie’ or from ‘Legally Blonde.’”
Wine and viticulture junior Marissa Monarrez said at first she didn’t know who Coolidge was by name only.
“After the meet-and-greet, being able to sit and talk with her was so personal,” Monarrez said. “To hear stories about her on the set of ‘Legally Blonde’ and calling Reese Witherspoon by her first name is so personal to me. I don’t think I’ll ever get an opportunity like that with any other actor or actress.”