This week’s Comediva of the Week WILL smack you upside the head if you get out of line, and that seems to only make her hotter. Leslie Mann is married to one of the biggest names in the funny business – Judd Apatow, but she has never been one to let her husband’s movies upstage her. Nor has she let the fact that her hubby’s movies have managed to typecast her as the aggressive (if not a bit shrewish) wife become a drag on her career. Instead, somehow, Leslie Mann has managed to make being the grown-up bitch in the room smoking hot and totally hilarious.
Rather than resisting the groove that the comedy gods put her in, Leslie has leaned into the stereotype, taking the “wife” role beyond shrew into something that is unique, complicated and completely her own.
Leslie didn’t make the jump from type-cast-as-a-stereotype to intriguing-actress-who’s-making-it-work-for-her in a single bound. There’s no denying that her roles in some of the early Apatow films are a little hard around the edges. Knocked Up is particularly difficult for my inner Leslie Mann fan, though that is mostly because she’s playing the tightly wound wife of the unstoppably appealing Paul Rudd, which makes it difficult to sympathize with her.
It’s Seventeen Again that turned me into a card carrying Leslie Mann fan. If you haven’t seen it because you’re being all, “I’m a grown up, why would I see a movie that stars Zac Efron??” then you are missing out, my friend. Get thee to your Netflix account and bask in how adorable and actually funny Zac Efron can be when he’s channeling Matthew Perry.
While you’re there, absorb the talent and skill that Leslie employs to play a woman who is falling back in
Leslie eye-f**ks Zac Efron in 17 Again love with her man-child husband… while he’s stuck in his childhood body. Not only do Leslie and Zac completely sell their chemistry without making the situation über creepy, she manages to be both the grown-up in the relationship and a totally appealing life partner who we are 110% behind Matthew Perry/Zac Efron growing up fast enough to stay married to. My only issue about this movie? The reverse switch happens before the big reconciliatory kiss, leaving us with Matthew Perry kissing Leslie Mann, rather than Zac Efron. How awesome would it have been to see Leslie getting it on with a seventeen-year-old hottie?
There aren’t a whole lot of actresses who could have successfully played that role against fresh faced Efron without looking old and shrewish, but Leslie pulls it off and she makes it look easy. She’s continued that trend as she explores her awesome-mom-married-to-a-man-child role in movies like Funny People and now The Change Up.
Leslie with man-child hubby, Judd ApatowIs playing the wife of yet another body switching male who thinks he wants out of his crushingly adult marital existence a good choice for Leslie? Only time will tell, but I couldn’t think of another actress who could convincingly walk the fine line of being both off-putting enough to make you believe her husband wants to switch places with his carefree bachelor friend and appealing enough to make you believe he wants to switch back.
Somehow, Leslie has learned how to be the grown-up in the relationship, and be sexy and hilarious while doing it. Is this life experience from being married to a professional man-child coming into play or just an excess of comedic talent being channeled in the direction that the work was flowing? I say both, and that’s what we have to learn from our Comediva of the Week, Leslie Mann – when life is pushing you in a certain direction, it’s worth exploring the groove you’re in before you start fighting back. It might just be a groove that’s worth playing in!
