Donna Lynne Champlin Biography

Donna Lynne Champlin is an American Actress, dancer, singer best known for her appearance on The CW comedy-drama series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

She appeared in Very Warm for May and made her first Broadway appearance in James Joyce’s The Dead, then By Jeeves, Sweeney Todd, Hollywood Arms, Billy Elliot the Musical, and The Dark At The Top of the Stairs, winning the 2007 Obie Award. Other credits are: No, No Nanette, First Lady Suite, Very Good Eddie, Harold and Maude, Bloomer Girl, My Life With Albertine, and Jolson. She performed in the Simply Sondheim inaugural concert with Len Cariou, which celebrated the opening of the Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts.

She has won several awards including the title of National Tap Dance Champion four consecutive times, the 2007 OBIE award, the Princess Grace Award, and grants from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, The Anna Sosenko Trust, and The Charlie Willard Memorial Grant.

Her film and television credits are 2000, The Dark Half, and 2006 Annual Tony Awards, The View, The Rosie O’Donnell Show, Law & Order, and Live with Regis and Kelly. She has starred in The CW comedy-drama series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. She released a solo album entitled Old Friends, which is about a one-woman show entitled Finishing the Hat and teaches acting at the Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Hartford, and New York University.

Donna Lynne Champlin Age

She was born on January 21, 1971, in Rochester, New York, U.S. She is 49 years old as of 2019

Donna Lynne Champlin Family

She is a daughter off to a technical writer mother and a scientist father. It is rumored that Rachel Bloom, Season One Pilot co-creator is her second cousin. It is not known whether she has siblings or not

Donna Lynne Champlin Husband

She is married to actor Andrew Arrow. The couple married in 2010, in a private wedding which was attended by family members and some few friends. They together have a child named Charlie Arrow.

Donna Lynne Champlin Height and Weight

She stands at the height of 5 ft 3½ in and weighs 60 kg

Donna Lynne Champlin Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Champlin was cast as Paula Proctor, Rebecca’s co-worker and new best friend in the American romantic musical comedy-drama television series “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.” She hatches schemes and gives questionable advice in support of Rebecca’s pursuit of Josh as a way to distract herself from her own failing marriage, and in order to compensate for not pursuing her dreams when she was younger due to lack of fulfillment.

Donna Lynne Champlin Another Period

She was cast as Hortense Jefferson Library Bellacourt, the eldest Bellacourt child in the third season of American period sitcom “Another Period”

Donna Lynne Champlin Downsizing

Champlin was cast as a Leisureland Administrator in the American science fiction comedy-drama film “Downsizing”

Donna Lynne Champlin Twitter

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Donna Lynne Champlin Interview

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s Donna Lynne Champlin on Finally Getting Worshipped as a Goddess

Source: vulture.com

But we wound up discussing a lot more, including the stultifying, often offensive language of casting calls, her personal difficulty with Rebecca’s suicide attempt and mental illness, and how she learned to lip sync by watching drag queens online.

How was it shooting “Miracle of Birth?”
Normally, one of the most stressful parts about doing a number here is getting the choreography right. Sometimes time is really tight, so I’ll have anxiety about making sure I have the right steps. The great thing about [“Miracle of Birth”] is, I just sat in a chair! Normally on a musical number day, I won’t have slept the night before. I slept like a baby last night. This morning, I was like, “Ah! I’m just going to sit in a chair and sing for some people!” [Laughs.]

I will say though, lip-synching for me has been one of the greatest challenges. It’s literally a muscle that I don’t even have. So that in itself, I did have a little anxiety about being so exposed. Each song has its own challenges, but that song is by far the easiest number I’ve ever had. Sit on a throne! What more could I ask for?

Are you lip-syncing or singing?
I sing. Rachel is obviously a master at it, so in season one I pulled her aside and said, “Please help me, what are the most important things?” She said, “First thing is, you have to sing every take.” You don’t have to sing out, especially not if it’s like a Mama Rose number, but you have to phonate, breathe, and sing it. The camera really can tell the difference.

And then she was like, “Breath is the next most important thing.” Even if you hear the breath on the recording, you have to remember to do it [on set]. And cut-offs, obviously. A cut-off is the end of a note, so if I’m singing — [sings a few notes] — the end of that is a cut-off. I feel like I’ve gotten much more comfortable with it as we’ve gone. It takes me a lot less time to prepare now, but I still agonize over it.

Do you watch RuPaul’s Drag Race? You can watch the lip syncs for that!
Not necessarily Drag Race, but I have Googled drag performers because they are consummate lip syncers. I mean, it’s an art form for them. I actually Googled drag lip syncing specifically for season one to help me learn how to do it because they’re the best by far.

How did you react when you saw yourself in full costume for this number?
I cried. That happened to me when I did the princess song too. Most of Paula’s numbers, if you notice, are either just what she’s wearing or what she’s wearing but just a little heightened. I rarely get a full costume change. It’s always really exciting for me when I get the princess number, where it’s a complete departure.

Every department here is just incredible. To be at the epicenter of everyone’s work from sound to lighting to construction to art design, I just feel so special. I know that happens in musicals, but for some reason, it just feels so much more pronounced here because it’s just like the eye of a tornado. Aline Brosh McKenna — Paula is very much based on her — she came over to me and said as an aside, “Did you ever think we’d get a woman in her mid-40s dressed as a goddess, sitting on a throne and being worshiped? I feel like everything I’ve done in my career has led to this moment!” I was like, “Girl, it just can’t feel as good as being the mid-40s woman dressed as a goddess being worshiped on a throne!” It just doesn’t get any better than that!

You know, in the musical theater, that would probably never happen to me. That’s just not my type. What I really love about it here too is they bend the type. They give me a princess song, a goddess song — I’m not always the wise-cracking, “Life Upon the Wicked Stage” kind of gal. it’s just incredibly satisfying as an artist to be able to be asked to do things that are out of your wheelhouse.

Or as what casting directors don’t conventionally see.
True. Even just our guest stars and co-stars are always so fantastic and so right and so … normal-looking! They’re real people! It’s one of the most amazing things that make this world so special to play in. If you have a plus-sized, middle-aged woman, usually there’s an arc that revolves around her age, her size. Or with a Filipino leading man, they’d feel the need to “talk about it,” or a bisexual character, having it be “a very special episode.” Here, I feel like we create the world that we see in the real world, but that we don’t necessarily see reflected back to us. I love it. I’m just ruined for every other show I should ever do, should I ever be so lucky.

I hope that this show and others like it are changing things.
I think it’s already happening. When Melissa McCarthy came out with Bridesmaids, all of a sudden you saw a plus-sized woman who had three dimensions, was not an appendage, was pivotal to the plot. It took about a year-and-a-half for the wheels to turn. But a year-and-a-half after that movie, parts for me began appearing that I had never seen before.

I’m normally like, “Mr. Johnson’s here to see you, you want some coffee?” As far as TV goes, that was it. All of a sudden, there are roles. You know that role on that amazing episode of Louie he did with Sarah Baker? It was such a good episode. I auditioned for that too, and I was so bummed that I didn’t get it. When I saw it, I was like, “Of course you didn’t get it, because she’s amazing!” Wasn’t she spectacular in that? There are actors out there of different sizes and different races that have the talent. I would like to hope the “best person” gets the job, regardless of type.

That’s interesting that you are starting to see different roles pop up.
This was the first pilot I ever auditioned for.

No way! What was the original description of what they wanted?
I’m not 100 percent sure. I do know there was a version where it said, “Trying to lose the extra baby weight.” I think that’s how it was first approached. And then I think that description changed a little bit, but that was actually a great description. A lot of times, for parts I’d usually go in for, the descriptions were rather crass.