Anyone who, like me, has an heroic big sister who would readily go into battle to for you, can completely understand why everyone loves Jane Lynch. She is, like that big sis, smart, scathingly sarcastic, sassy as all hell and, underneath, soft as a kitten.

Born in Illinois in 1960, Jane worked in theatre for years after qualifying with a Masters in Theatre Studies from Cornell. She wrote and starred in the award-winning play Oh Sister, My Sister, originally produced in 1998, and played at the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center in 2004.

If you watch any films from the 80s and 90s, you’ll be amazed how many times Jane’s face appears; Vice Vearsa, Fatal Instinct, The Fugitive and  Straight Talk to name a few. Then there are the copious amount of TV shows she’s been in; Married With Children, Party of 5, Cybill, Third Rock from the Sun, Frasier, JAG, The Gilmore Girls, Dawson’s Creek and X-Files are just a hand full.

I have done projects in the past that I didn’t think were very good, because I was just happy to work—my agent used to say I’d work for a steak and $1.50–but I’m not really doing that anymore.

Hollywood started talking about her being an “overnight sensation” having worked her bum off  for 15 years, when she stole the show in Christopher Guest’s Best In Show, in 2000. The part cemented Jane’s skill as playing crazy characters with a steely sincerity. Plus she got to play a lesbian, something the out-and-proud actress was pretty happy about.

She has continued to be part of Guest’s troupe of highly-talented actors in the hilarious A Mighty Wind, in which she plays an ex-prostitute member of a Christian folk band.  She told The Village Voice, recently, that this is, so far, her favourite role.

She’s sexually confident and oblivious to what others might think of her. She has no shame and really loves her feminine, sexy body. I found it in me. I had to dig something up. But I couldn’t wait to wash my hair out and take off the curls and tight pants and push-up bra at the end of the day. I identified as a boy most of my life. I felt like a boy. But that movie helped me along. I’m showing “cleave” all the time now.

Since then, Lynch has appeared in Christopher Guest’s For Your Consideration as pain-in-the-ass TV reporter, a role she also played in Walk Hard:The Dewey Cox Story.

For lesbians though, she really came into our world in The L Word as nuttier than a Cadbury’s bar, velvet vagina on the wall, Joyce Wishnia. The part was originally supposed to be as just Bette and Tina’s lawyer but she was so popular that she came back as Cybill Shepherd’s girlfriend/fiancee.

Then came the famous “Gathering Storm” parody. For those of you not in the know, a right-wing Christian group in the US hired a bunch of actors to make an ad about how gay marriage was going to bring on the end of the world. A bunch of actors and comedians got together and made their version, taking the mick:

Most recently, the big screen was graced with her presence when she appeared as Meryl Streep’s sister in Julie and Julia. She says of Streep:

She was shaking in her boots. I did my best just to act like a normal person. At the end of the day, I’m a regular actor like her!

I love when I go to see a film without any idea that Jane will pop up and steal the show. Wherever I see that cheeky face and overly-sincere smile, I’m hooked.

So, when I heard that she would be in a new TV show and that it was created by the pair behind the wonderful yet short-lived Popular, it was with great haste that I procured a copy of the first season. Glee is about a glee club in an American high school. Like Popular, the show deals with the cool kids versus the losers, with the glee clubbers the absolute bottom of the bile. The show is  everything you hope it will be – subversive, smart and belly-achingly hilarious. Just like our Jane.

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