What Does Jennifer Coolidge's Real Voice Sound Like?

One of the viral moments from Sunday night’s Golden Globes was an interview with Jennifer Coolidge in which the reporter did his Coolidge impression. The impression was fine, but it was Coolidge’s response that has since raised eyebrows.

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Is that what Jennifer Coolidge really sounds like? Has she been putting on a voice her entire career? After spending roughly an hour in a YouTube rabbit hole, I’ve learned this: She and Sandra Bullock worked at the same restaurant before they hit it big, which Coolidge has mentioned numerous times on talk shows over the years. Also, Melissa McCarthy owes her career to Coolidge. Coolidge, a teacher at the Groundlings when McCarthy was a student, introduced her to the casting agent for Go, which became McCarthy’s first role and led to her signing with an agent. It’s a small role, but McCarthy stood out!

In almost all real-life contexts, Coolidge uses plenty of verbal fillers—“likes” and “umms”—and has throughout her career. However, she doesn’t always sound like she’s slightly slurring, as if a little tipsy. Here she is, for instance, talking to Conan after the success of American Pie. She even shifts in and out of “the voice” a couple of times, giving us a glimpse of the real Jennifer Coolidge versus the persona.

If you want to hear Coolidge without any of her affectations, revisit her role as a masseuse in an episode of Seinfeld. Unfortunately, the episode hasn’t aged well; it features a cringe-worthy parody of … sexual assault. Eesh.

When people say, “You couldn’t put that on TV today,” sometimes, you know what? That’s for the best.

Probably the truest representation of Coolidge’s voice comes from about a decade ago during her 2 Broke Girls era. There’s no affectation here, but the verbal fillers remain.

Had her Golden Globes red-carpet interaction gone on longer, we probably would’ve heard the verbal fillers, and it wouldn’t have been a big deal. But since we’re here, let’s revisit her fantastic 2023 Golden Globes speech. She uses “the voice,” but it’s possible she was just tipsy. In fact, maybe she’s always a little tipsy in public. Who knows? We don’t know her life.