-You have a very exciting role coming up.
-I do, yes.
-This is a Unabomber TV movie?
-Right. This is Discovery's first scripted series,
and it's about the Unabomber.
And it's with Paul Bettany and Chris Noth, and I play --
and Sam Worthington.
And I play Janet Reno, the attorney general.
-Janet Reno. -Yes.
-I mean, it's kind of nuts how good that is.
-Yeah, there's always the risk of looking like
a terrible wig and glasses, which I don't think I do.
-Well, that --
I would say that risk would be this, right?
-There we go.
-That would be the risk of a terrible wig and glasses.
-Yeah. [ Laughter and applause ]
-Actually, he was my jumping-off point for this character.
-That was your jumping off point?
-Absolutely, yes. -Yeah.
-But I was a big fan of Janet Reno,
and, boy, we could use somebody like her today, couldn't we?
-Yeah, that's great.
And was it fun -- Did you get to meet her at all?
-I didn't. No, in fact, she passed away
right before we started doing -- started shooting.
-Oh, well that's too bad.
-Yeah, but I did speak to a guy who was her assistant.
Now he's, like, my age, but he knew her very well,
and, gosh, he just told great stories about her.
She had such a huge heart.
She had a lot of big cases on her desk,
not just the Unabomber case,
but Waco, and Whitewater, and the whole thing.
And it was -- it was a tough time,
but we were lucky to have her in that office.
-It's also kind of -- I mean, this isn't --
This sounds like a weird thing to say, but it is --
Sometimes with everything crazy going on today,
you forget that there were crazy things happening
in the '90s, as well.
-Yeah, there was, but it seemed like they were adults.
-Yeah, that's true. [ Laughter ]
-It seemed like -- You know, you had Janet Reno,
who had such independence from the president,
and, you know, is the one
who appointed the special prosecutor
for Whitewater, and, you know, that was just -- I don't know.
I'm, like, sentimental for the '90s, I guess.
I don't know.
But it just seemed like there was some integrity.
-You played Janet Reno on stage before.
-Yes, I did. -And what was that production?
-That was called "Baby Jesus and His Holiday Pixies."
-So, is this maybe -- -Yes.
-This also had a great amount of integrity.
-Indeed. Oh, of course, yes.
-Where was this? Where did you do this?
-This was in Los Angeles, at the Tamarind Theatre,
which is now UCB.
I did "Run, Run Rudolph" with little baby Jesuses.
-Oh, wow. -Yeah.
-As Janet Reno? -As Janet Reno, yes.
-That's fantastic.
Now, I know you travel light, but this is obviously
just coming over for the day. -Yes.
-When you travel, when you get on an airplane,
you obviously have more stuff,
and I heard you had a bit of a luggage incident.
-I did. Yeah, well I always do the carry-on thing.
-As you should. You got to travel light.
-Yes, exactly.
And I was coming back from Provincetown Film Festival,
and I won an award there.
-Congratulations. -Thank you so much!
[ Cheers and applause ] Hey, thanks!
And it went through the X-ray, and they pulled me aside,
and they said, "Ma'am, do you have something in your suitcase
you want to tell me about?"
And I said, "No. Well, what did you see?"
So, we saw something, and it's shaped like a cylinder.
And I went, "What?"
And he said, "And if you don't remember,
and you can't tell me right now what it is,
you're going into that room,
and we're taking your bag into that room."
And I remembered it was the award.
They thought it was a pipe bomb.
It's long, it's skinny. -Oh, my goodness.
-Yes, so that was --
Well, it's a good thing they're watching.
-Yeah. -Yeah, you know.
-And they're like, "Also, we noticed you have
a script for the Unabomber."
-Yeah, right, exactly! [ Laughter ]
"What's up with you?"
-"And so we have a lot of issues here.
We're not great at connecting the dots,
but you're making it very easy." -Yes, yes.
-We first met --
I guess it was 2010 when you hosted "SNL."
-Yes, when I did "SNL," yeah.
-And it was really great, because it was you,
it was Bruno Mars.
That his first time on the show.
-That was his first time. And I'll tell you what, though.
The way you guys work over there,
I thought it was going to be,
we rehearse the same scenes all week long,
and then we're perfected for Friday --
or, Saturday night.
Friday... Saturday night.
And we changed stuff every two se--
-Yeah. -Right before the show.
I didn't even have --
You were the head writer, and you were supposed to be
giving me my monologue.
And I kept going, "When's Seth coming?
When's Seth coming?"
And then, like, the day before,
you said, "Oh, we're gonna do a song."
-Yeah. -[ Sighs ] "Okay."
But it was really fun. I really enjoyed it.
-By the way, I feel terrible for you
that, like, Bruno Mars was there
and you had me writing you a song.
-[ Laughing ] It was really a fantastic song!
-Okay, good, good, good! I'm glad you liked it.
-It had Fred Armisen in it. It was great.
-Well, it was such a lovely week.
-It was.
-And it's, in general, just great to see you always, Jane.
-Congratulations. So happy the show is back.
-Well, thank you. I'm happy for you.
-Thank you. Jane Lynch, everybody!
"Hollywood Game Night" airs Thursday nights
at 8:00 p.m. on NBC!