Lisa Ann Walter on 'Abbott Elementary', her love for Philly, and headlining Helium Comedy Club

WTDY-FM / The NEW 96.5

Transcript

00:00Hi, kids. What's going on? Lisa, thanks for hopping on and joining us here in Philadelphia.

00:06We appreciate it. Oh, my goodness. I am so excited. I wish my hair was more up to the task.

00:12I feel you.

00:14When I'm not actually in production with the guy doing my hair every day,

00:19I brush it and I'm like, that's fine. And then I look at it on camera and I'm like,

00:24oh, that man's a genius. You look great.

00:28Thank you. We're in radio, so we never really care about what we look like on this.

00:33Hide behind a microphone, baby. It's great.

00:36Then why are you both so cute?

00:38Oh, stop it. Lisa, what kind of dog is that? What's their name?

00:47That's Buster. He's a Husky Shepherd. It's a wrong name for him. It's bad. I don't know how he got

00:54that name. That's not. He's going to bark in three seconds because he's a freaking toddler.

01:01I'm on the Zoom. You see that I'm on the Zoom. What? He's doing this. Like we're going to go play.

01:07No.

01:08Just bring him in.

01:10Buster, come here. Let me say hi to you. You don't listen to me.

01:13This is giving like quarantine vibes when I was like, oh my God, 100%.

01:17The cat would walk across the keyboard.

01:20Yeah, look. Here he is. Come here. Come here. Come up higher.

01:22Buster.

01:23Look.

01:25Oh, he's so cute.

01:27So cute.

01:28He's an old man. He's an old man.

01:30And he doesn't like to do what I say. And his name is wrong because he, my daughter says

01:38he's like the star of a nineties movie where a businessman gets caught in a dog's body and

01:43he's just talking back to his wife and kids. He's like Nicolas Cage.

01:49Nicolas Cage. If he was a toddler, that's great.

01:51If he was a furry toddler.

01:54I'm kind of Nicolas Cage.

01:57It tracks. It tracks.

01:59100%.

01:59Oh, man. So good to have you on here.

02:04And coming back to Philadelphia again. I mean, you are now a Philly staple.

02:09Coming to Helium, what, Friday, July 11th through the 13th? All weekend? It's exciting.

02:15All weekend. And you know, I guess since the last two times I was there, I mean, listen,

02:21there's no place like Philly for me right now. I mean, this is my adopted home.

02:27I look at houses every time I go there. And I always have such a good time with the shows

02:35that we have and then we have to add shows. So this time we went ahead and added a Sunday

02:39show anyway. And I made it early because my audience is like, why has it got to be so late?

02:43I'm like, look, old man, the buster, the dog, like, you know, it's, it's like a nine o'clock

02:50show. But I think that we, we added an early show on Sunday for people who don't want to be

02:55up till all hours. So come on out, come on out for the old folks matinee. We'll have soft food.

03:02That's the best. What are some of your favorite things to do when you're in Philly then?

03:07I got to go get Angelo, D'Angelo's pizza. I got to go get, and a, and a, and a nice hoagie

03:13because the last time I was in town, we were shooting. That was the last time I was,

03:18I was trying to come in to go to a Phillies game, but I think it's got to wait until end of the summer.

03:23But I, and I love being there. We, we, um, did the please touch museum, which I kept calling the

03:30please touch me museum. And Quinta would yell at me. She's like, that sounds filthy. Stop it.

03:36That's a different accomplishment.

03:38Yeah. The whole, the whole cast would call it like the touch me museum,

03:41the please touch me museum. Everybody kept getting it wrong and she was pissed off. But, um, anyway,

03:46we were there and I said, I got to go over to D'Angelo's because I haven't in all of the food

03:52tours that I've done so far, you know, I I'm trying to get to like every hoagie shop in the

03:58vicinity. So I'm trying to nail that down. And this time I went for some pizza and some other stuff too

04:03that I hadn't tried yet. Um, and I got to D'Angelo's and I ordered a whole bunch cause I

04:09wanted to get some for like the teamsters, you know, like the people that drive us around and do

04:13for us and they never, nobody ever does anything for them. So I said, let me get a couple of pies for

04:18the teamsters. So I go over there and the guy sees me coming and he like motions for me to come to the

04:24front. And I'm like, listen, I got goodwill in Philadelphia. Don't make the people hate me.

04:29Like why, why are you trying to give me a bad name? But, uh, anyway, he's like, here's my number.

04:37I'll hook you up if you ever want anything. So I figured when I come to do the shows,

04:41at least one of the nights, I got to get a whole bunch of D'Angelo's pizza and hand them out to the,

04:46to the crowd. Oh, I love it. That's awesome. Yeah. While they're waiting in line or something.

04:51Nice. I'm curious, you were talking about moving to Philly. Did you pick out any neighborhoods?

04:55Like, do you have like a, a go-to neighborhood or location in Philly?

05:00You know, you know how your phone listens to you because it's big brother. And my mother was right

05:05all these years. My Sicilian mother was like, they're listening to you. Like, don't, I don't like

05:11that Alexa. She's a rat. Like my mother thought Alexa was a spy in your house.

05:18She's not wrong, by the way. Oh, she's not wrong. Oh, I believe it.

05:22We'll find out. And now we all know, because we pick up our phone, having just had a conversation

05:27with our, you know, friend about, we should really just go to Italy. And all of a sudden you pick up

05:32your phone and every single video on Insta is like, here, go to Sicily. Like they, they're listening.

05:39But, um, the algorithm feeds me different neighborhoods that I like, like these old stone

05:45houses. So like the Ballack-Kinwood area, like around there and wherever, uh, um, D'Alessandro's is,

05:53where's that?

05:55Maniank.

05:56Yeah. Like Maniank-Rocksboro.

05:59Okay. Yeah. That's where it's feeding me.

06:01Nice.

06:02So I just look at the houses that it's sending me. Where should I look?

06:06Those are good areas.

06:07Those are great areas. Rittenhouse is really nice. I love Rittenhouse area. Fairmount,

06:13Center City. I mean, we got options.

06:16Rittenhouse is right by the club. I love walking around there.

06:19Yeah.

06:20It's like old timey, you know, like the old, they have the art festival on the weekends in the square.

06:26Yeah.

06:26Love it.

06:27Well, if anybody has any, I'll do a post coming up about where should I live in Philly and you guys

06:32can, cause you know, Philly doesn't hold back. I, when I first did this and said, where should I go

06:38eat? Like, what should I try? People started out nice. Like they were like, oh, you should really

06:44try, try John's pork, try this, try that, you know, go to the market. And then like within about

06:52four posts, it started to get real. Like if you don't go and try John's in the, this,

06:57this deli, you're a jerk. You better go over here. Like, don't be a, that's an a-hole. Sorry.

07:04I mean, they're good at out.

07:06No, but like Philly, that's how Philly is, right? Like they don't, they don't lie. Like it's all

07:14passion. Uh, they'll tell you how it is. Is that one of the many things you learned about

07:19Philadelphia, you know, coming into this show and being Melissa on Abbott Elementary?

07:25Well, you know, when they wrote the character, there was a lot of, you know, she got, she has

07:30to go to her court date for throwing batteries at the game. And I'm like, I was reading that stuff

07:37and I was like, okay, she's like one step over the violence of Lisa, but it didn't feel unfamiliar

07:43to me. So when I was like, oh, this is just the people of Philly that they're truth tellers that

07:49they like, they don't mind like getting in your face, both good and bad. Like they'll

07:53tell you what's up and they don't have the shame about it. I'm like, oh, that's me. Like

07:59I already fit in. It's not that big of a stretch.

08:04Yeah. You do such a good job of being Melissa from South Philly. Um, do you have like a favorite

08:12line or, you know, Philly ism that you've delivered over the years, over the seasons?

08:17Oh my God. I should really get a list of these for questions like this. Um, I just think like,

08:25I don't know. I think when she, when, when she gets sort of violent on behalf of her friends,

08:32that feels, listen to me. So like the way back in the art teacher episode, when the, the woman comes

08:40in that went to college with Janine and she wants to like rip apart Melissa's Peter rabbit,

08:47the project that he's been doing all these years and she wants to fight her more than any line.

08:52It's stuff like that. Yeah. It's just so ridiculous. Like you, well, I mean that one,

09:00actually, I got Melissa's back on that because this woman took these books that she's brand new books

09:06that Melissa paid for with her own money. You know, it wasn't cheap, even if she had a hookup,

09:10if you know what I mean. Yeah. But even if something fell off a truck, she still paid for it.

09:16And this woman like destroyed it. And Melissa was like, here, hold my earrings. And I just thought

09:21that was so quintessential. Melissa's going to throw down over some Peter rabbit books.

09:26Yeah. But I, and, and, you know, what's fun for me now too, is that once the audience knows who

09:32you are and they, they're like, okay, this is this character, then they get to see all the different

09:38sides of it. Not just for me, but for the other characters too. Like everybody was like, how does,

09:42how did Ava get that job? She's trash, trash as Mr. Johnson says, but, but then she, but then she

09:50like, she makes things happen in, in a way, you don't, you know, she gets her hookups in a way,

09:57Ava and Melissa are very similar. And I, you know, as we went down the road in the episodes,

10:04you know, there were some reactions at the beginning, we were all supposed to be like

10:08shaking our heads at Ava. Like, I can't believe what this woman is doing again. And after a while,

10:13I found myself kind of nodding, like wrong, you know, maybe violence is the answer. And,

10:21and then I thought, you know what, they have much more in common. I don't know if they'll ever admit

10:25it. But then I, you know, in this last season, they were in cahoots over a heist at the, at the

10:31new golf course to steal some truffles. And I thought, all right, you know, they're getting

10:36it. Like these two can do some damage together. I love how like my biggest takeaway is that Lisa

10:44and Melissa are not that far apart. I love that. You are Philly. Yeah. I mean, you know,

10:51I am Sicilian. My mother was a Sicilian teacher in a public school in DC, not Philly, but she's,

10:59you know, she's kind of a bit of the inspiration for Melissa. She was not quite, yeah, she had a

11:06fresh mouth now that I think about it. Yeah. She was pretty Melissa, but I didn't, I never saw her

11:13being willing to fight. I think that was more Lisa. Cause I came up, my mother was raised in Catholic

11:19schools, right. In, in New York, in Brooklyn. And I came up in the public schools and kind

11:25of some rough public schools. So I, I had to have my friends back on a couple of occasions.

11:30I haven't gotten into a fight in a long time though, guys. Don't. That's good.

11:35I'm much more of a, I'm more of a dancer than a fighter. If there's a dance off, I'm your girl.

11:40There you go. Yeah.

11:42Uh, we just can't wait to, to welcome you back to Philadelphia. Uh, it's coming up July 11th,

11:49Helium Comedy Club. Uh, we, we can't wait to see you there all weekend and thank you for taking the

11:55time and chatting with us. Like you said, Philly is passionate. They'll tell you how it is, but when

11:59they love you, they love you. And we love you. Thank you so much. And it makes me feel so good.

12:05Having now been the ridden in a couple of the parades that I was the grand marshal of the Italian

12:11heritage day parade. I mean, I really feel like Philly is my people. That's why I save it for the

12:16end of the tour before I have to go back to work because it's just nothing like going home, going

12:21home. So come out and see me before the tickets sell out because they will.

12:27Absolutely. Lisa and Walter. Thank you so much. Appreciate you.

12:31Take care of you guys.

Category

Transcript

Recommended