Janel Moloney
Hometown: Woodland Hills, California
Currently: Making her off-Broadway debut as the struggling single mom of a rebellious teen daughter in the off-Broadway production of Kate Fodor's 100 Saints You Should Know.
A Delayed Debut: How can a two-time Emmy nominee for her performance as sassy Donna Moss on the much-lauded TV series The West Wing qualify as a "Fresh Face"? Moloney laughingly admits she's a stage novice. "I always wanted to do theater," she says, "but I spent years pursuing movies and television in L.A., where I was raised." Better late than never: The actress seems perfectly at home onstage at Playwrights Horizons. "I think the fact that I was a dancer helps," she muses, "and I did a weekly scene-study class for five years with a wonderful teacher, Roy London. That made me comfortable acting in front of people."
Off-Broadway Baby: 100 Saints You Should Know tells the overlapping stories of a dysfunctional mother and daughter Moloney and Zoe Kazan whose lives intersect with a troubled priest Jeremy Shamos, his mother Lois Smith and a delivery boy Will Rogers, with dramatic consequences. "I don't have a kid," says the unmarried actress, "and my mother is incredibly loving and supportive, so this character was a challenge for me. But I identify with someone who's struggling to change her life in a positive way." Sharing a dressing room with theater icon Smith and up-and-comer Kazan has been a treat, she adds. "I'm sitting between the two of them, putting on my makeup, and I just feel so lucky. My mission in doing this play was not to see if I was good or if everyone loved me, but to find out if I liked being up there. And the answer is a big, giant yes."
Overnight Success—Not! Before landing her big TV break—originally a walk-on role in the West Wing pilot, but quickly beefed up on the strength of Moloney's chemistry with Whitford, who played her boss—the actress had struggled to make a living. "At one point in my 20s, I was about to quit acting," she recalls. "I'd had a crappy couple of years and I was depressed. My mom said, 'Don't give up! You'll be so mad at yourself.'" The elder Moloneys owned a hair salon, and Janel's three sisters including her fraternal twin showed no interest in show biz. "Most parents would have said, 'Okay, you gave it your best shot; now go back to school and be a teacher.' Mine didn't—not because they were invested in me acting, but they just felt I'd be sorry if I gave it up. They helped me hang in there."
New York State of Mind: After a lifetime in her native L.A., Moloney moved to Manhattan a few months ago—and so far, she's loving it. "I needed a change," she says, adding with a laugh, "Getting my hair colored and going to therapy just wasn't cutting it anymore." More seriously, she explains, "After West Wing, I felt like I had done the best television show I would ever do, and everything else would be a step down. New York was the only place I could go that was a really different environment where I could still work. It sounds counterintuitive, but the kinds of things I'm interested in doing and the kinds of people who are interested in me gravitate more to New York." The actress is still getting used to sending her laundry out and squeezing her belongings in: "When my friends see my clothes crammed into my dinky apartment, they're shocked that I've done this," she says of her move, "but I'm still in that phase where I'm sitting on the subway grinning."