Jane Lynch is now a major mainstay in the entertainment industry, having wracked up any number of successful TV and movie roles, while also expanding her career to become of the most sought-after event hosts around, headling award shows, roasts and other comedy specials, and numerous gameshows. Jane Lynch’s acting credits go all the way back to the late 1980s, and despite appearing on hit shows like Married… with Children, Pary of Five, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Frasier The West Wing and other popular ’90s TV shows, no one can deny that the biggest break in her career came with the 2005 film, The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
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In 40-Year-Old Virgin, Lynch played “Paula” a team member at the Smart Tech electronics store where middle-aged virgin Andy Stitzer (Steve Carell) works. Lynch’s highlight moment comes in a scene where word about Andy’s virgin status has leaked out at his job, giving Paula the perfect incentive to shoot her shot with the shy guy. Lynch’s predatory stare and her unabashed delivery of the now-classic quote “I’m very discreet… but I’ll haunt your dreams,” made her and instant standout. Amidst an ensemble that included Carell, Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Elizabeth Banks, Kat Dennings, Kevin Hart, Mindy Kaling, David Koechner, Romany Malco and others, that’s really saying something.
Jane Lynch’s scenes in The 40-Year-Old Virgin are still alive and circulating inthe social media era – but where would Paula be now, eighteen years after the events of the film?
ComicBook.com had a chance to sit down with Jane Lynch for the latest season of Starz’s comedy series Party Down, and we had to ask the very question. Well, never one to miss a beat, Jane Lynch had an answer to share – which is basically that Paula from Smart Tech is now… still just Paula from Smart Tech.
“Oh absolutely [she still works at Smart Tech]. And in the exact same outfit, frozen in time, and the co-workers she’s the manager of just keep coming and going. And she does the same thing, which is taking the shyest one and sleeps with them, and then torments and terrorizes them. And she’s still into [singer] Michael McDonald, but who wouldn’t be?”
40-Year-Old Virgin is one film you don’t often hear thrown into the pool of potential direct sequels or spinoffs – with good reason. Still, if Jesus from The Big Lebowski can get his own movie, whey not Paula?
You can see Jane Lynch in Starz’s new season of Party Down.
