Soap Opera Icon Kate Linder Talks Her New Movie, A Little White Lie

Kate Linder has been appearing on The Young and the Restless for 40 years now, making her one of the longest-running actors ever to take on a single role. The show itself turns 50 soon, and while Linder has no plans to leave the role of Esther Valentine any time soon, she does manage to occasionally get away from the grueling shooting schedule for a soap to play other parts — including one in the just-released comedy A Little White Lie. In the  movie, she plays a hard-edged university president who is surrounded by a cast of daffy characters, who have invited a famous (and famously reclusive) author to be the guest of honor at their literary festival.

Linder’s character is as shocked as anyone else that the author, whose name is Shriver, would deign to attend their small event, which is so unsuccessful that she had planned to cancel it. But with an attendance draw like Shriver, suddenly her little college is back in action. That’s a situation only slightly complicated by the fact that the guy attending is not actually Shriver.

“I was thrilled that we were able to finish it, because we started it before the pandemic,” Linder told ComicBook.com of A Little White Lie. “In fact, actually, I had one more day of shooting and I was in the bank and I ran into some of the crew and they said, ‘Hey, we’re going for coffee tomorrow. What do you want?’…I gave them my order, and then I never saw them again, because that night everything just shut down. And then I thought, ‘Oh no, what’s going to happen?’ I mean, poor Michael Maren, he directed, he wrote it, it’s taken him all this hard work putting this film together. And then luckily we were able to come back and finish it and get everyone back. That’s not an easy feat either with all schedules and things like that.”

The cast is filled with recognizable faces. The two central stars are Michael Shannon (Man of Steel) and Kate Hudson (Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery). TV legend Don Johnson (Miami Vice) also appears, along with Zach Braff (Scrubs), Perry Mattfield (In the Dark), Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Lost City), Jimmi Simpson (Psych), Mark Boone Junior (Sons of Anarchy) and Romy Byrne (Friends From College). So, yeah — she’s certainly right when she says it’s hard to get a group like that back together again.

Linder’s character only appears in a few scenes, but she gets to play the straight person to some really fun comedic moments. As the level-headed university president, Linder is the only sane person in a room full of over-the-top characters, most especially Johnson’s T. Wasserman, an eccentric professor and author who seems to be the bane of his boss’s existence.

Linder said that working with Johnson was some of her favorite stuff in the movie, “because you don’t know what’s going to come out. You think you do, but it’s actually good because you have to really listen and be on top of your game. I actually really enjoyed watching him. I would go on set even when I wasn’t in some of these scenes and watch, because it was just great to watch it all transpire and take place.”

After 40 years, Linder is bound to compare and contrast most jobs with The Young and the Restless, and she said that projects like A Little White Lie help keep her sharp, because she gets to exercise different muscles. 

“I liked that it was a totally different character than Esther,” Linder said. “And so I said, this is a good thing to do. And I like to work and I like to keep going. I call it working the program. So I still go to class. Still go to acting class and dance lessons and voice lessons. And so I said, okay, if I can fit this in, and I was able to, thank goodness, and The Young and the Restless was really great about letting me do other things as well. But it just all worked out. And then the fact that it all shut down and it all came back, this film’s supposed to be here. People need to see this film, because it’s supposed to be shown and people need to see it. I think it’s just going to make people feel good.”

A Little White Lie is in select theaters now, and also available on Video on Demand platforms from Saban Films.