“Bridgerton” star Nicola Coughlan reenacts beloved Joan Cusack scene from “Addams Family Values ”— and she kills it
"I think she's an icon. She's brilliant," Coughlan says of Cusack, who plays Debbie Jellinsky in the 1993 "Addams Family" sequel.
Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan has serious love for Joan Cusack, especially as Debbie in Addams Family Values.
"Joan Cusack in that role is just brilliant, because she brings sort of a level of Marilyn Monroe and a level of like, a serial killer, and it's all so believable but so heightened, so silly, so funny," Coughlan tells Entertainment Weekly. "Her comic timing is impeccable."
Coughlan reenacts one of Cusack's big scenes in the first episode of EW's new Auditions YouTube series. The Derry Girls actress chose a scene from the 1993 sequel to The Addams Family, the 1991 live-action story that featured Anjelica Houston (Morticia), Raul Julia (Gomez), Christopher Lloyd (Uncle Fester) and, as Wednesday, Christina Ricci.
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Nicola Coughlan takes on a famous Joan Cusack scene.Related: From spoon licks to wet shirts, the cast of Bridgerton recaps the first 2 seasons
Cusack joined the cast as baddie Debbie Jellinsky, who pretends to fall in love with Fester while working as a nanny for the family's newborn son. She intends to kill Fester and take his money, like she's done to other men in the past.
In the scene Coughlan reenacts, Debbie has the entire Addams family exactly where she wants them — sitting in a row of electric chairs — so she explains, with the help of visual aids, that her dark ways stem from her parents having refused to give her a ballerina-themed Barbie, with a "pretty pink tutu."
"You know what they got me?" Debbie asks. "Malibu Barbie!"
Related: The Addams Family adaptations, ranked
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Joan Cusack starred in "Addams Family Values."Coughlan is on point, especially when she delivers that line. Let's just say she'd spent some time watching Cusack's performance.
"I picked that scene," Coughlan says, "because I feel like, you know, you have certain things that constantly play in your head, and one of them [for me] is always, 'Malibu Barbie!' And I was like, well, it has to be that then."
Cusack is "so different in everything she's in," Coughlan praises. "And I aspire to be like that if I can be, so I think she's an icon. She's brilliant."
Related: Nicola Coughlan has a stipulation in her contract that Bridgerton provide a PG cut for her parents
The Irish actress is a big fan of not just Cusack's work, but the entire movie.
"I love the Addams Family Values, because I'm a big fan of any movie that celebrates camp, and it's something that I'm really dying to have a resurgence and a resurrection," she says. "So if I can be any part of bring that back, I am there with bells on."
You can check out more of Coughlan's acting chops as Penelope Featherington on Bridgerton season 3. The first part of the season is streaming on Netflix beginning today, while part 2 hits the streamer on June 13.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.
