My worst moment: Sarah Chalke and the runny nose, the on-stage kiss and the show must go on ... or snot

On the Netflix series “Firefly Lane,” based on the book of the same name, Sarah Chalke stars opposite Katherine Heigl.

“It’s about a friendship over the course of 30 years, starting when they are teenagers,” Chalke said. “I play Kate, who is very vulnerable and she doesn’t really fit in, and then this ridiculously gorgeous, charismatic, charming, mysterious person named Tully moves in across the street and we become best friends, and the show follows the choices we make over the course of 30 years.”

The series, she said, incorporates both comedy and drama. “I laughed and I cried when I read the first script, and especially right now with what everybody is going through, that feels like such a nice escape.”

Chalke is perhaps best known for playing Dr. Elliot Reid on “Scrubs,” and before that she was the “second” Becky Conner on “Roseanne” (replacing Lecy Goranson). When asked to share a memorably cringe-y moment from her career, it was a performance on stage that came to mind.

My worst moment …

“I am definitely someone who has had an unbelievable amount of embarrassing things happen to me. But one that really stands out — like, I can recall the feeling in my body like it was yesterday — happened when I was working on ‘Scrubs’ and I got the opportunity (in 2005) to audition for theater director James Lapine to New York (during her summer hiatus) and take over for Molly Ringwald when she was leaving the play ‘Modern Orthodox,’ which was running off-Broadway.

“I love theater so much and my favorite thing is to go to New York and see plays on Broadway, but I haven’t done a lot of theater myself. So James Lapine was in Los Angeles and I was able to go and audition for him during a break from ‘Scrubs’ and I was so excited about the prospect of doing theater and I had so much fun at the audition and I was thrilled when I got the part. (In the play, Chalke played one-half of a Jewish couple who are hosts to a houseguest.)

“We were finishing the season of ‘Scrubs’ on a Friday and the plan was that I would fly out to New York the next day, do a put-in rehearsal on Monday and start the run on Tuesday. I was like, ‘Great, that sounds perfect — what’s a put-in?’ And they’re like, ‘It’s when we “put” you into the show.’ So I had one day of rehearsal, the put-in, and then I’m on stage a day later and I’m thinking, this could be a terrible idea! But then within four minutes it was so much fun and it was incredible.

“I couldn’t believe the rush and adrenaline of having a live audience right there. And the cast was so comfortable because they were all these seasoned theater actors, and they were like, ‘Tonight we’re playing Pass the Carrot,’ and I’m like, ‘What’s Pass the Carrot?’ And it’s when you take a tiny carrot and you pass it among the cast without the audience knowing, and I’m like, ‘I’m not ready for pass the carrot, are you kidding me?’

“But look, everything was fine until one night, maybe two weeks into my run, I got to the theater and found out we were going to have an understudy. Amir Arison, who is a fantastic actor and he has gone on to ‘The Blacklist’ and a bunch of other things, he was the understudy, so it was going to be he and I doing these scenes. Everybody has a different rhythm in terms of how they play a role and there was obviously no rehearsal.

“I had to cry in the play. And when I cry, sometimes my nose runs. So I’m doing this crying scene after my character gets home from work one day, and we’re standing right at the front of the stage, the audience is right there, and his character is supposed to lunge over and kiss me. So I’m standing there waiting for that to happen and Amir is not kissing me. And he’s still not kissing me. And I’m thinking, OK, he has different timing, he’ll kiss me at some point. But he didn’t and it was like, what’s going on?

“So finally, he lunges over and kisses me. And when he pulled back, then it hit me — in that moment it all came together and his delay made total sense. When I was crying, a lot of snot came out of my nose and he wasn’t kissing me, hoping I would get this snot, this booger off my face. And when I didn’t, he just leaned in for the kiss and now that snot was transferred from my face to his face.

“And I’m looking at him — there was a booger on his face — and I am mortified. I felt so bad for him and I was so embarrassed. When we finished the scene and went backstage I was like, ‘I am so sorry!’ (Laughs) And he was like, ‘Yeah, I didn’t know what to do. I thought eventually you’d notice but you didn’t and it’s live theater so I just had to kiss you,’ and I was like, ‘I am so sorry!’

“I don’t think I will ever forget that moment (laughs) when he pulls away from the kiss and he has my booger on his face.”

If the roles had been reversed, how might she have played it?

“I think I would have eventually done what he did, I don’t think there’s really any choice! I mean, it’s live theater. But even having this conversation in the land of COVID, I don’t know if people are going to be able to read this (laughs), they’re going to be like, ‘I have to leave!’

“But yeah, I think I would have done what Amir did, which is lunge in and go for it. (Laughs)

“I don’t remember what the timeline was, in terms of how long it took for the intensity of the embarrassment to die down, but it wasn’t immediate. I didn’t shake it off quickly. I just felt so bad. It was my embarrassing moment, but Amir had to take the brunt of it.”

The takeaway …

“Always have Kleenex in my pocket and be really mindful about blowing my nose, even in the privacy of my own home.

“For every performance after that, I had tissues on stage and you can bet I was very diligent about making sure that when my cry was done, there was nothing on my face.”