The Source Magazine had the opportunity to interview Meagan Good who plays Linda Jackson in “Anchorman 2,” which is now playing. We first caught up with her on the red carpet for the film’s US Premiere at the Beacon Theater (you can watch our exclusive video below), then we continued our conversation Meagan this week.
Q: How would you describe your character in “Anchorman 2”?
Meagan: Tough, ambitious strong, determined. She knows what she wants and knows and she knows what it takes to be accepted and considered and to show that she’s capable of what it is that she’s doing. She’s also kind and also cares about doing the right thing…You kind of see the softer side of her in the film, that’s what Ron Burgundy, does to her he brings the softness out.
Q: What are some similarities between you and your character in “Anchorman 2”?
Meagan: I’m a little bit of a tough one and people don’t immediately see that about me because I’m very short, I’m 5 foot 2 1/2. I’m petite and I believe that I’m a very kind person and I’m very loving. I try to be kind to everybody, but I definitely have that side of me that when you cross the line with me, it’s gonna be a problem. Not like a problem where I want to beat anyone up or hurt anyone, but sometimes you just have to let people know “I’m not the one.” I can wait it out, I’ll be as patient as I can be with people, but then when someone pushes me to that limit I either shut down and shut them out or let them know what time it is.
Q: Being a woman in Hollywood, do you often have to let people know “I’m not the one”?
Meagan: No! No, I would say a little more recently in the past year I’ve been a little more aggressive about it because I’m married now and for me it’s really about nurturing my marriage, and protecting my relationship, and building god’s kingdom and taking care of my family. So I’m a lot more about my business, as a result, moreso than I was in my twenties, so I do have a lot of patience. There are just certain thing where “I’m like ain’t nobody got time for that”. I’ll just lay down the law because I have things I need to focus my energy on and that’s my dad, my husband, my family, and my brothers. If anything doesn’t tie into that and it’s hurting me or dragging me down, I just got to let it go.
Q: “Anchorman 2” is set in the 1970′s, is there anybody from that time that you admire?
Meagan: Of course, Pam Grier, but yeah the movie starts in the late 70′s and ends in the early 80′s and I am a 80′s baby, so I know a little bit about that. I kind of took a book from a few different things, different people I researched, different characters, different influential black women, and I kind of just got into the mentality of what would it be like to be a black woman in this day and age, in this job position, what would it have taken for her to get there and be taken seriously and be respected and what would it have taken for her to keep that position. It would have been an everyday fight to prove that she is capable, you can’t just be good, you got to be that best. That was fun for me, it was very important for me to make her strong and not angry. It was very important to make her aggressive, but soft underneath, to make her tough but with a moral compass.
Meagan: My favorite probably was the scene where I seduced Will, when I got super aggressive. That was funny for me because I have a massive vocabulary of random sound effects that I never get to do anything with. In that scene I thought this was a great opportunity to make all the sounds that I annoy my husband with, mean something now.
Q: How was it working with Christina Applegate? You guys have an awesome scene!
Meagan: It was good because, you know the first day of set, you want everyone to like you, obviously. You know it’s a family and that you’re a newcomer to it. You’re the new kid in school, so you don’t know how everyone is gonna react, especially you don’t know how the one other woman who’s always been just the woman is going to react. To my surprise, the first thing she did was grab me by the hand, said listen this is a boy’s club, this is how things go down, this is what my experience was like the first time around, this is what I was nervous about, this is what to expect, this is what you should do, whatever you need I am here for you, and want you to succeed and I want you to shine. She then passed the torch… I was impressed by her humility and her genuineness and her kindness. And also her ability, she’s so freaking talented it’s unbelievable, she’s comedy royalty. People forget “Married With Children,” and how iconic it was and how revolutionary it was at the time. It was a family that everybody else was silver spooning “The Cosbys,” and “Married With Children” was like yeah there’s always…families on TV, but my family is dysfunctional, isn’t yours? She’s amazing.
Q: Do you think there is a lack of black women in comedy?
Meagan: Yea I think there is a lack of black women everywhere. I think their needs to be more of our faces in comedy, in drama in TV across the board, but I think Kerry Washington is a trailblazer. I think that she is doing something that is really hard to do and that is maintaining an amazing project that keeps people interested, and that she’s brilliant in. It’s about supporting her, it’s about the fact the show is awesome, and it’s about the fact that seeing her or anyone else like Gabrielle Union that has “Being Mary Jane” coming out. The more we support them, the more there will be a lot more of that. Even with my show “Deception” that opportunity created this “Anchorman” opportunity. No matter what happens as long as we support each other, we’ll be able to continuously move forward and have all these building blocks to other opportunities and maintain the opportunities that we have. That’s what it’s about.
Q: “Anchorman 2” has so many amazing cameos. Were you on set for those scenes? Kanye? Drake?
Meagan: I wasn’t there when Kanye was there, but I know Kanye personally. He’s a very sweet person, but he’s Kanye. He’s eccentric and he’s interesting, but I think he get’s a bad rap because of sometimes how he talks and approaches things, but deep down he’s a sweet person…My intention in saying that is you know that person’s heart and know that they are a kind person, but you think to yourself, “Why did you just say that,” but you understand the intention behind it, the truth of how that person perceives it.
I heard adorable stories about Kim and Kanye being in the trailer and him playing music for everyone…how everyone enjoyed having them there. I remember hearing about how Harrison Ford was there and he is a little bit older and hadn’t seen the first “Anchorman,” so to hear Adam Mckay and Will Ferrell trying to talk him into doing the role and how he was like “I’m not turning into a…Hyena! What is that about?” He just didn’t get it. To him ultimately doing it…Drake even called and was like whatever you want me to do for this project I’ll do it.
Q: Are there any roles you regret doing, looking back at your career?
Meagan: No, because there are some movies that I’ve done that are not my favorite, but everything was a stepping stone and everything was an opportunity that created another opportunity. Sometimes the movie that you think was not that good, a lot of the time, will be the movie that people come up to you and go “OMG! that was my favorite.” Like I loved you in this role and so we get ahead of ourselves and start thinking that we’re better than we really are and we’re ungrateful for something that we did that without a doubt affected somebody and somebody liked it.
Q: Having done comedy and drama is there one you prefer? Which one’s harder?
Meagan: Well, comedy for sure is harder because it’s kind of scary. You really really have to be free, it has to be fearless, you have to be willing to try anything and not over think it. Drama for me is definitely easier because it’s all those hidden emotions that are buried just below the surface whatever you’ve experienced in life, whatever you can kind of say was close to an experience that a character was having. For me it’s very easy to tap into those things and comedy is different. I enjoy doing both without a doubt I would love to do more comedy and see what else comes out that’s inside of me that I don’t even know is there.
