Carol Kane Shares Her Best Career Advice & How She Stays Close to the ‘Taxi’ Cast

Carol Kane, best known for her role as Simka Dahblitz-Gravas in Taxi and more recently, Lillian Dolomite Kaushtupper in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, recently stopped by Live with Kelly and Mark to chat about her career and opened up about staying close with the Taxi cast. Kelly Ripa began by asking Kane if she was a child actor and where her career truly began.

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Kane recalled that when she was about five years old, her mother took her to see a play and she wanted to be up there, acting on stage. She joked, “I was a fool, then and still a fool now.” Kane revealed that she still lives with her mom on the Upper West Side in New York City. She added that it is such a blessing to be with her mom and listen to her compose music and play the piano every day.

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Mark Consuelos jumped in and reminded Kane that Taxi debuted about 46 years ago. She said that the cast is so lucky because they still all love each other and Marilu Henner, who played Elaine O’Connor-Nardo on the show, organizes group Zoom chats and never forgets any of the important dates from the show. She said that she believes they are on their 15th Zoom, which they started during the pandemic. They also joked about Henner’s “genius brain,” referring to her hyperthymesia, also known as a highly superior autobiographical memory, and said that Henner could probably write Kane’s memoir if she ever wanted to pen one!

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Kane also revealed the best piece of advice she has gotten during her long career. She said that it came from Jim Brooks, who wrote Taxi with Ed Weinberger, David Davis and Stan Daniels. She admitted that she was working on Taxi and trying to impress everyone, including the writers, and trying so hard to be funny. Brooks told her that she shouldn’t try to be funny. He told her if we wrote it funny, it will be funny and if we didn’t, we have to fix it. She added that she has to remind herself not to beg to be funny, just say the words as written and it will fall into place.

Her latest show Dinner with the Parents will be streaming Freevee starting April 19.

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