ACTOR · BORN 1964
Janeane Garofalo
- Born
- 28 September 1964, Newton, New Jersey, USA
- Known for
- Ratatouille (2007), Rick and Morty (2013), The Simpsons (1989), Two and a Half Men (2003)
22 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
All facts (22)
- #001
She was the original choice to play Monica on Friends (1994), but she turned the role down.
- #002
She has described Saturday Night Live (1975) as the worst experience of her professional life.
- #003
A self-described neo-Luddite, she is reported to have no smartphone, computer or email address.
- #004
The original pitch for Just Shoot Me! (1997) was Garofalo stuck in a waiting room with a model she had nothing in common with. Garofalo later became the template for Laura San Giacomo's role as Maya Gallo.
- #005
She is a very good friend of Ben Stiller. Both had brief stints on Saturday Night Live (1975), both appeared on The Ben Stiller Show (1992), they have worked together in films and have written and created other comedy shows together. Garofalo has said she works well with Stiller because they are complete opposites: she is caustic and political, while Stiller is more go-with-the-flow and silly, and they can fill in the gaps the other misses.
- #006
Her production company is I Hate Myself Productions.
- #007
In his DVD commentary for Dogma (1999), director Kevin Smith said that, in hindsight, he wished he had offered the role of Bethany to Garofalo instead of Linda Fiorentino, with whom he found working very difficult; at times the two were not even speaking. Garofalo appears in the film as "Liz" at the abortion clinic.
- #008
She traveled the comedy club circuit extensively with Margaret Cho. The two blamed each other for their bad smoking habits.
- #009
She married her boyfriend Robert Cohen as a joke at a drive-through chapel in Las Vegas in 1992. They had gone to Vegas with the other cast members of The Ben Stiller Show (1990), and she and some of the other crew members decided to get married. After their relationship ended, they never formally divorced. The marriage finally ended in November 2012, when Cohen became engaged to Jill Leiderman. She is the former sister-in-law of Joel H. Cohen.
- #010
She was offered the role of Gale Weathers in Scream (1996), but turned it down to appear in Sweethearts (1997). Courteney Cox then took the role, and Scream (1996) went on to gross more than $100 million, while Sweethearts (1997) went straight to video.
- #011
In 2003 interviews, she admitted to being a recovering alcoholic.
- #012
At one point she worked with every member of The Kids in the Hall (1988).
- #013
Cameron Crowe offered her the role of Dorothy Boyd in Jerry Maguire (1996) if she could lose weight, but after she lost the weight she learned that Renée Zellweger had won the part, which became a breakthrough hit in her career.
- #014
Of Italian and Irish descent, she is the daughter of Carmine Garofalo. Garofalo attended Madison High School in Madison, New Jersey, but graduated in 1982 from James E. Taylor High School in Katy, Texas, after transferring in her final year when her family moved. She later studied history at Providence College in Rhode Island.
- #015
She auditioned for the role of Marla Singer in Fight Club (1999).
- #016
Some sources report that Garofalo has fifteen tattoos. One of them reads "think" on her arm.
- #017
She co-hosted the 1996 MTV Movie Awards (1996) with Ben Stiller.
- #018
Janeane Garofalo lived briefly in Minnesota at the start of her stand-up career.
- #019
Garofalo was a former host of Air America Radio's The Majority Report (2004), which she co-hosted with Sam Seder; she reportedly left in 2006 due to conflicts with Seder.
- #020
In a 2008 interview with New York Magazine, Garofalo said her time on SNL was "the most miserable experience of [her] life." She disliked the job so much that she left the show mid-season.
- #021
In March 2003, Garofalo appeared on CNN's Crossfire (1982) to discuss the international situation regarding Iraq.
- #022
Garofalo returned to her roots as a stand-up comedian, performing at the Gilded Balloon Theatre in August for the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
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