Party Down stars' jobs before they were famous

Nepo babies aside, stars don’t simply hatch fully grown on Hollywood Boulevard. Whether it’s Brad Pitt dressing in a chicken suit to advertise a fast food restaurant, John Hamm working as a set dresser on adult movies, or Matthew McConaughey shooting armadillos on a country club golf course, there’s always a backstory. It’s just not always that exotic. In fact, most performers will find a second home in the restaurant and catering industry. 

That’s where you’ll find them in the workplace comedy series Party Down. The sitcom centres on a group of wanna-be writers and performers who’re making their rent payments while waiting for their big break by working at the Party Down catering company. 

Binge Party Down Season 1-3 now. (The series was a cult favourite in 2009-2010, and was revived for a third season in 2023.)

The show’s writer-creators – John Enbom, Rob Thomas, and Dan Etheridge, who all worked on the series Veronica Mars and iZombie together – and co-producer and longtime friend, Paul Rudd (Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, This is 40, I Love You, Man) were all able to mine their past lives for tales of working in an industry that made them background characters in other people’s lives. Even handsome, ageless Avengers star Paul paid the bills as a ham glazer at Kansas City’s Holiday Ham Company.

It was deeply (even uncomfortably) familiar territory to their cast, too. Here’s what they were doing to keep the lights on between acting gigs before they were famous…

Henry Pollard (Adam Scott)

While he became famous for a couple of high-profile advertisements, Henry’s acting career never really worked out. He’s resigned himself to life at Party Down and is trying to put his Hollywood dreams behind him. 

Adam Scott: He’s a megastar in Severance now, but Adam weathered massive amounts of rejection in his 20s before landing comedy movie Step Brothers in 2008, Party Down in 2009, and his great leap to fame as Ben Wyatt in Parks and Recreation in 2010, at the age of 36. To keep the lights on he tried working at singing-dancing restaurant Johnny Rockets but quit after just one day. He also worked at an antique shop, and as a music video extra (he was in the video for REM’s Drive in 1992) between minor TV and film roles and background actor work for 15 years. He distinctly remembers waiting around his apartment across the road from the Scientology Centre, smoking and anticipating his beeper going off, revealing that his agent had landed him yet another audition for a role he probably wouldn’t get. At one time he was going to as many as five auditions each day.

Ronald Wayne "Ron" Donald (Ken Marino)

Ron is Party Down’s proud and uptight team leader. A recovering drug and alcohol addict, he clings desperately to the order the job offers and lives for customer satisfaction, which, in LA, is like trying to drink a mirage. His big dream is owning his own branch of the restaurant franchise, Soup R' Crackers.

Ken Marino: Before he was Dawson’s Creek’s Professor Wilder or Eastbound & Down’s Guy Young, Ken made his living playing minor guest roles in series – specialising in jerks and loudmouths – while performing sketch comedy as one of the co-founders of comedy group The State. But he’s had his share of odd jobs, too, including emptying rented port-a-potties for his dad’s company, and working at a Long Island yacht club, from which he stole crates of alcohol – the key to his popularity in his university years. 

Casey Klein (Lizzy Caplan)

Casey joins Party Down as a struggling actress and comedian who needs to make ends meet while she deals with a failing marriage. Meeting Henry certainly doesn’t help her to resolve her marital issues. 

Lizzy Caplan: Unlike many of the cast, Lizzy grew up on Hollywood’s doorstep and started acting when she was 16 years old. But while she’s had plenty of iconic roles including Janis Ian in the original Mean Girls movies and Annie Wilkes in Castle Rock (along with lead roles in movies like Now You See Me 2), there have been patches when she could barely find work at all. After Mean Girls she didn’t work for a year. And while flailing around she worked clearing tables at restaurants. She’s also the only one of the Party Down cast who really worked as a “cater waiter”, and distinctly remembers how invisible she felt while carrying trays of canapes around at the premiere party for Being John Malkovich, because nobody ever looked her in the eye. 

Kyle Bradway (Ryan Hansen)

As a model, actor and frontman for the band Karma Rocket, Hallmark movie-handsome Kyle is convinced that his big breakout is just around the corner. At least in his own eyes, this easygoing guy is the total package. 

Ryan Hansen: Before he was Dick Casablancas in Veronica Mars, or Andy in 2 Broke Girls, Ryan was (and has also since been) a struggling actor. His wife, Amy Hansen, is Veronica Mars star Kristen Bell’s ex-roommate. He used his natural charisma for one of his stand-out odd jobs as a so-called “party pumper” – think of him as a kind of hype man for a DJ at a party. He was there to get the crowd moving at weddings and bar mitzvahs, and even taught the guests dance moves. 

Roman DeBeers (Martin Starr)

Cynical sci-fi fan and would-be screenwriter Roman has reached the frustrated and bitter era of his floundering career, and has turned his sharp tongue on his colleagues and the party guests he criticises. 

Martin Starr: Martin has made his mark as a comedy character actor as Silicon Valley’s Bertram Gilfoyle, along with roles in movies like Adventureland and Knocked Up, and a steady role as Roger Harrington in Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far from Home. Martin grew up in an acting family – his mom is actress Jean St James. But even with that foot up in the industry, he struggled once his breakout series Freaks and Geeks was cancelled, and he lived in a tiny, garbage-filled flat with Seth Rogen. One of his most humiliating odd job encounters is when he got kicked out of a coffee shop because he was completely incompetent as a barista. He was so bad at it that he even got a pity payout of $2 that one of the workers fished out of the tip jar. 

Constance Carmell (Jane Lynch)

As the wise elder at Party Down, former actress Constance tries her best to steer her colleagues, especially Kyle. Kind, honest and a little delusional, she lives in a kind of dream world.

Jane Lynch: Jane missed the final two episodes of Party Down Season 1, as shooting clashed with the role that would become her massive, worldwide smash-hit role – Sue Sylvester in Glee. Even before Party Down she flexed her comedy muscles as part of Chicago’s famous Second City troupe, and in films like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and sitcom Two and a Half Men. But there was a big leap between the child who wrote to Hollywood agents as a child, and the late-30s actress who impressed mockumentary megastar Christopher Guest when he was her director for a cereal advertisement. She hasn’t forgotten what it was like to work in a warehouse during her first job filling out orders using carbon paper – which she loved doing. She also detasseled mielies and admits to being a terrible waitress at a Chicago restaurant called RJ Grunts.

Bobbie St Brown (Jennifer Coolidge)

When Constance leaves, her roommate Bobbie fills in for her at Party Down (Season 1, episodes 9 and 10)

Jennifer Coolidge: The White Lotus star Jennifer studied to be a makeup artist but before becoming an actress she was a cocktail waitress at the same restaurant where Sandra Bullock was a hostess. She has claimed that while Sandra was focussed and seemed to have a plan, she herself was more interested in partying and admits she tested the limits of what she’s have to do to get fired, skipping shifts whenever she had something more fun to go to.

Lydia Dunfree (Megan Mullally)

Joining the team in Season 2, would-be stage mom Lydia has just gotten divorced and she’s moved to LA to launch the Hollywood career of her 13-year-old daughter, Escapade (Kaitlyn Dever). As someone always on the hunt for tips and hacks for breaking into the entertainment industry, the staff of Party Down are a goldmine.

Megan Mullally: While Megan (The Fabulous Four, Parks and Recreation) made money as a singer before she started acting, there were also some odd jobs she looks back on with a raised eyebrow. On one occasion she agreed to be a foot model for a shoe show in Chicago. Rather than being on the main floor of the convention centre, the modeling area was in a hotel room, and she remembers the “customers” being creepy and greasy. She’d agree with you now that that might not have been a real shoe modeling job. 

Lucy Dang (Zoe Chao)

In Season 3, Lucy joins the team with stars in her eyes about becoming a food artist and a celebrity chef. Seeing the food prep at Party Down is going to be a grater to the nerves!

Zoe Chao: Zoe (The Comeback) worked as a cocktail waitress at the notorious Chateau Marmont, where she remembers messing up an order and sneaking out to the parking lot to hide four burgers under a co-worker’s car. Later that night, at the end of her shift, she ate one with glee before redistributing the other three. It wasn’t the only time she snatched a dinner before the server could pick it up from the kitchen!

Evie Adler (Jennifer Garner)

In Season 3, film producer Evie joins Party Down as she reevaluates her life and career. 

Jennifer Garner: Jennifer (Angel City, The Kingdom) has come a long way from growing up on a farm in West Virginia and working in a men’s clothing shop in her school days (when she wasn’t practising to be a dancer), along with cleaning theatre toilets and building sets. Early in her career she worked as a restaurant hostess and washed her castmates’ laundry to raise cash. And once she made it to LA in the 1990s, she took jobs babysitting celebrities’ children, including comedian Stephen Colbert's daughter, Madeleine. She’s the odd-job queen – which other star can boast about filming a recruitment video for the CIA?

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