Lisa Ann Walter on Menopause, Hollywood’s Ageism, and Her ‘Abbott Elementary’ Role (EXCLUSIVE)
Learn about her new partnership focused on starting much-needed conversations about menopause
Lisa Ann Walter is beloved for her role as veteran second-grade teacher Melissa Schemmenti in the popular sitcom Abbott Elementary, which recently came back for its fourth season. Now, Walter is using her signature humor to school us on a new subject: Menopause.
“I think funny is the best way to message,” says Walter. To that end, the actress recently partnered with Centrum to launch “Hot Conversations,” a workplace training video that aims to provide approachable information about menopause to raise awareness about a life stage that’s far too often met with misinformation and taboo. In addition to its new line of Menopause Support supplements, Centrum also offers other resources, including an online quiz to access a free personalized menopause support guide.
Walter sat down with Woman’s World to talk about how she got involved with this partnership, her personal experience with menopause and aging in the entertainment industry and more.
Woman’s World: It seems like more and more famous women are sharing their experiences with menopause. How did you get involved with this partnership?
Lisa Ann Walter: I say no to a lot of stuff, but since this partnership is with Centrum, it immediately perked up my interest because it was a brand that my mother insisted on. My mother was the smartest person that I knew. She’s the reason why I’m a Celebrity Jeopardy! champion. She knew more about more topics in the world than anybody I’ve ever met.
She should have been a doctor, but when she was growing up, little Italian girls in the neighborhood barely went to college. My mom paid for her own college and became a teacher. She knew about medicine and the brand that she insisted on for her daily vitamins was Centrum.
When they said the partnership was about menopause, I’ll be honest with you that I briefly went, “Ooh, am I ready to tell the world that’s where I am?” And then I thought, you gotta walk the walk. I’ve been a lifelong feminist. As a woman, as you get older, you get to this stage of life that they call “the change,” which I really reject. I don’t like calling it something like it’s a magic act that happens, and all of a sudden you’re a less worthy human.
We have to give doctors more than 15 minutes of training about menopause. Some of my menopause symptoms were ones I didn’t know about because nobody talks about all of them. I didn’t find out until years later that my weird numb shoulder was a menopause symptom. I thought it was a heart attack. We have to set up, as Centrum did, a place at work where people can find out about symptoms and show men what this is about. We’re a little over half the population. The other half can’t be making us the butt of their jokes.
WW: You mentioned that your mom was a teacher, and now you’re playing one. What else have you learned from her?
LAW: My mom was a wonderful teacher, both in the classroom and with us at home. She taught me to read when I was 3, which was a pretty foundational thing. You’re ahead of the game when you start preschool if you’re already reading.
She was very strong. She taught in downtown D.C. and Maryland and was a substitute for a long time, but everybody in the school knew you couldn’t just get around her. She wouldn’t take anybody’s garbage. She helped inform my Abbott Elementary character.
WW: Why do you think that people are just now beginning to talk more openly about menopause?
LAW: I look at Gen Z, and they are so determined to say who they are and demand certain treatment and behaviors from the world. Our generation was less like that, but I think we can learn a little something from them. I think as our generation ages, the definition of a woman of a certain age changes. We’re pushing back and rejecting the idea of, “Well, you’re over 50, so we don’t need you anymore.”
Maybe it’s a function of there being more women in power positions. There are more women who can greenlight things and make decisions about who appears in a movie or TV show, and more women in charge of a boardroom. As women gain more power, maybe it makes it more acceptable for the rest of us to grow up.
WW: How does your stage of life play into Abbott Elementary?
LAW: I think what’s really wonderful in the show is that Barbara Howard, played by Sheryl Lee Ralph, is at retirement age, but she’s not retiring. And I’m her best friend, but instead of them saying, “Well, why can’t the friend be 40?” they went ahead and had us be similar ages, which makes it truthful. It’s authentic to buddy up with a person that has similar shared life experience.
WW: What has your experience of aging in the entertainment industry been like?
LAW: I was a trained actress and did the Greek plays, Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams—all the serious stuff in the conservatory at the Catholic University of America. I went to New York to be an actor and I got pregnant. So I got married, I had my son, and when he was 18 months old, I started doing stand up. I developed an act about being a working mom and how to keep a relationship going and all the things that people around the country were experiencing. I was one of the only working mom comics that I knew.
By 24 I was out on the road doing standup and after seven or eight years of that I was offered the golden ticket, which was to cocreate and star in my own TV show based on that. So I came to L.A. doing basically what Quinta Brunson is doing on Abbott Elementary now. I had a show on Fox and then I had a show on ABC. And then I did The Parent Trap, which I’m still entirely grateful for. There is nothing as gratifying to an actor as hearing from people that I made them feel safe, or that they watch it with their kids, which is also something we hear a lot about Abbott Elementary.
I had a really fun movie career—I was in Bruce Almighty with Jim Carrey and Jennifer Aniston and Shall We Dance? with Jennifer Lopez and Richard Gere and War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise—and then I got to the stage where there weren’t as many roles written for women of my age group, and if they were written, they were going to hire Meryl Streep. So being able to come back to star on a TV show that people love and that’s in season four is a blessing. I am entirely grateful. I love my job. I get up every day excited to go to work, even if it’s 4:30 in the morning.
Conversation
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