Still busy after fifty years

Annie Potts is 70-something and currently starring in the FOX dramedy Best Medicine, leaning on the comic timing that has carried her since the 1970s.

The roles you already know

Meemaw in Young Sheldon. Bo Peep in Toy Story. Mary Jo in Designing Women. Janine, the wise-cracking secretary in Ghostbusters. Four generations of fans, one actress.

A Kentucky farm childhood

She grew up the youngest of three girls on a sprawling farm, sent out to play in the barn and the fields. Nobody kept a hawk's eye on her, and that gave her independence.

“Just go out and play in the barn, play in the fields, go fishing, go dig a hole.”

Broadway was the plan

The young Potts wanted musical theater. That plan ended in a 1973 car accident that broke everything from her waist down and started a lifetime of repair.

Forty years late, and sweeter

She was 21 when the crash happened and 56 when she finally made her Broadway debut. Told in advance it would take that long, she says she might have quit.

“By the time I did get to Broadway, it was so sweet.”

The tomboy never left

What carried over is the fishing and the physicality. She admires women doing men's work, how they hold themselves and say: I do your same job, so don't get in my face.

“I think it's empowering.”

Sitting on the boat

Her Best Medicine character is a lobster woman. Potts lives on a little lake in LA, and when family came over they went and sat on the boat without taking it out, a Southern thing.

“I wouldn't want to have to rely on lobstering for a job.”

Cheerfulness is hard work now

She says keeping a cheerful demeanor is a struggle when the world is on fire and you have children and grandchildren coming. She prays through much of the day to calm down.

“I feel like it's like how much more can the world take?”

Her happy place is people

Beyond work and family, it is her beloved friends, and one Caribbean island she has visited for thirty years. Once a year she wants to touch the sand and look at the blue water.

Her kids still say slow down

When they were little they begged her to sit down. Apparently not. She swims to stay healthy and her doctor added yoga after the knee replacement, done in her trailer or not at all.

“MOM, you need to swim, you need to slow down.”

The role closest to her

Not Ghostbusters or Designing Women. Her favorite is Any Day Now, a show about race that drew on her own Southern relationships and was beautifully written.

“That's my favorite role.”

The best compliment

People telling her they had no idea that was her. When a role hides the actress that well, she knows she did her job.

“I didn't know that was you!”

A small rocket ship

From Young Sheldon she kept a prop award made up for Sheldon winning a science prize. It looks like a little rocket ship, tiny and full of meaning.

Her only career plan

She quotes Jean Stapleton on planning a career: read it, and if it didn't make you vomit, do it. Potts took any role that would not hurt her, to keep a roof up and pay for school.

“Planned my career?? I read it and if it didn't make me vomit, I did it.”

Mother first, everything else after

She decided her number one job was being the best mother she could be, and that the rest would fall into place. She could have been pickier. She thinks she did pretty good.

Doubt comes with the decades

Of course she had self-esteem trouble. Every actor alive believes they will never work again, and she pictures her children with a can of peas thanks to their unemployed mama.

“I've had many decades to have doubts.”

The advice she ignored

Older actors warned her that after 60 she should let her hair go white and cut her fee in half. Just as she braced for it, she did not have to. The white hair was her own choice.

Retirement, how about never

Fifty years in, she still loves every day on set. If work were a college course, it is the one she would rush to. She is not ready to sit in God's waiting room.

“How bout NEVER! I am not ready to pull up my ticket.”

Twenty-six surgeries and counting

She did not just break both legs, she destroyed them, and the repairs have never really stopped. Her third replacement on the same knee is the latest.

“All the kings horses and all the kings men have continued to put me back together again.”

Crybaby or get up

Her father gave her that nature, and the accident gave her the chance to test it. Asked to describe herself in three words: always so grateful. Today, for a gorgeous California day and a granddaughter due in September.

“Always so grateful.”