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"   Molly Shannon, who we all came to know and love as a zany Catholic school girl on Saturday Night Live and in hit movies Serendipity and Evan Almighty, has recently teamed up with Zyrtec\u2014the now-OTC allergy drug that saves sufferers every day from pollen and puppy attacks. Here, she tells us a little bit about her allergy onset nightmare, being a mom to 4-year-old Stella Shannon Chestnut and 3-year-old Nolan Shannon Chestnut and her new TV series. What are your upcoming projects? I&amp;#039;m committed to a project for NBC. It&amp;#039;s called Kath &amp;amp;amp; Kim\u2014it&amp;#039;s a big hit in Australia. They&amp;#039;re doing the same thing they did with The Office. I play the mother, Kath, and Selma Blair plays my daughter; it&amp;#039;s about their dysfunctional relationship. I go to L.A. in June to shoot it for a couple months, and then I&amp;#039;m assuming it will air in the fall. I&amp;#039;m really excited about it because I get to play a character closer to myself: She&amp;#039;s a Midwesterner, lives in Florida and she thinks she&amp;#039;s pretty fancy. Have you ever worked with Selma Blair before? No, I haven&amp;#039;t. But I&amp;#039;ve met her because I&amp;#039;ve been out there for the casting. We&amp;#039;ve been reading with other actors, and she&amp;#039;s great. I&amp;#039;m such a fan of hers and I&amp;#039;m really excited to work with her. A lot of people are like, &amp;quot;How can you play Selma Blair&amp;#039;s mother?&amp;quot; But, the women in the Australian series are from a comedy troupe and they&amp;#039;re actually like a year apart, something like that.  So it&amp;#039;s supposed to be obvious? It&amp;#039;s more like sketch comedy, like that kind of over-the-top type feeling.  How did you get involved with it? They asked me to do it. A year ago they developed a script with another writer and it wasn&amp;#039;t quite right, and then they got a new writer and sent me the script again, and I really liked the way she&amp;#039;d adapted it, so I agreed to do it.  How did you get involved with the Zyrtec campaign? I got involved because I&amp;#039;ve been a long-term allergy sufferer, and I come from a long line of allergy sufferers. My dad had allergies, I have allergies, my son Nolan has allergies\u2014I&amp;#039;m glad my daughter doesn&amp;#039;t, but it&amp;#039;s hereditary. Zyrtec and the Asthma and Allergy Foundation came to me and said that they had this great campaign called &amp;quot;Allergies Are No Laughing Matter.&amp;quot; I was like, &amp;quot;Oh, I would love to be a part of it.&amp;quot;  I&amp;#039;m fortunate that I know how to manage my allergies. I take Zyrtec, which actually just became available over the counter. But I can sympathize with people who don&amp;#039;t know how to manage allergies, or always think it&amp;#039;s a cold. There&amp;#039;s this great website, allergysavvy.com, and you can go on it and take a quiz and find out whether or not you have allergies.  What kind of allergies do you have? I&amp;#039;m allergic to cats. It&amp;#039;s terrible: wheezing, my eyes get itchy, I feel kind of asthmatic, as if my lungs are filling up with water, I can&amp;#039;t breathe. Growing up, I would go to slumber parties at girls&amp;#039; houses and I&amp;#039;d have to leave in the middle of the night because I couldn&amp;#039;t breathe and it was so uncomfortable. So for people who really suffer, they get it.  I work with animals a lot as an actor, and you never want to have to turn down a job. Like in Year of the Dog, I had to work with all these dogs. It can be tough. And I didn&amp;#039;t tell the director that I was allergic because I didn&amp;#039;t want him to worry. He&amp;#039;d written the script for me and he&amp;#039;d developed it for me, and I was like, &amp;quot;Oh, whatever. I&amp;#039;m not going to say anything. It&amp;#039;s much worse with cats.&amp;quot; So I just didn&amp;#039;t mention it. And then the day before we started, I had a shoot with a little dog, and the dog licked my face and I broke out in hives. So then I thought, &amp;quot;Oh God, I better tell them.&amp;quot; So I said, &amp;quot;I have this allergy to dogs,&amp;quot; and there was all the hysteria. I ended up having to go to the doctor and he got me a prescription for Zyrtec. But I ended up being fine. I did a lot of outdoor scenes. But, like I said, if it would have been cats it would have been so much worse. What were your favorite shows and movies to be in, besides SNL? Well I loved Talladega Nights with Will [Ferrell]. We shot that at the racetrack. It was crazy! I did my scenes for the movie during a real race\u2014so much fun. It was such a crazy big-budget movie. It&amp;#039;s always fun when you work with your friends, because you know them and you just go out for dinner. I did a movie for TV called The Music Man, which was, like, so-so, but I met Kristin Chenoweth, Matthew Broderick and Victor Garber. During the day, it was dancing and then at night, every single night, we would go out for dinner. It&amp;#039;s fun when you&amp;#039;re working with a lot of people who are the same age as you. I think that was the most fun I&amp;#039;ve had. We would be so tired because we would be working, going out to dinner, waking up and working again. But, it was like a party every night.  What was your experience like on Sex and the City? Are you excited for the movie? I&amp;#039;m so excited for the movie! I&amp;#039;m such a fan of the show, and at that time I got cast on it, I was still just a huge fan. When I got to be in a scene with Sarah Jessica Parker, I felt like I wasn&amp;#039;t even an actress. I felt I was like a tourist who won a part on the show because I was such a fan. I&amp;#039;m like, &amp;quot;I can&amp;#039;t believe I&amp;#039;m doing a scene with Carrie Bradshaw.&amp;quot; Ya know? And they were so nice. Michael Patrick King is so talented and Sarah Jessica&amp;#039;s amazing; I&amp;#039;m such a fan of hers. And it was great working with such great comedy writers, and all the girls. I had a scene with Sarah Jessica, Kim Cattrall and Amy Sedaris, and I played the book publisher\u2014so fun. I really didn&amp;#039;t like seeing myself in the show because I&amp;#039;m such a fan of the show. I didn&amp;#039;t want to watch it and see myself, I just wanted to watch the show and enjoy it. Where is your family living right now? We live in Manhattan. We love it. What does your husband do? He&amp;#039;s a painter. Figurative\u2026he&amp;#039;s a figurative painter. So you&amp;#039;re shooting in L.A? Is the whole gang coming along? Yup\u2026just transport the whole family. My kids are still really little, just in preschool, so I bring them everywhere I go. If I do movies I&amp;#039;m always working out of town: Vancouver more than L.A. for some reason. We just go live in hotels or rent houses. I like it. But when they get older, when they&amp;#039;re set in school, it won&amp;#039;t be so easy. So, I just take it one day at a time, and try to not worry about that right now. What is your last-minute meal, for the kids, or for you? For the kids, I do egg whites a lot. They like egg whites and cinnamon toast and, of course, macaroni and cheese. I do quick smoothies a lot, they like that. They go through stages. They get sick of stuff. They&amp;#039;ll be into something, and then they&amp;#039;ll get sick of it. But, I&amp;#039;m a big Trader Joe&amp;#039;s person. For myself at night. I make quick chicken burgers and tater tots. That&amp;#039;s my regular meal, with mayonnaise. Chicken burgers from Whole Foods, I forget the brand name. They are delicious! And I put a little mayo, onions\u2026 I bake it for thirty minutes while I&amp;#039;m reading stories to them, and then by the time they&amp;#039;re in bed, it&amp;#039;s ready. I get a side of mayo to dip the tater tots in, turn on a little Oprah, and I&amp;#039;m set.  What do you like to do with your kids to have fun? They&amp;#039;re very simple. My kids are little. My son will be 3 in two weeks and my daughter&amp;#039;s 4 1/2. They like to stay in, and we just make up games around the house. They pretend their puppies, and I bring them to the puppy store. I pretend like I ordered a doll and I put them in a box, and I&amp;#039;m like, &amp;quot;Oh my God, look at this baby doll\u2026she talks!&amp;quot; What is the best parenting advice you&amp;#039;ve ever received? Understand them. Have empathy. I love that. That&amp;#039;s basically what adults want, too. You don&amp;#039;t want somebody to fix it; you just want somebody to listen sometimes. Kids are smart. Also, delay of gratification is a really important thing to learn, that you can&amp;#039;t have everything that you want right now. You have to be firm.  What three things do you always keep in your refrigerator and pantry? Coffee\u2014I put my coffee in the refrigerator because I like it cold. So I have amaretto coffee. I like Lays potato chips, and I love mayonnaise. I can&amp;#039;t be without mayo. I&amp;#039;m a Midwestern girl. I like mayo on everything.  What is the last thing you do before you go to bed at night? Brush my teeth. Brush and floss. What&amp;#039;s the last book you read that you really enjoyed? I just read a great kids book called How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. They&amp;#039;re famous, I think they were big in the &amp;#039;70s or something. And I also loved Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I was bummed when it ended. It&amp;#039;s one of those books that make you feel like you&amp;#039;re sitting with the author, like it&amp;#039;s a friend. She&amp;#039;s such a good writer. I also love Augusten Burrows, Running With Scissors.  Do you keep any sort of diet or exercise regime? I don&amp;#039;t diet at all. I eat when I&amp;#039;m hungry and I stop eating when I&amp;#039;m full, and if I do eat too much to the point where I&amp;#039;m too full, I&amp;#039;m just gentle with myself. That&amp;#039;s my general rule. I don&amp;#039;t weigh myself or anything like that. So, I do not diet. I did that a long time ago, and for me, it doesn&amp;#039;t work. It makes me crazy, and makes me feel deprived. I don&amp;#039;t deprive myself. I have French fries and mayo, but then naturally I will eat healthy because I don&amp;#039;t deprive myself. And I exercise. I run every day for like 30 minutes, and I have a little yoga tape, so I do a short routine for 15 minutes. But running is pretty much what I do every day. If I want a really good workout, I&amp;#039;ll add the 15 minutes of sun salutations, and that makes me feel amazing. I just don&amp;#039;t have time for 90-minute yoga classes as a mom. I like running because it&amp;#039;s quick and you can get it done, and that&amp;#039;s it. I don&amp;#039;t think of it in terms of weight control. It makes me a more relaxed mother, it makes me calmer, it makes me happier. I do headstands; they&amp;#039;re a natural anti-depressant. It&amp;#039;s really good for your mood.  What&amp;#039;s your favorite movie from this past year? I love La Vie en Rose. I loved her [Marion Cortillard&amp;#039;s] performance. I loved There Will Be Blood. Daniel Day Lewis is amazing.\u2013Brynn Mannino "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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