My interview with Molly Shannon...

Molly Shannon in a new TV comedy?

I'm so there!

This "Saturday Night Live" alum is an absolute riot and will be playing Selma Blair's mother in the NBC comedy "Kath and Kim" which premieres this fall. It is based on a popular Australian comedy of the same name.

"It's really fun to play a character and it's fun to be different from yourself," she told me recently. "I even wear a wig."

The wig is to help the audience believe that Molly, who turns 44 next month - and is mother to two young children in real life - is old enough to play mother to Selma who is 36.

But hey, it worked for the late Estelle Getty on "The Golden Girls." She was actually a year younger than her TV daughter Beatrice Arthur.

What really worried Molly the most were inevitable comparisons to the original "Kath and Kim," a show about a dysfunctional mother and daughter, living in a suburban community in Florida.

"It's a little hard because I'm such a big fan of the Australian version so I get a little nervous thinking, 'Oh God I could never imitate that,'" she said. "A couple of years ago, they did a version of the script with a different writer and they came to me with it. I didn't like the writing so much. Then they brought in a new writer and came back to me a year later and I really liked this new version."\

This marks the first TV series Molly has headlined since 2004's "Cracking Up" which lasted just nine episodes. She's confident things will go better this time around.
"It's just such an opportunity," she said. "Just to be in this position where the network's excited about the show, we're picked up for 13 (episodes). I just feel so grateful for that."
"There's so much you can't control in TV, I just try to have fun and enjoy the people that I'm working with. But of course I hope it does well."
Even though Molly left "SNL" in 2001, her characters remain fresh in the minds of fans - none more than the neurotic and melodramatic Catholic school girl Mary Katherine Gallagher who ended up being the central character in the spinoff movie "Superstar."
Her guest spots have also lived on including the "Seinfeld" episode on which she plays Sam, a co-worker who drive Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) bonkers because she didn't swing her arms when she walked.

And, of course, there was her recurring role on "Will & Grace" as loony neighbor Val who became the nemesis of Grace (Debra Messing).

"People love that show," she said of 'Will & Grace." "I only did a few episodes and people act like they saw me so much on that."

That's because she was so unforgettable.