Rajskub uploads Chloe every ‘24’
In spite of herself, Chloe O’Brian has charmed the “24” audience.
Her job on the Fox thriller is that of Senior Analyst at the Counter-Terrorist Unit, and she’s a whiz, lording over her keyboard with data-slinging deftness.
Each 24-episode season tracks a single day’s crisis in real time, hour by hour, as agent Jack Bauer (series star Kiefer Sutherland) summons Chloe’s high-tech assistance, then runs with it.
But Chloe, as embodied by actress Mary Lynn Rajskub, is much more than a glorified computer nerd. She’s also petulant, snippy and a simmering sourpuss.
A large measure of Chloe’s appeal is due to Rajskub, whose challenge is to humanize a character defined by her scowl and techno-jargon.
So it’s all the more bracing to find that, spared from Chloe’s pressures and chronic funk, Rajskub is: pretty, funny, freewheeling to talk with, endowed with a plummy chuckle and a quirky take on life.
“I don’t feel like calling myself a weirdo anymore,” she announces, when reminded of her self-appraisal from several years ago. “How about if I say I was always a superstar? That’s better, right?”
She has come a long way. Growing up in a Detroit suburb, the 34-year-old Rajskub confesses “I didn’t like other people – or liked ‘em too much. So I tried to keep a low profile, to skate by unnoticed.”
But what she might like doing for her life’s work remained a mystery through her teens, though she was certain what she didn’t want to do.
“(M)y greatest fear,” she says, was “to work behind the counter at AAA. I would drive past their office, and I was horrified.”
She enrolled in painting at Detroit’s Center for Creative Studies, then transferred to the San Francisco Art Institute.
“I loved doing performance art, and I thought I was doing it seriously,” she recalls. “But someone wrote that what I did was strange and funny. I thought, ‘Funny?!’ “
By the mid-1990s she was doing sketch comedy on HBO’s brilliant “Mr. Show” with Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, who was her boyfriend. She joined the cast of Garry Shandling‘s “Larry Sanders Show” its final two seasons, then landed a recurring role on the NBC sitcom “Veronica’s Closet.”
She has appeared in several films, including the current Harrison Ford hit “Firewall.”
But three years ago, as “24” entered its third season and the newly created role of Chloe beckoned, Rajskub was loath to audition.
“On the page the part was just, ‘No, Jack. Yes, Jack,’ ” she explains. “Besides, I had never watched ‘24.’ But when I realized what it was, I realized this is a cool show.”
The birthday bunch
Actress-singer Doris Day is 82. Actress Marsha Mason is 64. Singer Wayne Newton is 64. Singer Billy Joe Royal is 64. Singer Tony Orlando is 62. Singer Richard Thompson is 57. Country bassist Curtis Stone of Highway 101 is 56. Guitarist Mick Mars of Motley Crue is 50. Actor Alec Baldwin is 48. Actor David Hyde Pierce (“Frasier”) is 47. Comedian-actor Eddie Murphy is 45. Singer-guitarist Mike Ness of Social Distortion is 44. Singer Sebastian Bach is 38. Actress Jennie Garth (“Beverly Hills 90210”) is 34. Actress Cobie Smulders (“How I Met Your Mother”) is 24. Actress Amanda Bynes is 20.