I’ve been a big Jennifer Coolidge fan since her Legally Blonde days. Of course, I remember her as Stifler’s Mom, but it was the bend and snap that got me. She makes me laugh every time. I can’t not think about that boat scene from Season 1 of White Lotus without gasping from laughter.

Last weekend, Jennifer gave the commencement address at Emerson College, which she attended briefly before dropping out to pursue her career. She called herself a ”very, very strange kid” while growing up and acknowledges that she’s giving the speech for some ”very excited gay students” and ”some less excited hetero” ones. But for all of the humor, there was also some really solid, poignant advice mixed in.

The White Lotus actress looked back on her last day of first grade, during which her school had a field day with an obstacle course. After her teacher explained how to complete the event, Coolidge said she “ran like hell” and beat the fastest girl in school — or so she thought.

“I was so elated that I had won, and to me, it just meant that I was going to get the blue ribbon. And then the teacher came up to me and told me that I didn’t win the blue ribbon because I was disqualified,” said Coolidge. “And it turns out, I had skipped all the obstacles. I just ran along the outside.”

Coolidge admitted that the mishap caused her classmates to tease her for years. “I realized I was going to go the rest of my life as a joke. I was so uncomfortable with myself, I began to completely live in my head from that moment on,” she explained.

After a while, though, the experience caused her to have “insane expectations [for herself] and believe they’re going to come true.”

Her change in mindset grew even stronger after she saw a magazine that belonged to her mother featuring Grace Kelly and her royal wedding, which made Coolidge dream of becoming the queen of Monaco.

“In retrospect, it was the one and only thing I really had going for me. I had this thing inside of me telling me that I could achieve anything, anything, in this world, and there was just nothing to back it up,” she said, causing laughter from the crowd.

The comedian used this anecdote from her childhood to make her message to the graduates clear.

“When you find the thing that you want to do, I really want to highly recommend, just friggin’ go for it,” she said. “You really have to psych yourself up into believing absurd possibilities, and you have to believe that they are not absurd.”

Coolidge noted that being “overly sensitive” made her constantly feel like she was in a “state of just recovering” from negative feedback — whether it was being rejected for a role or hearing a hurtful comment.

Eventually though, Coolidge was able to become her “own champion” and find the strength to move forward.

“Don’t listen to the people who mess up the real story that you’ve got going,” she urged the graduates. “It is your ability to convince yourself you really can make it, because you really have to be your own champion.”

The American Pie actress ended her speech by expressing that the point of her obstacle course story was to remind the graduates that “it really doesn’t matter what anyone thinks or says.”

“When it comes to the obstacle course of your life, you have to find your own path,” she said. “And you can’t perfectly plan it out from the beginning. Part of directing your life is just letting it unfold. So let it.”

[From People]

”You have to psych yourself up into believing absurd possibilities, and you have to believe that they are not absurd.” I love this. Actually, I love all of what she’s saying here, including the anecdote about finding your own path. We need to believe in ourselves and hold onto that as we shoot our shot. This was a solid address that revealed Jennifer’s personality beyond the characters she plays. It’s not the first time she’s given us more of an insight into who she really is off screen, but it felt the most real. This is making me want to see her do more dramatic roles.

Photos credit: Sue Andrews/Avalon, Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon