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Kristen Johnston is a dynamite comedic actress. Her guest spot on Sex and the City is legendary, one of the most chaotic and chilling sequences ever, and she goes at it full throttle. And of course there’s 3rd Rock From the Sun. The premise of that show always struck me as an actor’s playground: four aliens (John Lithgow, French Stewart, baby Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Kristen) are dispatched to Earth to gather data. So for the characters, everything is new and there’s no ingrained way to relate to things and the actors get to have a ball. Everyone in the show was terrific, but Lithgow and Kristen always made me guffaw the heartiest. Kristen was especially brilliant at the physical comedy, playing someone always at odds with their corporeal form. All that preamble to say, Kristen is in a new sitcom! Leanne comes from Chuck Lorre and comedian Leanne Morgan (who also stars). Kristen says she leapt at the chance to be part of a show centered on women “of a certain age,” as she recently described to Woman’s World.

Dogs save lives: “Dogs have kept me young,” says 57-year-old Johnston, who radiates confidence and humor as Woman’s World’s latest cover star. “They keep you exercised because you have to walk them. And there’s someone to cuddle, so you’re not on Tinder or whatever, looking for love in all the wrong places. They release oxytocin. They are so beneficial to your mental health. They have saved my life for sure.”

Our f–ked up healthcare system: “You have to fight for yourself,” Kristen tells Woman’s World. “Being lost in the medical system is a really traumatic, terrible place to be when you know something is very wrong—sometimes even worse than the illness itself. And being a woman, I think a couple of doctors really thought I was making it up, or it was all in my head or anxiety. I was dismissed, so that pissed me off.”

She saw 17 doctors to get to a diagnosis! After a long, frustrating search for answers—and seeing 17 doctors—Kristen finally found a doctor who listened and that made all the difference. She was diagnosed with lupus myelitis, a rare autoimmune disease that affects the spinal cord. At the time, the situation was dire. “I was 46 years old and couldn’t lift my neck without a brace,” she recalls. “My doctor said if we had waited any longer to start treatment—which included chemotherapy and steroids—I would have ended up a quadriplegic.”

On her new show ‘Leanne’: “I love the idea of two women of a certain age trying to move past a lot of mistakes and heartbreak, and they really come together,” Kristen Johnston says of the series. “When they told me it was a show about a woman of a certain age starting over and her sister and their relationship, I was on board right away.”

Aging makes you powerful: “Once you’ve hit a certain age, everything you’ve gone through, you realize how powerful it’s made you,” she says. “Everything that almost killed you and didn’t, every moment you wanted to give up but you didn’t, has now forged this person who is unstoppable. … Being a survivor—because if you live past 45, you just are—automatically gives you carte blanche to have ownership of your life,” she adds. “You fought for it and you are now living in it and you’re in your skin. It’s no longer something you’re borrowing or trying on. It’s now you—fully.”

[From Woman’s World]

17 doctors??!!! That’s horrendous. It feels like we’ve all but entirely eliminated the “health” and “care” parts of the system, and should instead be calling it the Medical Industrial Complex. No wonder Kristen feels so powerful getting to the other side of all that. As she should! But I also really appreciate how Kristen doesn’t tie it solely to her diagnosis; whatever it is you’ve gone through, it gives you the strength to be uncompromisingly you. And yeah no duh, dogs make life better! And healthier. Kristen currently has four floofs: Archie, Hamish, Lucky, and Stewie. Plus she fosters, leading her to proudly label herself “a crazy dog lady.” Some call that many dogs crazy, others call it heaven. Just so long as they’re not leaving presents in the bed.

Leanne is available to stream now on Netflix, and it also stars Celia Weston as Kristen and Leanne’s mom, which is a fantastic bit of casting. I hope this show does well for them, and would also like to humbly pitch Kristen for season four of The White Lotus. She totally fits into that world.

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Photos credit: Patrick McElhenney/Netflix, Getty and via Instagram