Marissa Winikour & Judah Miller
BACK HOME IN BEDFORD
PHOTOGRAPHY: ANDREA CERASO
Marissa Winokur is a star of stage and screen, most famous for having played Tracy Turnblad in the Broadway production of Hairspray - for which Marissa won the Tony for Leading Actress in a Musical…and she is currently starring in a Broadway reprise of Hairspray that Marissa has written, directed, and produced, called Mama I’m A Big Girl Now - with plans to take that production worldwide after the Broadway run.
Judah Miller is a comedy writer who most recently wrote and was the showrunner for the television series called Bupkis, starring Pete Davidson - who’s also recently moved to Bedford.
Together, Marissa and Judah are amongst the elite of ‘Hollywood’ power couples …and in 2021, they bought a house in Bedford!
“This is the house I grew-up in!” Marissa announces. “My father was an architect and built this house in 1965. He bought these five acres for $8,000 - but, unfortunately, didn’t buy all the adjacent land that was for sale, because he couldn’t afford it - and we moved up from Manhattan. I was the youngest of four and we all went to Fox Lane. …My parents sold the house in 1999. …Then one night in 2021 - and I was one of those people who was going crazy washing vegetables during Covid - I’m lying in bed with Judah in our house in L.A., and I have an impulse - and I believe that there’s all sorts of energy in the universe - and I looked up the house on Zillow and, sure enough, it had just been listed for sale! We called up and bought it the next morning. … For me, Bedford has always been ‘home’! It’s just awesome to live in the energy of my childhood!”
Marissa is over the top, volume up, upbeat, and gregarious. Her positive energy fills the room… and no one needs to ask her a question to get her started…
“I’ve always been an actress and a singer,” she proclaims. “I was the youngest of four kids, so the genesis is probably based in my wanting more attention! I always felt like an oddball growing up…but I embraced that I was different. I went to Fox Lane and took every opportunity I could find as a kid to get up in front of an audience. I’ve always been pretty fearless! I even worked as an usher at the Bedford Playhouse, just because it was a job ‘in theater’ and because I got to watch all the movies at the same time. When it was time to go to college my dad said the regular path was a waste of time and money in my case, and that I should instead go to work on my craft…and I enrolled at the American Music and Dramatic Academy in Manhattan. At 20, I landed the role playing Jan in the Broadway production of Grease!”
“Grease was a great gig, but I’m a person who wants to take everything to the top…so I moved out to L.A. to do TV and movies,” Marissa continues. “I was the only person that looked like me and I celebrated that! The chubby diva…auditioning against a field of plain boring girls! I got a lot of work, including a standout role in American Beauty. Norman Lear even developed a TV show with me in a lead role - but that never got produced. …And then, at age 26, I was diagnosed with cervical and uterine cancer…”
“I got the call for Hairspray from Marc Shaiman in 2001, while I was still being treated for cancer. I didn’t tell anyone, because I feared they wouldn’t want to invest in me and because I didn’t want to ruin the character by being generally identified as the sick girl,” Marissa admits. “But then I realized I could inspire other people by telling my story…and ever since then I’ve worked with just about every cancer organization trying to convey the message that ‘you can be OK’! I’ve got a lot of energy and a lot of life, and found the zen of accepting that whatever happens in life…is great! I’m pretty fearless!”
“Doing Mama I’m A Big Girl Now, together with my co-stars from Hairspray, Laura Bell Bundy and Kerry Butler, is the culmination of my journey over the twenty years since that fountainhead,” Marissa proclaims. “I love being a strong woman with strong girlfriends - who all support each other! I think there’s a need for hard comedy and escapism. And I believe the play will strike a chord with almost everyone. Kind of like appearing on Dancing With The Stars! Moms come with their grown daughters to kind of explain their own histories. Laura, Kerry and I brought the show to Lisa Dozier Shacket to produce, and when Hairspray producer Doug Meyer joined in on the project, we went full bore. It took a lot of effort, but at the same time it was so much fun that it felt effortless. Good art is very powerful. It can do a lot of things! This show brings joy!”
While Judah is pleased to play the role of supporting actor when it comes to Marissa, he’s a standalone superstar in the world of comedy writing. “I grew up in Alamo in San Francisco’s East Bay area and was Pre-med at UC Berkeley…but down deep I always wanted to go into showbiz,” Judah recalls. “Right out of school, I got a job working in the mailroom at William Morris in L.A., and got swept up for a couple of years in becoming an agent …but one day my boss called me in and told me I ‘wasn’t enough of a killer to make it in the agency business’. By that time I’d determined that I really wanted to be a writer. So I got a computer and started to write! I wrote a spec script with my brother, and we were hired by Phil Lord and Chris Miller to work on a cult hit animated show called Clone High. As I continued, writing on my own, I got as much TV work as I could possibly handle. I feel absolutely fortunate to have been able to work with comedy legends like Lorne Michaels, Judd Apatow, Seth MacFarlane, Danny McBride, Mike Judge, and Steve Levitan. I’m currently working on a screenplay for Bradley Cooper. It’s always a bit of a carny existence not having steady work, but I can’t think of anything I’d rather do!”
“I think I’m funny,” Judah reflects, “...but I’m usually the quiet guy in the room.
My writing is much funnier than I am in real life. I’m certainly much more of an introvert than Marissa - we’d be way too annoying otherwise! I view myself as being kind of scrappy - but only as a writer…I bring my car to the dealership to change plates!” ...Marissa breaks-in to sing Judah’s praises, saying, “Judah can come in with a strong point of view and his humor is based in truth, but his work almost always expresses a definite optimism. His humor is usually dry, but he has the ability to write in a variety of tones and, unlike many other comedy writers, understands that women can be funny too! And while he’s being quite honest about not being handy, when he’s in the role of being a showrunner he’s quite capable, takes definite charge of everybody and everything, and gets the best out of everyone.”
The couple met way back when Judah was still in college at Berkeley. “I went with Sally Struther’s daughter to go see the production of Grease in San Francisco and got backstage afterwards,” Judah explains. “I wasn’t too suave about it when I announced to Marissa that I thought she was ‘a star’ and that she was destined to emerge as a leading lady on stage and screen. …Four years later, I was working at William Morris and Marissa came to the office to meet with my boss. I was wearing a suit and tie and Marissa didn’t recognize me or remember that we’d met…maybe even after I told her I was the guy who predicted the stardom she was then achieving.” …As Marissa picks-up the story saying, “I may not have remembered him, but I certainly noticed him! I asked his boss ‘who’s your assistant’ before he tried to get reacquainted, and I was thrilled when he asked me out on a date. When he called to follow-up, he said he was going to Vegas for the weekend with some of his buddies…and asked me to join him! …We’re the same age and get along really well, but before I even started to think of him as my boyfriend, he said ‘we should get married’! …I was all in!”
“Despite my cancer surgery, we were able to have our son Zev through a surrogate,” Marissa says with the huge smile of a proud mama. “He’s 16 now. …He’s a great kid, does really well in school, and - although we don’t know where he got it from - he’s a real athlete. He’s determined to become a tennis pro and, completely on his own initiative, after three years training at IMG Academy, he is now finishing high school at Weil Tennis Academy in Ojai, California.”
Sometimes, these two creatives write side-by-side. Judah comments, “Marissa is actually a brilliant writer. She often dictates fully-formed comedy, practically shouting it out at me! And she edits everything I write before I send it out. Her opinion helps me so much. She’s brutally honest with me!”
…It’s as if Mel Brooks and Bette Middler got together…and yet Judah and Marissa each humbly blush at that comparison. “I’ve been obsessed with Mel Brooks since I was a little kid. He’s the master, and everything I’ve done has been informed by him. We have the same sensibilities and comedic bent. But I can only aspire to pioneer in humor as he did, or leave behind the kind of body of work that he boasts,” Judah tributes. And Marissa remarks, “I’m incredibly flattered. Bette was an inspiration to me growing up. And I do share a small part of the cult following in the gay and lesbian community that Bette first championed. I’ve even been the Grand Marshall at the NY and LA Pride Parades. But Bette was a real movie star, and I’ve yet to land a leading role in film like hers playing C.C. Bloom in Beaches and singing Wind Beneath Your Wings as the theme song.”
If we’re going to wax on about my career,” Marissa continues, “I’ll say that I’m most proud of what I’ve done to empower other women - and as a plus-size role model. I paved the way for other cute chubby girls to believe that they don’ t have to play the sidekick . Women come up to me all the time to say ‘you changed the way I saw myself ’! Even Rebel Wilson told me that when she saw me in Hairspray it made her realize that she could do musical theater.”
Judah and Marissa are a fun pair!
…And pressed to determine a guest list of the folks - dead or alive - they’d put together for a fantasy dinner party at their home in Bedford… Judah sets forth, “Mel Brooks, Robin Williams, Madeline Kahn, Gary Schandling, Alan Zweibel, and architect John Lautner - because he would totally understand this house!” …And Marissa adds, “My father. Ethel Merman - because my dad loved her and used to go to garage sales to collect her albums, and I would spend endless hours trying to emulate her sound. Isabella Rosalini - I’m obsessed with her! Gilda Radner. …And Don Walters, my 7th Grade teacher in East House at Fox Lane Middle School - who heard my voice and picked this chubby girl out of anonymity, saying ‘why aren’t you in the choir’, and who then gave me the support and encouragement to dare taking the lead in the 8th Grade show!”
