Jane Lynch talks The Weakest Link, hopes for more Party Down, and pitches herself as a superhero

Jane Lynch loves to host. “I like facilitating people’s fun,” she told The A.V. Club in a recent interview. On both Hollywood Game Night and The Weakest Link reboot, Lynch’s role is to preside over the gameplay—“herding the cats,” as she put it. Meanwhile, she still has time to put in the comedic performances we’ve come to know and love on shows like Only Murders In The Building or last year’s Party Down revival. Her plate is pretty full, but she’s still interested in new challenges if something new should come along (like, say, a call from Marvel Studios).

But back to hosting. The Weakest Link works because “we’re not reinventing the wheel,” said Lynch, who also serves as an executive producer on the series, which first aired in Britain in 2000. “You know, we’re smart in that way. We play the show the way the show is structured, and that’s why it’s so great. But what we did this year, to, you know, kind of gild the lily if you will, is that we have some specialty shows, where we invite, like, the cast of Days Of Our Lives,” Lynch teased. The season will also feature a drag queen episode and a “Christmas characters” show. “Then you get to play the exact same game the exact same way, but with [actors] who are in an ensemble and know each other very well, and there’s a lot of fun. There’s nothing more fun than hanging out with a bunch of actors who know each other, as far as I’m concerned.”

Lynch hasn’t met the show’s original host Anne Robinson, but she’d love to: “She was masterful in her hosting of the first couple iterations of Weakest Link. She created the host prototype, that’s now a prototype, that I’m kind of making my own way with. But she definitely inspired me,” she said. “She had something that I don’t have, which is that British school marm kind of thing, that absolutely no-nonsense thing that just [gasps], you know, made your hair stand up on end. I think I’m a little less threatening than that, a little more maybe snarky, maybe a little wink—there’s definitely a wink to my [snarkiness], I hope.”

As far as other projects go, Lynch “kind of expected to hear” that there would be a fourth season of Party Down after the success of the revival, though she hasn’t gotten a call yet. “I haven’t heard anything, but I hope to,” the actor said. “I hope it won’t be another 12 years, I’ll be a very old caterer. And it’ll be kind of pathetic if I’m still… but I’m supposedly rich. My character’s supposedly rich. But I think she’d go back to catering like that [snaps] just to be with her pals.” She praised the cast, acknowledging that though there is a trend on television of bringing in buzzy, big-name guest stars, “I like when you kind of stick to that core cast, and this is a really strong core cast. So I don’t know that I have anybody like, ‘Oh, I’d love to see so-and-so on Party Down.’” She added, “The great thing about it is, everybody wants to be on it, which is nice. So if we do have a guest star role, we could probably get some really cool people. But I think the cast is so darn good, I like to focus on that.”

In the future, though, Lynch wouldn’t mind mixing things up and trying something totally new. “I’d like to do a superhero thing,” she proposed. “I’d like to play something like that, some kind of a superhero, something very noble—or terrible. Something very evil in that universe. Yeah, that would be really fun. And be an actual superhero! You know, I’m in my 60s, I wouldn’t obviously be one of the younger ones, but maybe someone who’s been around for a while. Something like that would be really fun. And I’d probably get very rich.”

Lynch hadn’t heard about the latest superhero sensation, Madame Web, but The A.V. Club helpfully explained the infamous tagline, “Her web connects them all.” Lynch quipped: “I’d like to be in that web.”