Jennifer Coolidge on Her Love Affair With New Orleans

“I fell in enjoy with New Year’s Eve a decade in the past, when a number of girlfriends and I spontaneously went to a position named the Commander’s Palace in New Orleans. I’ve in no way been a massive New Year’s person—I generally come across that it really is type of strike-or-overlook. This celebration was on the lookout the similar, specially considering the fact that all the dining places close to have been whole. But then I received a random phone simply call that anyone had canceled their reservation and to come by right absent. 

We had exciting ingesting wine and taking pleasure in Creole-influenced hors d’oeuvres, but what I will in no way fail to remember is what occurred proper immediately after we remaining. Some male was handing out these enormous bunches of silver balloons, major more than enough that it almost felt like they could elevate us. We tied them to the handlebars of our bicycles and found ourselves, at two in the morning, riding down a street in the Backyard District—past grand historic mansions with ornate iron railings and extraordinary gardens—with these big bunches of balloons bobbing in the wind. It was a completely unplanned experience that felt like a scene in a motion picture: a instant of bliss that I would like every person could have. 

And that’s what New Orleans is all about, which is why I finished up acquiring a property there—you can not have a strategy and stop up executing some thing definitely attention-grabbing and pleasurable. I have experienced nights in which a wedding ceremony social gathering took above the bar I was at in the course of a rainstorm and we all ended up dancing, soaking damp and among strangers, into the evening with each other. Or where a random person begun taking part in the piano at a lounge and an additional girl started singing and it wound up getting some of the best new music I have ever read. I suggest, look—I never know a whole lot of towns in which I would fairly be out on my bike on New Year’s Eve than at a fantastic social gathering.” —As explained to to Scott Bay

Jennifer Coolidge stars in period 2 of The White Lotus, airing October 30 on HBO. 

This write-up appeared in the November 2022 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the journal listed here.