The accolades keep rolling in for Norwell native Jennifer Coolidge. On April 13, Time magazine named “The White Lotus” actress to the “2023 Time 100,” its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. 

Coolidge, 61, is enjoying a career resurgence after playing eccentric socialite Tanya McQuoid for two seasons in the hit HBO series “The White Lotus.” She won an Emmy Award, a Critics Choice Award, Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild award. Coolidge was also Harvard University’s Hasty Pudding 2023 Woman of the Year. 

 In the magazine’s cover story, Coolidge said she finds her newfound fame “absolutely baffling.” 

“But guess what? I really like it,” she said. “It’s like I was like Sleeping Beauty, where I was locked in a box under the bed or something. And now I’m out and it’s like, ‘Well, I’m sure glad they let me out of that box, because this is way better.'” 

Coolidge grew up in Norwell

Coolidge also recalls an anecdote from growing up in Norwell, where she used to hang out on the dock of the little river near her parent’s house. “Whenever a little plane would fly over, I’d be like, ‘Take me out of here! Get me somewhere really cool!’ But the planes never stopped,” she told the magazine, adding her father “used to say this quote to me all the time as a kid: ‘Character is fate.’ As an older person, I’ve realized that’s one of the most accurate things I’ve ever heard,” she said. “Who you are in this lifetime decides your ending and how your life will go.”

Haley Lu Richardson and Norwell’s Jennifer Coolidge appear in a scene from season two of “The White Lotus.” (Photo: Fabio Lovino/HBO)

Coolidge, an Emerson College alum, is well known for her role as “Stifler’s mom” in the teen sex comedy “American Pie.” She has appeared in the films “Legally Blonde,” (remember “bend and snap?”) “Best in Show,” “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,” “Like a Boss,” the Oscar-nominated “Promising Young Woman” and the TV sitcom “2 Broke Girls.”  She also provided the voice of Mary Meh in “The Emoji Movie.”

Aubrey Plaza, Salma Hayek also on Time 100 list

The list for 2023 also includes Michael B. Jordan, Colin Farrell, Aubrey Plaza, Salma Hayek Pinault, Judy Blume, Suzan-Lori Parks, Ke Huy Quan, Pedro Pascal, King Charles, Salman Rushdie, Lionel Messi, Thom Browne, President Joe Biden and Cindy McCain. 

Coolidge attended Norwell High School and delivered the commencement address to the Class of 2002, telling graduates: “When something you want more than anything else in life doesn’t happen, remember that something more amazing might be waiting.”