Louie Anderson on Becoming Christine for ‘Baskets’: “I Look Good”

“I didn’t realize that it would make a difference,” Louie Anderson told The Hollywood Reporter in regards to his process of transforming to his Baskets character Christine. “I thought I would be able to just put that on and I could still be who I am, but there was a definite change.”

“I don’t know how it happens,” Anderson told the Roundtable of the “change” itself from man to woman, “but I think it’s when they put the lipstick on. Something happens.” After that, he looks at himself differently, noting his reflection and thinking, “I look good.”

“People treat you different. They treated me different as Louie. They treated me different as Christine.” Anderson has even gone so far to ask the cast and crew on set to refer to him as Christine rather than Louie to help his transformative process.

“The big thing I felt was the preparation to get ready to be a woman, and I don’t mean because I’m a man, but what women often go through everyday to present themselves to the world,” Anderson told the Roundtable, explaining that his empathetic view of a woman’s experience shaped his perspective on the current dialogue of #MeToo and Time’s Up. “Everything got, in these times, turned upside down on the head, and I think we’re looking at everything like that differently.”

Anderson won an Emmy for his supporting role as Christine on Baskets and earned an additional Emmy nomination for the role.

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The full Emmy Roundtables air every Sunday on SundanceTV beginning June 24 and on THR.com the following Monday. The full Comedy Actor Roundtable starring Tracy Morgan, Marc Maron, Anderson, Ray Romano, Sean Hayes and Tony Shalhoub airs June 24 on Sundance TV. Tune in to THR.com/roundtables for more roundtables featuring talent from the year’s top shows.