Guess Who? Oscar-Winning Actress is Unrecognizable in Rare LA Outing

An Oscar-winning actress had fans doing a double take as she stepped out for a rare outing in Los Angeles on Wednesday. 

The 65-year-old icon — who earned Academy Award gold for playing Tonya Harding’s tough-as-nails mother in 2017’s I, Tonya — kept a low profile in sunglasses and a baseball cap as she picked up some pastries at a coffee shop in upscale Santa Monica.

Dressed in a simple white shirt and faded jeans, the Boston-born beauty looked a far cry from her red carpet days—where she famously took home four Emmys for her role as C.J. Cregg on The West Wing.

It was also a stark contrast from her turn as a sexually repressed 1950s housewife on Showtime’s Masters of Sex.

And later, as recovering addict Bonnie Plunkett on CBS’s long-running sitcom Mom (2013–2021), she scored two more Emmys for her unforgettable performance.

Can you guess the fabulous actress?

An Oscar-winning actress had fans doing a double take as she stepped out for a rare outing in Los Angeles on Wednesday

The 65-year-old icon — who earned Academy Award gold for playing Tonya Harding’s tough-as-nails mother in 2017’s I, Tonya — kept a low profile in sunglasses and a baseball cap as she picked up some pastries at a coffee shop in upscale Santa Monica

Dressed in a simple white shirt and faded jeans, the Boston-born beauty looked a far cry from her red carpet days—where she famously took home four Emmys for her role as C.J. Cregg on The West Win

If you said Allison Janney, you’re right! 

The superstar took home Oscar gold for her chilling turn as LaVona Golden—Harding’s chain-smoking, bird-on-the-shoulder, no-nonsense mother in I, Tonya.

Screenwriter Steven Rogers wrote the role with her in mind and famously refused to sell the script unless Janney was cast. 

She later described the part as one of the most demanding of her career.

Critics raved, with The Washington Post’s Michael O’Sullivan declaring, ‘Janney steals every scene she’s in, playing LaVona, a harridan whose nodding goes beyond tough love.’

In 2017, Janney revealed that the role resonated with her in more ways than one. 

‘I used to have dreams of wanting to be an Olympic figure skater myself,’ she said to NPR. ‘I was very graceful, but I’m six feet tall, and it turned out I couldn’t really do the acrobatics required to be a figure skater. 

‘So when this happened with Tonya Harding, I was already hooked—I always watched figure skating. It was always part of my life.’

If you said Allison Janney, you’re right!; (seen in March 2024)

Janney won four Emmys for her role as C.J. Cregg on The West Wing

And later, as recovering addict Bonnie Plunkett on CBS’s long-running sitcom Mom (2013–2021), she scored two more Emmys for her unforgettable performance

Screenwriter Steven Rogers wrote the role with her in mind and famously refused to sell the script unless Janney was cast

Born Allison Brooks Janney on November 19, 1959, in Boston and raised in Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio, the future star didn’t rise overnight. 

Her earliest roles included a black-and-white faux-1940s comedy (Morton & Hayes) and a stint on soap operas like As the World Turns and Guiding Light, where she played one of the Spaulding maids for nearly two years.

Her big break came when Aaron Sorkin spotted her in Primary Colors and cast her as White House Press Secretary C.J. Cregg in NBC’s The West Wing, a role that would cement her as one of the small screen’s most formidable talents.

Janney has never married and has no children, something she’s spoken about openly.

 ‘I’ve never had that instinct to have kids,’ she once said. ‘I’m at peace with it.’

These days, she’s still going strong—currently appearing alongside Blake Lively in Another Simple Favor, the twisty follow-up to the 2018 cult hit.

From ice-skating dreams to Emmy domination and Oscar gold, Janney continues to prove that she’s anything but ordinary.