Who is Jenna Maroney in 30 Rock?

Show

30 Rock

Played by

Jane Krakowski

First episode

“Pilot”Season 1, Episode 1, aired October 11, 2006

Role

Main cast

Network

NBC

Occupation

Actress, star of TGS

Show run

2006 to 2013

Also known as

Yustrepa Gronkowitz, Jenna

Jenna Maroney was the star of The Girlie Show until Jack Donaghy brought in Tracy Jordan, and she has never fully recovered. Played by Jane Krakowski, she is a narcissistic, deeply insecure performer whose mysterious past grows stranger every time she mentions it.

On 30 Rock, Jenna Maroney's story runs through Liz Lemon (Best Friend), Tracy Jordan (Co-star), Kenneth Parcell (Friend), Jack Donaghy (Boss), and Frank Rossitano.

Who is Jenna Maroney?

Jenna is an actress and singer who met Liz Lemon in the 1990s (the show places it at Northwestern University), and together they built The Girlie Show, which began on stage at Chicago's Second City. When Jack hires Tracy and renames the show after him in the pilot, Jenna goes from headliner to second banana, and much of her story is about clawing back attention any way she can.

Her history is a moving target. She was born Yustrepa Gronkowitz, grew up partly in Bakersfield, California, competed in child pageants, and offers a new and more alarming detail about her past in nearly every episode. Her mother, Verna, is a schemer Jenna would rather avoid.

Personality and comedy

Jenna is vain, paranoid, and convinced she is the most important person in any room. She will fake a breakdown, reinvent herself as a country singer, or star in almost any movie if it might win her attention. Jane Krakowski commits to every outrageous turn, and the show gets big laughs from the gap between Jenna's grand self-image and her low-budget resume.

Her film career is a running joke: the legal thriller The Rural Juror, whose title almost nobody can say; a Janis Joplin biopic that legally cannot use Joplin's name; and a string of made-for-TV disasters. Under all the ego, though, she and Liz genuinely care about each other, and the friendship survives every betrayal.

Key storylines

Jenna returns from the summer hiatus in season two having gained weight while starring in Mystic Pizza: The Musical, and she quickly finds a way to cash in, becoming the face of a perfume called Enorme. She frets over the release of her Joplin movie, Jackie Jormp-Jomp, has a complicated reunion with her mother, and tries to relaunch her career by going country.

Her great love turns out to be Paul L'astname (Will Forte), a female impersonator best known for impersonating Jenna herself. Their relationship is exactly as strange as it sounds and surprisingly sweet. In season seven, after Liz quietly marries first, Jenna plots a surprise wedding to Paul at an awards reception honoring Liz. Liz foils that plan, so Jenna and Paul instead marry at the end of a funeral for Jack's mother, which Jack allows because Colleen would have hated it.

Behind the scenes

Jenna was originally played by Rachel Dratch in the unaired version of the pilot, when the character was called Jenna DeCarlo. In August 2006 Jane Krakowski took over the renamed role, and Dratch stayed on to play a variety of smaller characters.

Krakowski received four Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for the part. She was credited as main cast for the whole run and appears in all but 10 episodes.

Jenna Maroney: frequently asked questions

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