Talking Shop is our series where we talk to interesting people about their most interesting buys.
One way or another, actress and comedian Lisa Ann Walter knew she’d eventually be a teacher. It’s literally in her blood: Her mom was an educator for decades and her daughter is a teacher. Walter never found herself actually leading class in real-life, but she gets to on TV. She’s played Melissa Schemmenti, a teacher on ABC’s Abbott Elementary since 2021, and says she feels “so blessed” to be part of the series. But it’s not the only thing she’s working on — in fact, between filming each season, you never know where you’ll find her on stage.
“Quinta [Brunson] yelled at me,” says Walter. “She was like, ‘rest!’ And so of course I went to do Heathers: The Musical on Broadway.”
Between her family’s connection to educators and her work on Abbott, Walter supports them however she can. She’s currently traveling across the country on the Bic Supply Ride Bus Tour, hosting free mobile shopping sprees for educators so they can stock their classrooms before the academic year.
During the bus’s New York City stop, I got to climb on board and learn about everything Walter is up to after debuting her Hulu comedy special, It Was An Accident, and before filming season six of Abbott Elementary. Walter also told me about her all-time favorite products, including the Bic writing utensils she uses to mark up scripts and jot down jokes.
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“When you get to be my age, one of the most important things that you can have is a good concealer,” says Walter. “My makeup artist Jen Bennett on Abbott Elementary found it and started using it, and people literally started writing to her saying, ‘What did Lisa do? What surgery did Lisa have? What have you been doing differently? She looks incredible and so much younger.’ It’s the Givenchy Prisme Libre Concealer. It has these little reflectors in it, but it doesn’t get crepey and it lasts forever.”
“I want to act like I enjoy an organic kombucha, but Coke Zero — that’s the must-have,” says Walter who was sipping one while we talked. “I don’t even drink caffeinated coffee. I order decaf coffee, but this I have to have. It just goes down good.”
“There’s a Pixie lip stain that I love, and I’m wearing it now,” says Walter, who took it out of the Maison de Sabré purse she was carrying. “I would tell you about the Lisa Rinna lip liner — she sent me a package of her products through my other makeup artist, and I swear by it, but they went out of business. I’m not telling you to go get it because if there are any left on eBay, I’m buying them.”
“If you’re not from California and you don’t know See’s, or you’ve never had it, you have to try all their products,” says Walter. “My favorite thing to keep with me is their lollipops because the flavors are insane. They have vanilla, chocolate, cafe latte, butterscotch — it tastes like candy but they’re like 20 calories and they’re made from real stuff. I have them with me to have on the plane because instead of chomping on a piece of gum that goes hard and makes your jaw hurt, you suck on these during takeoff and landing.”
“Rationale is a skin care company that my hair guy Dustin Osborn discovered because he is the prettiest gay man you will ever see in your life. I mean, seriously — go look at his skin,” says Walter. “He is beautiful and he found this company Rationale, which is out of Australia. He bought me a kit for my birthday and I found the travel-size version of it. It [includes] six products and I use it religiously.”
“It doesn’t matter the version, but I have to have a notebook,” says Walter, who flipped through the one she’s currently carrying in her purse to show me its many filled pages. “You can see the scribbles. I have my Bic mechanical pencil with an eraser, and I write ideas in this.”
Walter’s notebook is a big part of her creative process for all of her projects. “It’s a known scientific fact that if you put pencil to paper, you will be more creative and remember it,” she says. “When I was doing Heathers: The Musical, there’s a part where I have to improv to a guy I’m breaking up with named Steve — all my Steves are in here. I would see a guy in the audience and I would figure out what I wanted to write about, and then from the first number until the beginning of the second act, I would write down jokes.”
The Bic Supply Ride bus isn’t your typical school bus. It’s decked out to be a mini store filled with the brand’s products, and teachers at every stop get to stock up on items for their classrooms before the new academic year. Out of all the writing utensils on board, this is the one that Walter loves the most.
“When I was a kid, this pen was famous,” she says about Bic’s 4-Color Ballpoint Pen. “This was the fancy pen — back then, this one meant you were rich if you could afford this. It’s the one you use when you’re in class and you’re making your doodles, because they’re almost as important as the actual work. You can make art, and we have blue, green, black and red in case you want to change your grade.”
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Why trust NBC Selected?
I’m a reporter at NBC Selected who writes our Talking Shop series, interviewing people like Paris Hilton, Maureen Kelly, Shay Mitchell and Chase Crawford. To write this article, I interviewed actress and comedian Lisa Ann Walter about her favorite products and her partnership with Bic’s Supply Ride, which is traveling across the country to bring school supplies to teachers at under-resourced schools.
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