Kavner got to display her gifts for mimicry and improvisation as a cast regular on "The Tracey Ullman Show" creating such diverse characters as a Soviet circus performer and a bisexual talent agent before she was cast in her first starring role as a funny cosmetics saleswoman and mother turned successful professional comedienne in Nora Ephron's warmhearted domestic comedy "This Is My Life" (1992). Kavner also did well in another prominent role as an extremely, if inadvertently, honest box-office analyst who becomes involved with a film producer (Albert Brooks) in "I'll Do Anything" (1994).