1. Childhood nickname: Kudrow: “Lisa Pizza.” King: “Sissy.”
2. Something you loved as a kid but can’t believe you were into it now: Kudrow: “Candy dots. It’s just sugar!” King: “My grandmother used to make us something called ‘toast on the stove,’ which is she would put a piece of white bread slathered in butter on the open gas jet, and then take two scoops of sugar and put it on the toast. We would sit at a table like characters from a Dickens novel, eating toast on the stove, and then probably fall into a coma and a nap.”
3. Go-to Karaoke or sing-in-the-shower song: Kurdrow: “It’s different every time. I always think it’s interesting, why is this song on my mind today?” King: “I have to be careful because I don’t sing and I don’t think musically, so if I hear a song, it gets trapped in my head. Now I’m still hearing Adele, ‘should I give up or show I just keep chasing pavements.’ Which when we were doing the show, Lisa thought the lyric was, ‘should I give up or should I just keep chasing rainbows.’ And I thought that was so Valerie to spin it up, ‘chasing rainbows,’ but now that’s in my head a lot.”
4. Give me an alternate title for your show: Both: “Raw Footage.” Says King: “When we started our research, we got raw footage from ‘The Osbornes’ bootleg tapes, because I had somebody that worked on the show that I knew. That color bar we kept in the first season, everything started with that, because it was supposed to be like an assembly that was created by the second editor, not the final cut, but raw footage was the first thing. Because it was all raw footage, and that was how we defined what the show could be versus television, because we didn’t want it to look polished at all. We wanted it to look off.”
Adds Kudrow: “And how awkward it was really going to be!” Says King: “All that downtime that we saw when we looked at the ‘Osborne’ footage was just boring! And you could see people sort of trying to get something going, and so ‘Raw Footage’ was the first title, and we also thought we were doing it with one camera. Carolyn Strauss at HBO was such an advocate, she said maybe try two cameras.”Aren’t you glad now you didn’t call it “Raw Footage?” King is relieved: “Yes, because I don’t think ‘Raw Footage’ comes back.”
5. What’s your secret talent?: King: “I can wiggle my ears.” Kudrow: “I don’t have any!”
6. Favorite ice cream flavor: King: “Chocolate chip mint.” Kudrow: “I don’t like ice cream! Too cold. Even as a kid, I thought, why is this a treat? It’s milk! I hate milk. Just chocolate! That’s a treat. But frozen milk, that’s kind of bullshit.” So what is Kudrow’s favorite dessert? “I love chocolate chip cookies.” (“Friends” fans might note that on the show, it was Ross who hated ice cream — because it was too cold.)
7. The one item you couldn’t live without: Kudrow: “There’s too many! But Nicorette.” King: “My version of nicotine, which is television.”
8. What TV show in all of history do you wish you were a cast member of?: King: I feel like there’s a magical, ‘Brigadoon’ kind of bridge that I would have liked to have crossed to go into ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show.’ That felt like something new and warm, and I bet she was a great No. 1. It had all those great writers, and it felt like a charmed circle.” Kudrow: “When I was a kid, ‘The Brady Bunch.’ Or ‘The Partridge Family.’ I used to be like, ‘what if I could be in the Partridge Family? Wouldn’t that be great?’ I wasn’t acting, it wasn’t even a possibility.”
9. Fictional character you most relate to: [Not asked]
10. Your favorite piece of advice: King: “I tell writers all the time that there’s only one path, and it’s yours. Don’t think you have to have somebody else’s path, because they can all be very personal to them. Don’t compare yourself path wise to anybody else, and it’s easier said than done, but it’s a valuable lesson. As you start on the road to writing and showrunning, you look around and see how everybody else got there. But it doesn’t help, just keep doing you.”
Says Kudrow: “I had an acting teacher, and it was really just a cold reading class. It was about coping with acting, auditioning, and on TV and film, and it was something along those lines. Do what you do, and be your version of who that character is, and you at least have done a good job. The rest is none of your business. That’s your only job, and it’s really simple, so you don’t have to take it personally.”
Variety’s “Awards Circuit” podcast, produced by Michael Schneider, is your one-stop listen for lively conversations about the best in film and television. Each week “Awards Circuit” features interviews with top film and TV talent and creatives; discussions and debates about awards races and industry headlines; and much more. Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or anywhere you download podcasts. New episodes post weekly.
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