COUGAR TOWN INTERVIEW
AKA
Bill Lawrence and
Friends (Brian Van Holt, Ian Gomez,
Kevin Biegel, and special appearance by Neil Flynn)
Bill Lawrence:
“Cougar City”? “Cougarville”?
Kevin Biegel:
“Nothing But Cougars”?
BL: Town isn’t
the problem? It’s not town? Honestly, I liked “The Drinking Age”. I liked
“Grown-Ups”. I liked “Stay Tuned for More Modern Family”.
KB: That was the
best one. [contintuing on with the list] “Still Cougartown”
BL: I liked
“Friends Part Two”, “Mid-Life”.
WR: Penny-Can…who is the best at it?
BL: Everbody is
going to say they’re the best.
Ian Gomez: I’m
not good.
BL: I’m not that
good. I scare the other writers into losing to me.
KB: Bill is very
intimidating.
BL: Maybe Josh
Hopkins?
KB: Yeah, Josh
Hopkins.
Brian Van Holt:
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Why am I being overlooked here? It’s my game. I need to
promote myself. Christa is good, Bill is good, I’m average.
IG: Dan is not
very good.
BL: Dan is not
very good at anything.
WR: What was your favorite of the title bit?
KB: Cougarton
Abbey was a good one.
BL: I liked
“sorry no joke this week”. I also liked “This is not The Simpson’s chalkboard
bit.”
KB: I liked “This
is not scrubs with wine.”
WR: The characters drink a lot on the show, what is your drink of
choice?
KB: I have a
keggerator in my office at work. Gin and tonic if I’m feeling fancy.
BL: Tequila and
red wine.
BVH: A really
nice tequila. Fine, fine tequila.
IG: I like that
too. As long as you don’t mix it with anything sweet, it’s a nice, clean,
drink.
KB: You’re trying
to make drinking straight tequila sound fancy…you’re like swigging from a
bottle.
IG: It’s got a
handle! It’s a jug! I’m also a bourbon drinker.
WR: Are you anxious about switching to TBS?
IG: They’re very
excited about the show, the head of TBS and his wife are fans of the show and I
think it’s going to be a wonderful show. The head of the whole network actually
came down to hang out with us and watch one of the panels. It’s a great sign.
BVH: I think it’s
a great fit. I’m excited about it. I think it’s the place to be. I think TBS is
where we belong.
BL: I think we’re
going to be on for a long time because of the switch. I think it had always
been a show that was looked over on ABC, and I think this is a fix. I think
we’re going to be on for a long time.
IG: And then the
Andy Torres spin off, of course.
[Neil Flynn joins table]
KB: I grew up in
Sarasota. When it zooms in [in the title sequence], we pass right over it. Bill
spent his youth in Florida. We just liked the idea of setting a show somewhere
other than New York or Los Angeles. It’s a story generator to write to that
area of the country. My uncle sent a lot of pictures of people on their land
boats, boats in their yards.
BL: It’s funny
because our ratings are worse in Florida than any other area of the country.
WR: Funniest story from the set. Go.
IG: I don’t know.
BL: We generally
torture people when they’re late—especially, Dan Byrd, we clap for him as a
giant group for finally showing up. He tends to be asleep.
IG: We do bits
where we try to convince Josh Hopkins that he’s being written out of the show
and he goes “What? No!” I do a bit with his [Bill Lawrence’s] wife, where, if
we have to kiss, I say we have to rehearse in my dressing room over and over
again. We run these improv, twenty-minute bits for nobody’s benefit except our
own.
BVH: We expose
everybody’s weaknesses.
IG: We stomp on
the weak, that’s always fun.
WR: Do you improv on the show?
BVH: Ian is a
better improv person for sure. I’m not so much [an improv person], I tend to
stick to the writing.
IG: Well, you’re
inspired by the writing, you’re inspired by the situations created. 99.9
percent of the time, what is written is funnier than what we come up with. In
the spur of the moment, we might find a different tag for something or an
alternate line. Most of the time, the alternate line comes from a writer on
set.
BL: It’s usually
expanding on a joke. Taking a line one step further.
IG: It’s always
based on the scene.
Neil Flynn: It’s
usually helpful getting out of a scene. A button.
IG: Exactly, a
button.
BL: It’s like the
slap bit with you [Ian Gomez] and Josh. You were supposed to slap Josh and
every time he did it, you did it a little bit harder than you would slap an
actual human being.
IG: I was
directed to actually slap him.
BVH: And have you
seen these mitts?
BL: Then we got
to a bar scene later, and Josh Hopkins was very professional and he came up to
me and said “I’m going to ruin a take. Is that okay?” I said, “what are you
going to do?” He said, “When Ian says his line, I’m going to slap him as hard
as I can.” So, Josh did and Ian stayed in character for a second. Then Ian just
said, “WOW” and he broke a little bit.
NF: That’s a nice
take. Have you seen it?
IG: It was in the
show!
BL: Yeah, I used
it but I didn’t use the “Wow” because he broke a little bit.
IG: It was shock.
My brain kind of started swelling immediately. My mouth just started saying
words that were not connected to my ideas.
NF: Yeah, it
happens.
WR: Do you have a favorite moment from the show?
BL: My most
recent favorite line was—I giggled out loud at Ian Gomez saying, “These girls
may not be real.” At first he says to the girls, “are you even real?” Then,
when his wife comes in and is mad and he says, “Before you get mad, these girls
may not be real.” Because in his head, there’s still the possibility that they
aren’t real.
KB: My favorite
moment is still Ian doing Shawshank in the first season. It was one of those
moments that we thought, “oh, this is what the show can be.”
IG: I’m very
lucky that we’ve done a few parodies and that I get to be a part of them. In
Courteney’s first episode that she directed, there was a Braveheart moment and
that was so much fun. I loved doing that.
BVH: One of my
favorite moments of many, is that Braveheart moment.
IG: Which
hopefully is up for Emmy consideration.
BVH: That and how
Courteney said the Alice Cooper thing out loud. Coopering. “Who is Alice
Cooper? Is she pretty?” It’s hilarious. She killed it.
Neil? Do you have a
favorite from Scrubs?
BL: My favorite
moment was watching you and Zach trying to get through that scene when you gave
him shorts to wear at work.
NF: Oh yeah,
that’s a great one. I gave him shorts to wear and I said, “My wife worked very
hard on those shorts. She wasn’t gifted with all ten fingers. She only has
pointer and thumb-pinky.”
IG: Was that
written?
NF: I don’t
remember. It was so preposterous. Zach goes, “I’m a doctor, I really can’t wear
short-shorts to work.” I was lying anyway.
WR: Thoughts on comedy? TV?
IG: Comedy is
funny.
BL: I think there
is more, even though people think TV sucks, it’s just because there are more
channels. I think there is more good TV now than ever before.
NF: I agree.
Television now is what independent film was fifteen years ago, where a lot of
the coolest stuff is happening.
KB: On Sunday
night, you can look at a show and say, “this is the best season of this show
ever,” and there are about four shows you can say that about. Game of Thrones.
Mad Men. Sherlock…is amazing. The Killing. That’s ONE night of TV right now.
BL: Don’t tell
me, I have it Tevo’d. I still don’t know who killed her. The Killing is going
to be one of the best shows on DVD to sit down and just zip through it because
it’s making me crazy that I don’t know who killed her right now.
KB: It’s amazing
to watch the Game of Thrones battle scene and it happens and it’s bigger than
any TV thing you’ve seen ever. It’s crazy, it’s really great.
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