Caillou Pettis
What do Kaley Cuoco, Chuck Lorre, and Bill Lawrence all have in common? In a simplistic answer, they all have had plenty of experience in the television industry working on shows such as The Big Bang Theory, The Kominsky Method, Ted Lasso, and The Flight Attendant.
But aside from that, they’re all extremely talented people and they certainly know a thing or two when it comes to finding success and how to make an incredibly successful series and the right steps one must take to get there. Below are snippets from a recent interview conducted with the three television juggernauts to talk about their Emmy-nominated shows.
Kaley Cuoco:
What surprised you most and what did you learn about what it takes to truly produce a television series through your role as executive producer on The Flight Attendant?
KC: As an actor, we come in and we do our job and we move on to the next thing. The world starts the minute we leave. That’s what I realize – how many hands, what goes on behind the scenes… the actors are getting the glory and we’re the face of the show, but then you put the curtain up, and it’s all these people behind me and I think that’s what I learned the most. I’ve never experienced anything like that. I have such an appreciation for everybody involved.
What does it mean for you to be on a show such as The Flight Attendant?
KC: It’s been the experience of my career and a dream come true. I really have not expected this to happen, it’s been very special. I told my team and my family, ‘I’m not taking it for granted, I’m living in the moment and I don’t expect something like this to happen again’. We shut down in the middle of the show but when we came back and the show premiered it was such a weird time. We premiered on Thanksgiving during the pandemic, so it was kind of interesting but it ended up working out for us because there were people at home drunk and wanting to watch some fun TV.
Chuck Lorre:
What is the difference between going for laughs in a broadcast sitcom and a streaming series like The Kominsky Method?
CL: I’m wired to work towards laughter. It’s just the way my brain is wired after all these years, so going for real laughs… I just can’t escape that. But, working with people on the level of Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Alan Arkin for two years and working without an audience, gave me an opportunity to try and weave in more dramatic elements – moments where I certainly wasn’t asking the audience to respond with laughter and trying to balance the two so that you didn’t get whiplash going from a comedic moment to a dramatic moment.
What was it like to explore the minutiae of getting older with The Kominsky Method?
CL: From the beginning that was what I wanted to do – I wanted to write about dealing with health issues and losing loved ones and feeling estranged from the culture. Losing language, even. The English language is moving away from you as you get older, it’s just racing away from me and I was fascinated by that and I wanted to do that in the show.
Bill Lawrence:
What would it be like to meet “Ted Lasso” in real life and what do the characters reveal about us?
BL: If any of us met Ted Lasso in real life, your first assumption would be ‘I’ll wait two weeks before this guy takes the mask off and reveals that he is an asshole just like everybody else’. And then when he doesn’t – he turns out to be somebody that’s empathetic and forgiving and optimistic – you have to take a look at yourself. We all talked about how therapeutic it would be to work on a show that was about all that stuff.
On being asked ‘hey, what are you doing for hiatus?’
BL: A lovely young actor came up to me and some of the other writers were behind me and he said “Hey, what are you doing for hiatus?” and I said “Come over here and let’s talk for a minute” and it was just a nice little moment to go “You’re doing a great job and you’re an actor on this show, there’s no hiatus for everybody here”.
You can check out the full interview here:
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