Press | SFU To The Return of Jezebel James, March 2008

Sherman-Palladino was the writer-producer who birthed "Gilmore Girls" and then saw herself unhappily dumped from the show before its final season. So now she's back on TV with another talky, funny show about two related chicks.

Parker Posey is Sarah, a successful children's book editor who's about to publish her second hit "Jezebel James" book. The redhead Ambrose, so good as Claire on "Six Feet Under," is Sarah's little sister, Coco, a surly rock'n'roll screwup. When Sarah asks Coco to be a surrogate mom for her baby, things between the sisters heat up considerably. The supporting cast includes Dianne Wiest as their mom.

Earlier this week, Ambrose got on the phone with a handful of writers to talk up the show. And the show must need talking up, because Friday night in March ain't exactly prime time to debut this once-ballyhooed comedy. But apparently it was the first time she'd done a conference call...

It’s like we’re on an airplane or something. This is intense. I’ve never done anything like this.

Thanks for making the effort. Looking at the show, it seems like there’s definitely a lot of chemistry between you and Parker. Talk about that relationship, both in real life and on the show.
Well, I don’t know. I’d never met Parker before or worked with Parker before. Part of the reason I was interested in this job was because she was a part of it. She’s always been one of my favorite actresses and she’s a real funny lady. I knew I had a lot to learn from her. She’s just a great, funny person to work with on this kind of thing.

I wanted to ask you about this character, Coco. It seems like she’s in the same realm as Claire Fisher, kind of bohemian or something. Do you see any similarities between the two?
I see similarities in that I’m playing both of the characters, so they’re, of course, going to be channeled through me and be played by me. I can’t help that. Actually, I don’t know. I see them as pretty different. Claire was a kid and a teenager and really trying to figure out who she is as she grew and went into an adult world. I think this character is a fully formed adult even though she’s kind of a mess. I think she’s a grown-up who is choosing to live her life as a mess and sort of direction-less. Claire is just a kid. Do you know what I mean?

Some actresses have had trouble dealing with the pace of Amy’s dialog. Has that been a problem at all for you?
It’s definitely dense scripts we were handed every week. I guess it’s usually about a page a minute on these things. I think the pilot was something like 60 pages for a half hour, so yes. The following scripts, too, were really long, like in the 50’s. So yes, it forced us to act fast, talk quickly, be facile, go from thought to thought very quickly, and of course learn the lines quickly. That part of it was very intense. That’s her whole thing, right? That’s her style. We knew what we were getting into. I didn’t, actually, because I’m not much of a TV watcher, but I quickly figured out that there were a lot of words. I was just coming off of doing Romeo & Juliet, so that muscle is shaped for me. I didn’t have too much of a problem.

I just wanted to ask how it feels to be returning to series television and what attracted you to this project?
Well, the project seemed interesting because I’d never done anything like it before. Six Feet Under is my only other experience in television, really, and for that one we had two weeks to make every episode. It was fairly luxurious as far as these things go. Everything was on location, a lot was on location. It was on film too, actually, but it was shot just like a movie, I guess. It was like an independent film pace. This is a whole other world. This is in multi-camera. It sounded exciting to me when it was explained to me.

You go in and rehearse all week. I like to work in the theater, so that was something that appealed to me, the idea of rehearsing for television. We rehearse all week and kind of hone the material and do run-throughs. By the end of the week you’re ready to put on your play, your one-act play for the audience and shoot it. So that just seemed like something kind of wild, an interesting challenge. The half-hour comedy is in a way what made me want to be an actress. When I was a kid I watched I Love Lucy and shows like that, watching those women on those shows.

Then the opportunity to work with Ms. Parker and then the people that came on board with Dianne Wiest, all these wonderful other actors, New York actors, Scott Cohen and Ron McCarty and Michael Arden, Dana Ivey. It was great.

Of course, the script was very funny, clever and she has a very strong view, Amy. The writing seemed very touching and sweet, like it would afford interesting places for these characters to go. It was cool that the show was about ladies and about an alternative family, estranged family members, sisters especially. I don’t have a sister, but I was interested in that relationship. It’s just a format that I had no experience with. It seems like good old-fashioned entertainment. I like the idea of just going to work everyday. We went to work in Queens in this old studio called Kaufman Astoria. They shot the Marx Brothers movies there and all kinds of … films. They have the pictures up all over the place.

In fact, the stages that we were on were The Cosby Show stages, so there’s a certain grace in there. Yes, I like it. It was like old-fashioned show biz. It’s like working out our little bits, doing it and waiting for the big show on Friday. That was challenging because it was totally different, scary to me, and I like the things that scare me and seem strange. So there.

The live audience, are you guys rewriting as you’re going? I’ve been to a lot of those live tapings that get re-writes and stuff like that. I’m just wondering if you’re enjoying that whole feeling of the audience and that kind of thing.
Well, this is a while ago. In the fall we made seven episodes, so it’s not filming that’s currently happening. You know, I don’t know what it’s like on other shows, but on this one there was not a lot of rewriting. There were panic moments of like, “Let’s do one where the joke is this,” but those were few and far between. We sort of changed lines here and there to have something else, but we rehearsed and the scripts stayed the scripts from the beginning day of rehearsal; it didn’t change too drastically.

Doing it live, it was wild. It was like a very heightened experience. It was very excitable, very frenetic energy. That was something that I did not quite get used to, or didn’t have the chance to get used to yet. It just delivered its own energy, being on the clock and trying to get it done quickly for them and having them be there watching. It was intense, but it was fun. There was a comedian out in the audience and he was cracking wise about whatever we’re doing. People were really happy to be there and interested.

It sounds like a fun time.
Yes, it was crazy. It would go to like 3:00 in the morning and then we’d all collapse and come back in on Monday.

It seems like the network kind of held onto the show for a little while and now they just have seven episodes for a season, and two of them are on Friday. On a Friday night it’s not a great a showcase as after American Idol, say. Are you worried about how the network is handling the show?
Well, it would be nice to have a strong advocate. It would be nice to feel supported. I’m sure they’re just promoting it and doing whatever they want to do with it. I, unfortunately, don’t make those decisions. Yes, the one thing I know is that yes, it’s not exactly on the greatest night to bring in viewers, but hopefully it will. I think there’s no way that a show like this is going to be pitch-perfect out of the gate. I think these things take time to develop and take time to get into a groove and figure out what it is. It’s a group of people coming together to make this little art project; all these writers and all these actors and Amy and moving to New York. I think it takes a while for these things to find their feet and find the right tone. I’ve seen the beginning of some sitcoms, like the first episode, and they’re terrible most of the time. Even the successful ones start off in a … way. I hope that it gets a chance.